January 21, 2025

Observational journals from class

Today was the first day of the semester for one of my universities. I’m teaching first-year writing. On the first day, I give my students little notebooks and an assignment designed to encourage observation. I then ask them to keep the notebooks and every once in a while, stop what they are doing, look at something near them, and describe it. I like to do what I assign my students to do, so here’s mine for the day (2 classes).