Reflective Writing: Journaling for Improved School Performance Through Student-Teacher Relationships

This Master of Teaching Research Project is a qualitative study on the topic of using journals in the secondary school English classroom. The paper seeks to answer the question: In what ways do three Ontario public high school English teachers believe assigned journals help students succeed academically and personally? In answering this question, I relied on elements of case study research methodology, conducting three interviews with Ontario high school teachers who have used different types of journals for their students. My participants discussed the emotional benefits of journals, as well as their role in literacy development and literary criticism. They also discussed how journals fit into the school system as a whole and how gender affects the efficacy of journals. Overall, my research has shown journals to be an effective tool for building student-teacher relationships with adolescents, whether they are skilled writers or not. Therefore, if the teacher is comfortable with the idea of reading the personal journals of students and committed to reading and responding to them, journals are a worthwhile tool to introduce in the classroom