Book Review 3

By

Michael English

Title: Writing Down the Days; By: Lorraine M. Dahlstrom; Free Spirit Publishing, Minneapolis, MN, 1990, 170 pages.

I found Writing Down The Days to be a great resource book that I will use to prompt my students to do more journal writing. I liked the way the book provided a context for the prompt. I also like the author’s suggestions for how to use the book. The one thing that I thought was missing is that she doesn’t address sharing or publishing. I agree that journal writing should be private if a student so chooses, but I also think that if a student writes volunteers to read something that is note worthy; they should be given an opportunity to be acknowledged for their effort. I would provide students that opportunity by either asking for volunteers to read their work or by providing a place in the classroom to post their work. Some of the factual context writing was a little dated in the copy of the book that I used for example: the oil spill in Valdez, Alaska which occurred the late 1980’s probably would not be particularly provocative to a high school student today.

I understand that there is a revised addition of the book with more current context information and resource list.

I plan to buy the book and to use it to task myself to write more. As I mentioned in one of my papers for the Project, I really haven’t done any creative writing since I left college. I think that if I write regularly myself, it will help me to keep in touch with the writing process and that of my student.