My Thoughts: A Freewriting Journal

My Thoughts: A Freewriting Journal, and its companion journal, More Thoughts, can be used in a variety of ways, but the main point is to encourage students to write and enjoy doing it. There are 74 journal pages in My Thoughts, and each page has a brief, open-ended written prompt and a colorful, evocative illustration. An additional 6 pages have no written prompt - only an illustration (a guitar, a ladybug, a door, pebbles, railroad tracks, a snail, a candle). All the student has to do is fill the pages with words, sentences, and thoughts - all without fear of a grade or lots of red marks on their words and sentences. At the back of the book, for each page/prompt there is a small space for you, the teacher, to write a very brief response - "Is this true?" "What a beautiful scene!" "This is really very funny!" The prompts include reflections on personal memories and feelings, thoughts about cars and digital technology, food, fantasy, wild and pet animals, love, nature, the environment, and seven brief poems.