Reflection #5 - Penzu.com Online Journaling

"Penzu is a free online diary and personal journal that is

focused on privacy. You can keep your thoughts and

ideas to yourself and share only if you want to!"

WHAT?:

This is what I see after clicking "Try It Out":

Just lined "paper."

A template for my thoughts.

A canvas for the paint of my mind.

A slate for the arithmetic of my soul.

An empty plate for the cuisine of my conscience.

Oh, the possibilities!!!

Penzu.com is online journaling. Plain. Simple. Priva

te. You can print your journal entries. Access them anywhere you get internet access. Email them to people (teachers, friends, colleagues, etc.). Anyone. Anytime. Anywhere. It could be turned into a simply intricate pen-pal system. Or a monologue of the soul.

Click "Why Journal?" at the top and you are shown this:

I don't know about karma, but inspiration is good. Inspiration. The word itself conjures up something within us that makes us want to enjoy life. Journaling can be the root to an infinite tree of creative writing - fiction, non-fiction, poetry, short story, novel, fable, and folk tale alike. All rooted in the fertile ground of inspiration and watered by journaling.

SO WHAT?:

I'm going to be an English teacher (Lord willing). And I want creativity to flow like the rivers in the Garden of Eden. Rushing, full, clear, and beautiful. Journaling is so helpful. I hate journaling personally. I've just never gotten super into it. But I do confess, when I have journaled, I see myself and my world different. As if I'm some outside spectator looking in. It can be helpful. So I want to encourage that in my students. I want to encourage that in myself. Penzu.com makes it easy (I feel like a sales-person). Don't worry about loosing your journal. Carrying it around with you all the time. Online. Clean. Ready. And waiting.

I'm an old-school kind of person though. So nothing will ever fully suffice for the good-ol' composition notebooks that you take permanent marker to and script your name on the front of in big, prideful letters that announce your arrival in the coming pages.

But something must be said for this Web 2.0 tool. It's a teacher's dream. No worrying about poor, illegible handwriting! They type. You read. YES!

That's "so what."

NOW WHAT?:

Use this in a class. Assign a journal entry every week. Provide one prompt each week that they must respond to. Encourage them to write more than that. Provoke their minds into vomiting their thoughts out onto these technology bound pages. The teacher reads one entry a week. The rest can be private. The more the merrier. Write. Write. Write. Get them to write.

So, really, truly, now what?

Now you find a way to get them to write - whether it's with Penzu or not - so that they know how to express themselves in words that fold like origami. People like to talk about themselves. So let them talk. Let them write.

WRITE. WRITE. WRITE. get them to write. good writing. thoughtful, inspired, meaningful writing.

Until next time.