Dialogue Journal 

Dialogue Journals are written conversations student to student or student to teacher that reinforce or deepen learning while forming bonds between students that can provide a foundation for later cooperative learning activities.

Start with a letter from you, the teacher, to the whole class setting the purpose. Beyond that, the content, frequency and pattern of journal sharing and response can we designed in any way. 

Consider these starting points:

• hobbie & interests

• sources of irritation or annoyance

• subject preferences

• cultural traditions and practices

• Something I've always wondered about is . . .

• Have you noticed that . . .

• Something I wish I could change is . . .

• I wish I knew more about . . .

• One thing that stood out to me from the lesson today was...

• I was unsure about ___ from the lessonn today because___.

Dialogue Journal Ideas for Student to Student 

Dialogue Journals - What, Why, How

Jennifer Gonzales from Cult of Pedagogy writes about Dialogue Journals as a relationship building tool from student to teacher. There is a podcast link towards to top of the article if you'd like to listen.  Dialogue journals can start of as a relationship builder and grow into depth of content topoics. 

Steps to Setting up Dialogue Journals ** Note that in middle and high school with over 100 students, the frequency, length and content focus of the letter will be vastly different. See Pro Tip for secondary advice. 

Sample Dialogue Journal Lesson Plan for 3rd Grade with Alexander and the No Good Very Bad Day  from Teacher Vision

Pro Tip 1! Who has time for this??? In secondary, rotate which period submits journals each week. The 10th grade teacher who wrote this blog uses google slides and instead of writing a lengthy response, they comment on the slide. 

Pro Tip 2! Try tiny notebooks. They are cheap, and students love them. 

Pro Tip 3 Use Dialogue Journals as a scaffold for specific students who may need encouragement to take an academic risk or a social emotional check in to stay engaged.