Kids Running - Journal Writing as a Bridge

JOURNAL WRITING AS A BRIDGE
Run to write

INTRO
We work on structured reading, writing, and spelling from Monday through Thursday. If we are studying the short u, we read 'fun', 'run', 'sun', etc. We spell the words and use the words in sentences. We then read stories composed of these words and other words we have already learned. The sequence is predetermined, the structure is tightly controlled, and the skills are cumulative. The teaching method is the Gillingham Method and the philosophy is similar to the philosophy in Parenting a Struggling Reader by Susan L. Hall and Louisa C. Moats. With this skill work we build our base so that we can eventually generalize our skills to become readers and writers.

APPLYING SKILLS: RUNNING/WRITING DAYS
Fridays are our Run to Write days. We run and then the kids write in their running journals. They know many reasons for our running: to keep our hearts strong, our bodies fit, our lungs healthy, to turn fat into muscle, AND they know something more, that in our classroom, we run to write. All of the kids are working on a goal of earning a RED RIBBON for completing 12 activities in our Run to Read and Write program. Each time they write in their journal, they get one of their 12 needed points.

Below you will find a description of our running and writing through the school year, told as I believe the kids would tell. The accounts represent my experiences with my kids over the past two years.

SEPTEMBER
Running: Spelling Relay
We leave the school and jog, heading up to the field. This is the easy part of the day. We're all good runners. We like running better than walking unless we are tired. When we leave the school with other teachers, the rule is, "No running!" but on Fridays, with Mrs. Goodrow, the rule is, "Run!"

We get in a circle and check to make sure our shoes are still tied. We stretch and try not to be silly, then we listen while our teacher tells us about the game we will play. September running is usually a spelling game. We use words we are learning. We need to learn to spell so that we can write stories and letters. Today it's a 'Spelling Relay'. We break into teams.

One of our teammates holds up a picture card. We spell the word. The teammate checks. If we spell it right, we run. If we don't we try again. When the game is over, we jog back to the circle, stretch, then walk to the classroom. The teacher watches us so that we really walk. When she isn't looking some of the boys like to jump over anything in sight.

Writing: Sentence Copying
We're allowed to go out and get a drink after we write our names and dates on our papers. We really don't like to write that much. It's hard, but we want a drink and need a drink. We'll eat our healthy snacks much later, when our writing is done. We all bring healthy snacks to this class but especially on Fridays because at the bottom of our journal pages, there are little picture blanks. We aren't allowed to draw anything in the healthy snack space unless we really bring a healthy snack to school. This helps us remember. We like to draw A LOT!

Today we will be copying sentences in our journal. The teacher has written them on the board. She says they are simple and have a lot of words that we have already learned. We try to use capitals at the beginning of the sentences. We are supposed to leave spaces, but we forget. Some of us remember our periods. We have to remember to keep looking at the words to make sure we are copying the right letters. We try to print our letters the way we have been taught. We fix our mistakes. The teacher says, "That's why they invented erasers." We get a sticker for our journal page. We copy the words 'Jounal Writing' on our point chart. We have our first point for our RED RIBBON. Our teacher is smiling.

We ran.
We ran on the field.
We had fun.
We like to run.

We get in line when we finish and take turns reading our sentences to our teacher.

The teacher adds some of the words to a journal writing chart in the room: ran, run, field, like

OCTOBER
Running: Cross-country
It's beautiful in October. We are going to run on a trail. It's in the woods. It will be fun. We are running for the usual reasons, including running to write. Today we are going to be scientists. We are going to use our five senses: sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste. It's a challenge to use all of them. When we return to the classroom, we'll talk about what we observed. We also need to find something to bring back to the classroom to write about. There won't be any fooling around today so that we can concentrate.
We run up the hill to our little trail. Then we enter the trail. We are cross-country runners. One us thought that meant that we were running in another country. We're not. We're really still in the school yard. We run down the trail as graceful as deer. Then we run around the loop and enter the trail again. This time we walk and pick up an object that we are taking back to the classroom.

Writing: Our Own Three Sentences
We put our names and dates on our journal page. We get our drinks and come back to the class. We discuss what we've sensed: We saw acorns, heard leaves blowing in the wind, smelled some rotting grass, felt the rocks under our feet, and tasted the moist air or the salt on our skin. We share our 'finds'. The teacher asks us to write about what we found. We try to ask the teacher how to spell our words but she reminds us to sound out the words we don't know. If we say, "We can't, " she says, "Yes, you can. Just do your best and I will help you later. I need to see what you can do on your own." Some of us get started right away and others need more thinking time. The teacher has to get her big sports watch out to time some of the kids. She's supposed to use the watch to time running, but she uses it more to get kids moving on their papers than on the track.

We need to write at least 3 sentences. When we are finished, we get in line and the teacher helps us edit our work. We erase and fix our mistakes. I'm happy with my little story.

I went running.
I saw a leaf.
It was yellow.

NOVEMBER
Running: On the Blacktop
It's cool and wet outside. The field is too soggy. We're going to play follow the leader and try different types of movement, back and forth across the blacktop. We jog to the blacktop and do standing up stretches. No sitting down today.
The blacktop is about 25 meters long. We measured with a big round measuring tape that our teacher has in a track kid. This distance is just right for fun sprints. These are some of the things we do: we jog, we skip, we leap, we run, we sprint, we hop, we jump, we walk. When we are finished we run a few laps and we stretch. I liked the sprinting the best.

Writing: Retelling What We Did
Today we just need to write about what we did outside. We need to fill a whole page. Our assignment is to write about the weather, how we felt, our activity, and if we enjoyed it. We write and then edit. If we try to turn our journal in without filling in all of the lines, the teacher sends us back and makes us write more. If we say we can't think of anything to write, the teacher reminds us about all that we did today and then we remember. Sometimes, once we pick up the pencil and start writing we get more ideas. My teacher says this is what happens to grown up writers, "Ideas pop into their heads once they start writing." It takes a long time to fill the whole page. If we don't get started for a long time, we aren't allowed to go back to our classrooms with the other kids. We have to finish our work. After a while she counts to 100 for one of the kids. If she gets to 100 and he hasn't started writing yet, she is going to write a note to his parents. He starts his writing and does a good job.

DECEMBER
Running: Running to Observe Nature
It's late in fall, but it's a beautiful day. It's called, "Indian Summer". We are going to go around the whole field. It's a half mile around the field. Our teacher told us, "NO racing," today. We'll have a race another time. We are supposed to pace ourselves and run easy. We're going to run a little and stop and observe. We are pretending that we are real artists today. We're going to find something beautiful to draw. We're going to try to notice something "in our own backyard" that we have never noticed before. We jog to the field and stretch. The teacher reminds us about the easy running. We are all supposed to stay together.

We run up to the baseball diamond. We stop and look. Someone notices that the moon is still out, but it looks faded. Someone is going to draw the moon. We run a little more and stop. He hear a bird. There it is. It's a crow sitting to the very top of a tree. We see a yellow butterfly. We are surprised. It's almost winter. Where did that butterfly come from? We run again. The teacher asks us to stop. We see a thick bunch of cattails that are a light tan.

We run more and stop. We see two trees. The sun is trying to peek through their tops. It's shining towards us and the shadows of the trees look like they are running down the hills. Jaime wants to draw this. Someone notices that we saw the moon on the opposite side of the field and it was just as high in the sky as the sun. We run more and we have completed our lap.

Writing: Descriptive Writing
Today we are going to be allowed to draw with pastels and or markers, but first we must do our writing. There are just a couple of rules today. We must describe the special thing that we have seen and we must use at least one page. We are allowed to use more pages if we need them. Most of us get started right away, but not all. Then we remember the pastels and markers. We want to use them, so we all do our work, get our spelling and sentences edited. We know that if we finish our work really fast, like in one minute and say, "I'm done," she sends us back to the table and says, "You can't possibly have done a good job that fast. That's not a story. It's just one idea."

Today we are going to copy these on another paper for we don't have the picture blank in our journals. We surprised our teacher and did a great job. We all wrote about different things. She loved our papers today and asked to keep some. When she asks to keep one, we know it's really good work. She'll run a copy off for our parents so that they can see what we have done.

JANUARY
Running: Running in the Winter
It is winter. It's cold out, but it's not too cold to run. Today we are going to run a lap on our field. We'll have to be careful for the patches of snow and ice. When we come in we are going to use our imaginations and write a 'creative' winter running story. This will be different. Running in the winter is great. When you run, you warm up. Winter might be the most comfortable season to run.

Writing: Creative Writing with a Descriptive Sentence
There are a lot of rules today. We need to be reminded many times. Our spelling is getting better. We practice every day of the week in school, but doing a new type of story is not easy and sometimes it's not even easy to remember that winter is a season, but our teacher is here to guide us.

Here are the rules for our creative winter story.
1. We must write the story first.
2. We have to make something up that never really happened.
3. We also need to describe something about the season.
4. Our story needs to be at least one page long.
5. When we are finished with the story, we have to write a title for our story at the top of the first page.
6. If we don't follow the rules, the teacher will remind us.
7. If we forget to describe the season, we'll need to write at least one descriptive sentence at the end of our story.

In the Snow
I run in the snow. My dad chases me. I have fun in the snow. I go in the yard. I make a path. I run through the snow. The snow is white and sparkly.

One more rule! I forgot Rule Number 8. If we write really sloppy on purpose, we have to do our work over. If we do the same thing again, then we do it over one more time. Some of us have written stories 3 times. It's not fun. Somehow the teacher can tell if we are trying to do our best.

FEBRUARY
Running: On the Stage and in the Gym
Valentine's Day is our teacher's favorite holiday. She loves hearts, gingerbread people, valentines, and love. She likes red and pink and old fashioned things. . She wanted Valentine's Day to be very special for our families and for us, so she wrote a bunch of skits with easy reading. She said the skits were like stories in old fashioned reading books. We had to memorize the little skits. Each skit had a Becky and Billy, so there were lots of Beckies and Billies in our class. Each skit also had some running. We learned the plays and put them on for our families. We ran in the classroom on Valentine's Day in our best clothes or costumes.
Here's the first skit she wrote:
Becky: Billy, I made some gingerbread cookies.
Billy: Becky, can I have one?
Becky: Yes, Billy. You can have one if you can run.
Billy: I can run, Becky.
Becky: But can you run fast, Billy?
Billy: I can run fast, Becky.

Becky: Then run, Billy, run. Run fast! Try to catch the gingerbread girl.

Our teacher was nervous before our plays but she was happy as soon as they started. She says that this was her favorite Valentine's Day ever.

Writing: Our Favorite Lap Game and Why
Since it was too icy outside to run, we went to the gym. We played running games from our Becky and Billy plays. All the GAMES are explained here. When we got back to the classroom, we had to write about our favorite running game in our journals. I wrote about "Hide and Seek" so did most of the kids. Telling which one was my favorite was easy but it was hard to explain why. I had to keep on thinking and thinking. Also we played in the gym so long today that the teacher didn't have time to have all of us edit our work today. She said that work does not always have to be edited and that we are getting so good at spelling that she can figure out what most of us are trying to say. I get my b's and d's mixed up but she has taught me a bee stinger trick. It helps a lot. I'm supposed to remember to use it today for she might not get to look at my paper. I remember some of the time.
We had Becky and Billy plays. They were fun. Our parents and grandparents laughed and clapped after each play. We had gingerbread cookies and punch. We had candy hearts. We played Becky and Billy games in the gym. My favorite was "Hide and Seek". You run laps in the gym. When you get to a corner, you have to stop and put your hand against your forehead, like you do when you are trying to keep the sun from getting in your eyes. You have to pretend that you are looking for something far away. It was my favorite because I liked stopping and putting my hand on my forehead. We ran for a long long time.

MARCH
Running: Running at Home
We couldn't run on Fridays. Our teacher was sick. We had too much testing. The weather was too bad. There was no space in the school to run. One day we pushed the desks aside and did running, jumping, leaping, sprinting, jogging, walking, skipping, hopping, and jumping in the class. We tried to learn the spelling doubling rule that day but we forgot it the next day. We needed a lot more practice with this.

So our teacher said we had to run and write at home. She made 'CUTOUT KIDS'. We had to choose one and take it home to run with. Then we had to do our journal writing at home about running with a CUTOUT KID. We had a lot of days to work on this. She called it a 'project'. It was really homework, but fun homework. She used her cross-country kids and her Kenyan track kids for the cutouts. She said that they all needed to be chosen. We weren't allowed to all take the same CUTOUT KID RUNNING.

Writing: Writing at Home
Kyle wrote a long story with his parents. He loves sports. He wrote about hockey. He wrote about sledding. He wrote about basketball. He said that he did some running when he played basketball. He really took his CUTOUT KID with him. It was cold and snowy outside so he made a blue jacket for his CUTOUT KID and he made black boots. Most of the kids turned their projects in on time. The spelling was easier at home because our parents helped us with all the words we couldn't spell, but the writing was harder. We are used to writing in our classroom.

Our teacher put some of our projects on the Web site and entered us in a writing contest. We might win raffle prizes.

APRIL
Running: Double the Running
It's spring in CT. We go running a lot now. We've been running on our trail. We run up a hill. We stretch. We turn the corner and run more. Then we get to the trail. The trail is all downhill. It's in the woods. We take turns running down the hill. Then we go finish our loop and get to the 'sidewalk triangle'. We take turns sprinting around the triangle. We stretch and go in.

But today was different. The teacher said, "Today we are going to double our running and double our writing. We're going to do our trail loop two times and then we're going to write two full pages in our running journal."

Writing: Double the Writing
When our teacher gives an assignment, she doesn't like us to say, "Do we have to?" She reminded us of all the things we could write about: what the weather was like, what we did, what the route was like, how our bodies felt, if we enjoyed our running, what kind of clothes we were wearing, if anything exciting happened, and if we noticed any signs of spring. She reminded us not to keep saying, "It was fun." Sometimes we like to say that too many times on one page. One of the kids wrote it 3 times on the same journal page one Friday.

But we've been practicing our writing so much that it was easy to write two pages with lots of different ideas. Some of us wanted to even write more. One of the kids wanted to write 10 'chapters' and the teacher had to tell him to stop writing. When we finished we were allowed to make a drawing of the route. All of our drawings were different. Patrick's was so cool. He pretended he was a Robin on a tall tree looking down.

MAY
Running: Pacing Ourselves
We are going to have a fun run. Our families are invited. We will get to run a mile. We had to practice pacing ourselves. Pacing ourselves means: Start out slow. Run easy. Take a walking break if you need one. Run some fast sprints when you feel good.

We ran two laps on our field. Some of us ran the whole time. Others walked a lot. It was hot out, so we ran early in the morning. Some of us like to run when it's hot. We all finished the mile.

Writing: Expressing our feelings
In June, we are going to have a fun run! Today we had to write about how we were feeling about having a fun run. Here are both sides of Chris's paper. Chris had already finished his whole running journal, so he got to use the picture paper. Chris didn't like to write at all when he first came to Mrs. Goodrow's class. He really likes writing now.

Mrs. Goodrow was very happy to be thanked by a child.

JUNE
Running: Run to Read and Write Fun Run
We went to our fun run in June. We ran a lot. We ran when we got to the park before the fun run started. Then we all ran the mile. We ran around after, too. We had more energy than ever. It was very exciting. We got T-shirts, medals, ribbons, and "Clues to Meaning" workbooks. The teacher ordered them for us at our own level. Chris's parents bought them. Reebok gave us T-shirts, USATF paid for the printing. The Hartford Courant bought us our medals and Runner's World provided our plastic bags, RED RIBBONS and they sponsor our Web site. Mrs. Goodrow designed our T-shirts and Sarah designed our running numbers. It was a free fun run for us so our whole families could come.

Writing: Run to Read and Write Fun Run
We had journal writing at our fun run. We took our journals home the day before, so we had special fun run paper to write on. We sat with our friends or our parents to do our writing. There wasn't any editing today, at least not by Mrs. Goodrow. Mrs. Goodrow did have to count to ten, to help one of the kids to get started, but it worked and he did a great job. Actually we all did a great job. Mrs. Goodrow, our parents, the school psychologist, and the principal were all very proud of us. You can read about our fun run here. Maybe you will have one too. If you do, please let us know.

Run to Read and Write Fun Run
THE BRIDGE
To a child the spoken language usually develops naturally, but to many of the children I teach one or more aspect of the writing task is the most difficult and unnatural task that they will ever encounter. I teach the skills: words and sentences as discrete elements and they learn, that is they learn with lots of effort. But putting these elements into a creative writing piece is a whole different type of task. It's open ended and can't be controlled by the teacher's predetermined sequence.
Running, like spoken language, develops naturally in most of the children I teach. It was when I first started using the running journals that I found my reluctant writers turning into eager writers. The running journals, through their simplicity, hands on and kinesthetic nature, seem to ease up the task. The kids are writing about something they know, are good at and have experienced. The class's confidence builds over the year. I've used this method in the special ed resource room and in the regular first grade classroom. It's something that I never plan on eliminating from my curriculum, no matter how our educational standards change. Over the year, the running journals become a portfolio of growth and development in the skill of creative writing.

LINKS AND PRINTABLES
Run to Read and Write Fun Run!
Journal Blank with Picture Space
Journal Writing Blank
Journal Cover Run and Journal Form
Run and Journal Picture Blank
Becky and Billy Games
CUTOUT KID Activity
Running/Spelling Tricks
Free Running Bookmarks

Editor's Note: Running and writing are more fun when they are combined. Lace up your running shoes and get out the door. Start up slowly, then pick up the pace and have a great run. Cool down, drink and stretch, then break out that running journal and let 'er rip!

Privacy Policy of Kids Running