Writing Journal

Last week I lost a family member after her long struggle with Alzheimer’s. Earlier on in the battle of this disease, I remember when people asked how she was doing I would quip, “She is changing family history.” Moving forward to the funeral, I realized too late that much much earlier I should have been writing favorite family stories before Mom confused them. As many families do, the cousins that are left got together for fellowship following the funeral. For us it was a time for catch up and renewal with some stories from the family.
As professionals we all know that writing had come into its own as a major part of the elementary curriculum. Writing was an important part of my classroom- written response and creative writing. (One of the few times a child can still be creative.) Unlike their parents’ classrooms, today’s school children really look at the art of writing and all that is involved. For current students’ parents and past generations, writing was basically graded on whether the writing piece had correct punctuation and proper grammar rather than content. There was little instruction on the craft of writing. Content was rarely considered even for checking on subject understanding. The written work was often returned to the writer covered in notes about what was wrong in the areas of convention. Thanks to the National Writing Project children are much more aware of their own writing and that of others. They realize they are writers. The realization of the importance of communication of thoughts and ideas was realized and raised up by many educators and the NWP made writing officially an important part of the foundation of learning. Today’s young writers are introduced to concepts including ideas, organization, word choice, consideration of audience, and becoming aware of how different authors create/work their craft along with the grammar and punctuation. Children of today are very aware of the strong entwined connections between writing and reading.
Most children become quite excited about their own work unlike generations before where many people avoided and disliked writing. Consider this as a contributing reason that the social networks have exploded. People are able to express themselves in written form. The older generations shy away for many reasons: one being “putting pen to paper” for fear of criticism.
Many teachers find that writing with the students is a great teaching tool. Some of this is done with modeling, some done together as well as time to write individually. In many classes there is time given for being creative to develop personal ideas and styles.
Taking this step further, students often record what happened in school at the end of each day in the form of newsletters or into assignment journals with a paragraph of the day.
This brings me around to the idea of family journals. Many of us do not have the time or inclination to write daily. So how about starting family rather than individual journals? Like creative writing, this can be developed in many ways. Everyone adds a line, or one person writes what others have shared orally or recorded, or a group effort or pieces collected from others. What should be included of course is up to the writers but need to should be recorded and kept before those stories are forgotten. I am so sorry that I don’t have more of the family stories and there are few people around with the stories. As I was sitting at the table at my cousin’s home I heard some of those stories to write but I also thought about how much fun people revel in the telling but not in the writing. (Remember I’m in the generation that considered writing drudgery because it had to be just so). One of my Mom’s dear friends was kind enough to quickly share some antidotes of my parents. For the past six years I have suggested to classroom families to start a family journal that is kept for anyone to write in anytime and to use the time of reunions to gather and write some stories or at the least take notes. I have to say each year I have had families come back to tell me they are doing it- not only that but with joy I tell you the number of families doing this has increased. For many of these families the actual writers and scribes are those from this upcoming generation. The adults then add or edit or word process the final copy.
Please as you read this consider starting a collection of family stories and spread the word. There will be a time when you wish you had.