Journal Writing Experience

As I began to write my journal I just wrote about what happened very blatantly and didn't give it much thought. However, as I read through the Handbook and Reader 2, I realised that I needed to use it as more of a mode of reflection on my day rather than just quickly jotting down what happened when I had the chance. I'll openly admit I forgot to write anything some days but this made me realise that by looking back on the days previous it allowed me to reflect more and stopped me from being vague. Therefore I made the choice to write in the mornings.

I chose to use one specific day to write about using the Reid and Moon framework because it allowed me to see which I found most useful.

Description

Initially, this was very useful, getting the basics down on paper and out of my mind felt like a kind of relief. It is a good starting point where moments of the day you had previously forgotten come back to the front of your mind. I think I got stuck in just describing for a while and not going into enough detail. However, the fundamental questions of what happened? What were the main events? Where and when? all get the ball rolling.

Initial Reflection

I found this more useful. To be able to write about our feelings and thoughts was interesting. In my journal I write a lot of questions after using initial reflection thus getting me to think deeper and more academically perhaps as to why I feel a certain way, what has caused those feelings and thoughts? Somethings did happen that I didn't expect in the day in question and looking at how I dealt with it and how that influenced me was interesting. It brought be back to thinking about the different types of ways people learn. Did I just do my best with what I had or did I think, ponder and consider the outcome?

List

I'm not ordinarily a lover of lists (which is strange because I love organisation) but here it was incredibly useful. I just let my mind write without bounds. I allowed myself to just write what my thoughts, feelings and the events of the days were. By doing this I was able to identify that I write in a very logical style. I write in a chronological order. While some have said a list eliminated the possibility of rambling, I don't think that was the case for me due to allowing myself to write everything that came to mind. I have been told before that I can ramble when I write but in this instance it was useful, it allowed me to get all my ideas on a page without self-censoring. In turn this allowed me to then look at the words and phrases I had written and reflect on specific ones. If I am ever struggling to write a journal entry, creating a list is a form of reflection I will use to get ideas flowing.

Here's an example of a list I wrote yesterday:

Evaluation

Evaluating is useful for identify what went well and didn't within your own practice. Being self aware is something we as performers do on a daily basis without probably knowing it. In a dance we know if a step isn't correct, in a play we will know if a line isn't right (hopefully!). Using evaluation in my journal already seemed to be there without me noticing for a while. I often comment on how that day has gone, what was good and what wasn't so good. However, I feel it is perhaps a bit basic when I look back on other extracts from my journal. This is evaluation in itself I suppose, identifying what I need to do, how I do that and what I notice. I found this technique useful up to a point because I believe you can over evaluate things, think too much into them. I will continue to use evaluation as a tool to help me understand certain elements with my day.

Graphs, Diagrams and Charts

I was unsure how to approach this one. If I have jotted down an idea about something or something I need to remember in previous circumstances I have drawn a little image to visually show what I mean. I enjoy learning from images so it was a bit of a surprise that I struggled with this. I decided to do some research - mainly consisting of other student blogs - and found that the idea of a mind map was a great one! It allowed me to show my thoughts on the day and link thoughts to each other which was nice to look at once finished. I found this very similar to how I used the list. Getting everything on a page to sort of see the working of my brain. Using a graph or a diagram is something I will try to use more often because it keeps me inspired to write through other forms that words alone.

What if?

What if I didn't like this style of writing? I'm not a fan of the unknown so trying to guess what could of happened didn't work very well for my journal writing experience. Although I'm sure it is useful in a creative process of developing something I'm not sure it 100% works for me in this circumstance. Saying that, I did find that the question 'what would you like to happen?' brought up positive ideas around what I had been practising on that day and drove me to think about how to achieve that idea born from that question. What if I give this style of writing another go? Something for me to consider in future journal entries.

Another View

On this particular day, I did some training for my new job and I sat there thinking, oh what do they think of me? I hope they know I'm listening and eager to learn. So I tried it from the leader's point of view. I wrote it in the form of an internal monologue because that just felt like the right style to do:

'She's sat upright in her chair, wide eyed and ready to listen, good. Oh she yawned, in fairness it is quite late in the evening and none of these people have probably had their dinner. Okay lets get started, making lots of notes that's a good sign but most of them are on the sheet of paper anyway like I mentioned. It's good that she asked questions and listened to others answers. So that wasn't too bad, everyone seemed involved and ready to go! Handed her the equipment. Drive safely home everyone.'

You can never truly tell what someone is thinking but I gave it a go. I feel that by doing this I reflected what I wanted to see into another persons thoughts, so have I really looked at it from the other person's perspective? I'm not entirely sure, this was a difficult one.

What Did I Learn?

I found that initial reflection was incredibly useful and so was listing the days events. By combining the two I think it will make for interesting journal writing. I am also going to try and incorporate more diagrams so that when I look back on different entries it is easy with a quick glance as to what that day entailed. Something I would like to do the further into this course we go, is look back at old journal entries and see how I reflect on them now, reflecting on reflection from the past. I always think it's interesting to see how you develop and change within time.