Reading Response Journals

A Reading Response Journal is a notebook in which you write about your reading.
In it you communicate thoughts and feelings about the novel that you are reading.
The journal is a window for me to look through to see what you are thinking and
what you know about the selection.

What are the expectations? You should:

• Create your own word list:

Which words do you want to learn? During your reading, you will come across
hundreds of new words, and you cannot remember every one of them. Therefore,
you will have to pick out the words that you most want to learn. You should aim
to learn a minimum of five new words a week. As you read, you may want to
keep your journal with you all the time.

You can write new words in your journal or print out the word map. If using your
journal, make sure to include the seven parts that make up the word map. If you
are going to use a journal, how are you going to organize it? Are you going to
arrange the pages in alphabetical order, so that the first page is for words
beginning with the letter ‘A’, or are you going to arrange them by topic, by part of
speech (verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc), or by date?

Review your vocabulary notebook periodically—say, once a week. Your notebook

will reflect the kinds of things you read and the kinds of words you find most
difficult. The process of writing down the words and making connections will
help to fix them in your memory. Chances are good that you'll encounter several
words from your word list in other readings.

• Written entries:

Produce at least 10 written entries from the following roles: Straight Talker,
Judge, Memory Keeper, Artist, and Palm Reader. Each written entry must be
at least one page, if typed, or two pages, if handwritten (must be legible). Date
each entry and include the name/number of chapter.

• Assume the following roles and write at least two responses for each:

Straight Talker
Speak directly to a character and give your two cents worth. If you could stop the
action at a particular point what would you say?

Judge
Evaluate an action or a decision by a character or characters. Do you feel a wise
or a poor decision has been made? Why? What decision would you prefer to have
been made? Why?
Memory Keeper
Perhaps you remember a similar experience from your own life, about a time
when you kept a secret, and because of that secret, events began to snowball.
Describe that experience: explain how it relates to the story.

Artist
What visual images come to mind as you read the story? Draw and color these
images. Write also what your visual image means or represents in the story.
Include a dialogue between characters or create captions.

Palm Reader
What has occurred that you consider an example(s) of foreshadowing? What do
you believe will occur in the future? Why?

Your Reading Response Journal will be due December 6th.