Journal entries in this course have served different purposes for me based on the media of our texts. When writing about literature, for example, I find my journal entries to be more exploratory. My first sentence answers the question I am responding to, rather directly, and the rest of the journal is a process of discovering how my claim is supported by evidence in the text. I notice that I have a knack for embedding quotes into my writing which I feel makes my journal entries on written works more complete and my opinions more credible.
Journal entries are nothing like note-taking for me. In fact, it is based on the notes I take that I write my entries. I don’t find journal writing redundant due to my additional note-taking but substantiating—a way to flesh out the ideas I have only jotted in the margins of the text.
However, when writing about film, my writing becomes much more technical and the entries serve as practice for enhancing my descriptive summarizing skills. When I write about film, I tend to have all of the evidence in the types of shots and angles employed and inductively come to a conclusion on meaning as opposed to having a general opinion and returning to the text to pick out my evidence when I read literature.
Overall, journal entries allow me to reflect more fully about the ideas I have while reading literature or watching films by writing about those ideas.
