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Ideas on How You Can Have Your Students Do a Student Motivation Journal

Many teachers are implementing the practice of having a student motivation journal as part of their classroom routine. A student motivation journal can go far in helping a student stay focused on their work. It also goes far in helping them retain what they have learned. If you are considering having your students do a student motivation journal here are some things you should think about:

1.  How important do you want the student motivation journal to be? Will it be part of the student’s grade? Will it be something that he or she has time to work on during class time or will it be purely a homework project? What type of things do you want recorded in the journal?

2.  How are you going to introduce the subject of a student motivation journal to the class? What can you tell the students about the benefits of doing a student motivation journal? Will it be extra credit? Will it comprise part of their semester grade? Is it purely a creative outlet?

3.  Are you going to do a journal, too? Many students will embrace the idea of a student motivation journal if they see their teacher journaling, too. Will you be open to sharing what you are writing in your journal? If so, will you ask students to share their work publicly? What if they feel it is too private?

4.  Will you require that the student motivation journals all look alike in appearance? Will you require that they have a table of contents? Can the students use a spiral notebook, or do you want them to use loose leaf notebook paper?

Many teachers find that having their students do student motivation journals opens the doors of communication. They get an inside peek into the mind’s of their students which enables them to teach better. You can take whatever route you would like to take with a student motivation journal. You may require your students to take notes in it throughout the day on every subject, or you can just apply it to something like poetry. You could read a passage to your students and then have them write about what they have just heard. This is one way that students learn how to tap into their imaginations and open up their inner beings. Another popular method of a student motivation journal involves just letting student’s free write for a set period of time. If this is the route you take it is important that your students are made aware that you will be reading what they write, if you do plan to read them.

Another method that could be considered is having your students do their student motivation journal via the Internet. This often gives students the motivation they need. You can set up a community of sorts for your class and make them each maintain a blog or journal of their life. It could focus on their school work, personal life, goals, dreams, pets or whatever the students wish to write about. If you go this route it is important that you first have the parent’s permission and that you make certain that each student has access to the Internet. Not all students will have access to the Internet, so you do not want to embarrass a child who may not. If not every student has computer and Internet access, simply revert back to a handwritten student motivation journal.