Here's a journal exercise for thinking about writing habits.
In journal writing, we write for ourselves; there are no teacher expectations to meet. But other limits on form, style, and content are imposed by our own habits. What happens when we break those habits?
The goal of this exercise is to create an "artificial" writing environment. Students are assigned to different floors on the library. Hopefully there is one floor for each student, with no overlap. When the students arrive on their floors, they should get out their journals and their watches.
- Write for 4 minutes, nonstop.
- Then, no writing for 5 minutes. During this time, students can read, talk on cell phones, walk around, plan word-for-word what to write next, but NO WRITING.
- Then, write again for 4 minutes, nonstop.
- Then, no writing for 5 minutes.
Repeat this for as long as classtime allows.
Arrange to meet students on the main floor, or in a library classroom, afterwards, to talk about what they noticed about the resulting style, form, and content in their writing. This is a good opportunity to ask students to describe their usual writing habits and writing environments.
