Introduction to the Reading Journal

In this course, you will keep a reading journal in which you will interact with our text, exploring your responses to several questions about concepts and methods from the reading.

While improving your writing skills may be a beneficial side-effect, the main purpose of the journal is to stimulate your thinking about fundamental questions, problems, and issues raised by your study of computer organization and architecture. Thus, you will be rewarded—in terms of the knowledge you acquire and the evaluation you receive—more for the process of thinking than for the end product. This kind of writing is called "exploratory" writing because it allows you to explore your thoughts by "thinking out loud," rather than being concerned with the effectiveness of your writing for other readers. Features of formal writing, such as organization, will be less important in your journal than when you are writing for an audience.

Such journal writing helps many students focus their thinking and become more productive in their learning.

I loved the reading journal and I love reading the entries now. It was honestly one of the most valuable exercises I did in college. It really should be mandatory in nearly every class.
The sneaky thing that I've realized ... is that I usually end up solving my own query. Without this question, I may have glossed over something that I wasn't totally sure about, but whenever I have to write about it I end up figuring it out! Then I go back to find something else, because I can't just leave the question blank, and so on, and eventually the reading gets a lot more clear. So that's a really good thing.

As you ask more questions and question more answers, you will truly be thinking like a computer scientist.

What do I write in my journal?  
A link from the course schedule will provide a short series of 2-3 questions. These questions will usually require you to process the day's reading, looking for cues to important concepts or relations among ideas. Most of the time, I will give clear instructions on what exactly it will mean elaborate or explore your thinking for a particular question. When you are quoting material from the textbook, you should reference page numbers and page location cues such as "top," "middle," or "bottom."
What kinds of questions will you ask?
While I may ask a variety of questions, they will often fall into one of four categories: prioritization, translation, analogy, and metacognition. Prioritization questions help build your critical reading skills. Translation questions help you make sense of new and unfamiliar ideas by expressing them in your own words. Similarly, analogies extend your understanding of the unfamiliar and new by comparing them to something familiar.  Finally, metacognition questions ask you to reflect on your learning process.
How long do my answers have to be?
Like most real-life situations, the answer is "it depends." Sometimes you will be asked to justify an answer in 3-5 sentences. Other times you will be asked to explain a concept as you would to your friend's kid sister. Just how long do you think she is going to wait? Your answer length should thus be targeted appropriately. 
How long do I have to spend on each journal entry?
Once again, the answer is "it depends." If you have faithfully read and studied the assigned material, exploring your thoughts will likely take about 15-
30 minutes. Some questions will take you longer than others. One main reason for the variance may include your need to react to, process, and interact with some new and perhaps challenging concepts. 
Do I get automatic credit for answering the questions?
While I have explained above that your main focus will not usually be formal writing, I will be looking for evidence that you are thinking seriously about the topics in the reading. Your responses should clearly exhibit your wrangling with concepts, leaving no doubt that you have done your reading and studying before attempting to answer the questions. A superficial response will receive partial credit, while a truly insightful response will receive extra credit.
Unlike an exam, your reading journal gives you the freedom to err. Writing helps you to internalize new concepts; sometimes you may get them mixed up and that is okay. A journal entry that shows a mind struggling with an idea is often the most interesting for someone else (including yourself later) to read. 
So, how formal is this whole enterprise?
As described above, this is exploratory writing. While I do not expect beautifully architected paragraphs, I do require responses composed of complete sentences obeying the usual rules of grammar and proper spelling.
How should I present my journal entries?
Log on to CLEo and navigate to the site for this course. The side menu has an entry entitled "Reading Journal." Navigate there and you will be able to add new entries. You should create one entry for each day's questions. The assignment for each day's questions will have a title at the top that you will use as your entry title, so that I know which day's questions you are answering. You should separate your answers with numbers indicating the particular question being addressed.
In addition, so that you are not at the whim of the network or your web browser, you should compose your response in a separate text processing program first (which allows you to use a spellchecker), and paste your response into the new post text box when you are finished and ready.
Who can read my journal entries?
I intend the reading journal to be a private space where you can work out ideas without fear of embarassment or censure. I have configured our course tools so that I can read and comment on your journal entries, but no one else should see them. If you find that you can see other students' journal entries, please let me know ASAP!
How can I use my journal entries after I write them?
As we will often discuss the reading journal questions in class, you may want to print your journal entry and bring it to class with you.
I encourage you to review your journal entries after each day's class. If you are so moved, write a comment in response to your journal entry that explains how your understanding of the topic evolved during class. At times, you may find your understanding has changed so much that you want to rewrite your response. I will review your journal at the end of the semester and may reward such comments with extra credit.
You may also use your journal as a study guide for important concepts that may appear on exams (hint, hint).

Janet Davis (davisj@whitman.edu)

Created August 23, 2013
Last revised September 1, 2015

Acknowledgments: The text above is largely borrowed from a similar assignment by Jerod Weinman. He draws from Engaging Ideas (John C. Bean, Josey-Bass 2001) and Concentric Thinking (Mark Hoffman and Timothy Dansdill, 2008). I have revised some portions of the text into my own voice and added the question about using journal entries.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.