Journal Assignment

Assignment Overview

Over the course of the semester, students will complete weekly journal entries in response to the texts, histories, theories, questions, and discussions raised in class. These journals along with respective midterm and final journal reflection sheets will count for 25% of the overall course grade.

Learning Objectives

The goals of the journal assignment is to provide students with a flexible, low-stakes, and intimate, if not also semi-private, space in which they can:

  • practice various forms of active and attentive (close) reading with small, focused exercises that may be furthered developed in future assignments (i.e. post assignment and/or final project).
  • strengthen their awareness of, and ability to think through (analyze), the relationship between a particular text’s form, medium, and content.
  • develop a variety of creative and analytical methods for thinking about and responding to cultural texts in general and black cultural text in particular.
  • keep track of connections between entries, shifts in perspectives, and other aspects of the general evolution of their ideas, perspectives, and questions throughout the semester.
  • earnestly reflect on their personal responses to the course material and how the course material speaks to the concerns of their individual lives and the issues effecting our society today.

Assignment Details

Students are responsible for completing weekly journal entries. Approximately half of the journal entries should be in response to the specific prompt provided by the professor.

The prompts are designed to encourage sustained (close) attention to a particular aspect of the assigned course material. At times the prompts will encourage responses that take the form of a traditional academic responses (i.e. close reading of a primary text or analysis of an argument in a secondary text). At other times the prompt will invite students to take a more artistic, performative, or historical approach to engaging an aspect of the text and its connection to the course.

Adhering to the Prompt
  • Students are encouraged, especially in the beginning weeks of the semester, to adhere to the prompt, treating it as a impetus, guide, and even foundation of your journal entry. As the semester progresses, students may decide to modify and/or develop the prompt further in the direction of the specific class text, theme, or critical inquiry the student wishes to consider.
  • During the second half of the semester (when students will have the option to contribute possible prompts), students should feel free to tweak a particular prompt if doing so might help the the student examine a previous text or a course question that they wish to revisit. Students can modify and/or develop the prompt further in the direction of the specific class text, theme, or critical inquiry the student wishes to consider.
Journal Entry Length (or, How Much Time Should I Spend on Each Journal Entry?)
  • Word Count: There is no word count expectation for the journals. However, there is an expectation about how much time you commit each week to your journal exercises.
  • Expectation of Time: I expect that you will spend around 45-60 minutes per week working on the prompt you select for that week.   
    • You are of course welcomed to spend more than 60 minutes on a prompt if you so choose, but you should not feel pressure to do so. 
    • Please note depending on the prompt you choose, your ideas for the prompt, and various other factors, you will find that some exercises are very difficult if not impossible to complete in 60 minutes.   
  • Remember: The goal of the journal assignment is not about producing finished products (though there’s nothing wrong with finishing your idea or realizing your vision).  The goal is to get you not only thinking about but closely engaging with the content and form of the texts, so . . .
  • Pro Tip:  If you have been thoughtfully working on your journal prompt for 45 minutes and realize you are not close to finishing what you’d set out to do, I suggest using the next 15 minutes to make notes about what you would have done if you had more time.  The goal is to help you register something of your thinking.  You might choose to come back to the prompt and develop these ideas at a later time; you might not, which is also okay.

Assessment & Grading

Students are expected to complete journal entries weekly. However journals will only be officially assessed twice–at midterms and at finals:

  • 40% – midterm journal assessment
  • 60 % final journal assessment

Grading Rubrics

Both the midterm and final journal assessment grades will be determined using the following rubrics:

50% Journal Content & Form:

  • 25% Journal contains at least the minimum number of academic and the minimum number of artistic entries required at the time of assessment. At least one of the academic and at least one of the artistic entries have been flagged for closer assessment in a manner that does not distract from any individual entries nor the overall cohesiveness of the journal (i.e. a prefatory note, or a creative insert)
  • 25% Presence of a clear, solid journal medium (i.e. blog site, scrap book, diary, three binder with document inserts) that binds the various entries together as part of one distinct object.
  • 25% Presentation of Individual entries (i.e. the date, format, and content of the entries and the prompts to which they respond are clear and relevant to each other and the course material).
  • 25% Evidence of reflection between posts and sustained inquiry across different entries (i.e. web maps, connecting diagrams, additional entries reflecting on the connection, generative use of tags and hyperlinks).

50 % Journal – Midterm/ Final Reflection Sheet (Separate handouts circulated by the professor closer to the midterm due date. )

Keeping up with Weekly Entries: A Warning

Students are responsible for managing their time and thoroughly completing their journal entries at a regular pace. Because the journals will only be officially assessed twice in the semester, it’s possible that if you miss a week, you can catch up the following week by doing both the new entry and the one you missed last week in the the same week.

PRO TIP: While your journals will not be assessed more than twice, students should strive to complete the entries each week. Skipping weeks and cramming to complete multiple entries in one week is contrary to many of the learning objectives (above) for this assignment. If students wait to do multiple entries in one week, they will be unable to use the journal assignment: 1) prepare for the class conversations relevant to that week 2) reflect on the evolution of thoughts and questions; 3) to utilize the entries as inspiration, if not rough material for, the post assignments and final project assignments, both of which ask students to develop ideas/projects from one or more of their journal entries.