English 9 - Mr. Ubriaco

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture.
    Just get people to stop reading them.
~ Ray Bradbury

The Independent Writing Journal is a place for kids to explore themselves and their world without worrying about teacher comments.  It is a place where students can feel safe to explore their thoughts, dreams, and conflicts without concern for the grade.  Keeping a personal writing journal can be a liberating experience. Often we don't know what we know until we write about it.  It is my hope kids will use their journals to learn about themselves and learn the power of writing.  Learning to love writing for the sake of writing itself is a invaluable lesson. 

Grades
On the dates assigned, I simply walk around the room and count how many pages they have written since the last due date.  The grade breakdown is the following:

A - 10 pages

B - 8 pages

C - 6 pages

D or lower - 5 pages or less