Literature Response or Dialogue Journals

Literature response or dialogue journals are frequently used to encourage students to reflect on specific content to be learned, books that have been read, or ideas that are triggered by recent reading/writing activities. Atwell (1987) has provided extensive documentation regarding the benefits of journal activity with middle-school students, concluding:

Through our dialogue journals my students learned, too, about the world of written texts – what good writers do, what good readers do, how readers talk, what books are for and how kids can get in on it. (p. 170)

Atwell, N. (1987). In the middle. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.