Dialogue Journals in the Content Areas
Connecting with Multilingual Learners
Dialogue journals involve more than one person writing ideas in the same notebook or journal. For example, a student writes an idea on a topic and then asks a question. The respondent, usually the teacher, answers the questions and writes a question back again. They are often used in language arts classes but could benefit Multilingual Learners in all content area classes. Student can draw on translanguaging to share their ideas in the journal as well as drawings.
It works in secondary and university classes too!
When I taught 9th-grade language arts on the Mexican-US border, I used dialogue journals to connect individually with my students and assess their writing ability and what they knew about the content we were studying. The questions I asked were open-ended. I encouraged them to write the answers and also ask me questions.
You might ask: How could you do that with 200+ students?
I had five classes. I had period #1 turn theirs in on Monday, period #2 on Tuesday, etc.
Students wrote in the journal for about 5-10 minutes each day, but I wrote back to them just once a week.
I didn’t grade them at all. I just read them and wrote comments and questions back to them.
I looked forward to this assignment. I enjoyed learning from each student as it helped me connect personally. In addition, I learned more about what they knew and what I needed to scaffold for them in writing and other content.
Have you used dialogue journals?
What worked for you?
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