Unjournaling: Daily Writing Exercises That Are Not Personal, Not Introspective, Not Boring!

I am a Language Arts tutor and I love this book! That is saying a lot, because I have purchased many, many writing idea books in my continual goal to find appropriate topics in narrative and creative writing for my students who range from Kinder to Middle School. I have found a lot of repetition in many of the other books, but not in UnJournaling. The approach is different. As a result, it sparks my students' imaginations as well as secretly ( wink-wink) improving their writing and expanding their vocabulary. For example, "write a paragraph about a girl named DOT without using any letters with dots ( i, j)". There are 200 of these ideas in Unjournaling along with an answer key just in case.This seemingly simple task inspired my student to look in a thesaurus for alternate words. As a result, my student wrote a paragraph that contained engaging vocabulary and sentence structure. Even better, my student had fun doing the assignment! In addition, I was able to find a great writing idea in under 2 minutes .This was especially handy as I had a little time left in my lesson and had already completed what I had planned.I plan on using Unjournaling for full-on essay assignments and or for fun "extra bonus "activities. So for all the teachers out there who spend hours planning, but might be seeking a a new topic or fun activity to round out the lesson, this is the perfect book!

I am a parent. Over the last few years my kids and I have tried many, many prompt lists found on the internet as well as a few prompt books. This book is our favorite.We have used every single prompt in this book over the last two school years. We are now going through the book for the second time. My kids are in the 4th, 6th, and 7th grades.Some of the reviewers have complained that this book didn't help develop writing style or specific skills, etc. They're right. It wasn't meant to. What it does do is offer 200 funny, non-threatening writing prompts with an example journal entry for each. Like any prompt book, this book is not designed to replace writing instruction. It simply gives students reason to write.Without the added weight of self-reflection or literary analysis, these prompts are ideal for helping reluctant writers to forget they hate writing as well as for building confidence in eager writers. My two younger kids take about 15-30 minutes to finish journaling one handwritten page. My 7th grader finishes two pages in the same amount of time. The prompts ignite their creativity. And let's just say that they've developed a friendly rivalry over who has the best entry each day.The daily practice using this book helped my two youngest children overcome their fear and loathing of writing in their other assignments. They don't even remember the "dark ages" anymore. My oldest child honed her already strong skills through the added practice.

I teach high-school senior English. My classes have really enjoyed the challenge of doing the exercises in this book. I will use 2 or 3 each week at the beginning of class, each exercise taking about ten minutes or so. Most of the prompts I've used in the past have been fairly mundane, ho-humish, but not these. The authors have put much thought and creativity in these short assignments. They have helped make my job much easier and much more fun this school year. I highly recommend this book.

When I used to teach (before taking time off to be a SAHM and full-time grad student),I spent quality time searching or thinking up creative writing prompts for journal writing in the classroom. Many of my students were uncomfortable with penning details of their lives, and I had to search for alternatives that would keep their interest and not bore them. Since I shall be returning to teaching soon, I decided to build my resources, and found this book. "Unjournaling" contains many creative writing prompts that are impersonal but highly engaging. The prompts also require a level of thinking which is excellent - for example, explaining the uses of an Ipod or latest gadget to one's great grandfather in the simplest terms (not very easy considering how used we are to tech-speak these days!), creating tongue twisters, dictionary diving, and many more. The prompts in here would be great for use as sponge acitivities, i.e. the period before transitioning into the actual lesson, for example, when students enter the classroom and the teacher needs to take care of some business such as taking down attendance, and others. A recommended resource for LA teachers!

As a high school English teacher, I am often times provided writing "prompts" with my curriculum. Students often times become bored and disengaged with the purpose of with these prompts. The exercises provided in Unjournaling: Daily Writing Exercises that Are NOT Personal, NOT Introspective, NOT Boring, provide the exact writing prompt I needed to diversify journal prompts. These prompts make the students think about what they are writing and how they are writing. I often ask for volunteers to share what they have written and they have so much more fun writing and sharing and they are less inhibited to do so. My students especially like the "Dictionary Dives" and we learn so many more words and their meanings which I can then suggest they use in their essays and dialog with others. Many students have made comments such as, "that was fun" or "we should do that again" and these are high school students! Best resource a teacher could have - no matter what discipline is taught! I love it!

This book was slightly used, but it looks brand new to me. I love the ideas for kids to journal. The prompts are easy and creative. As a teacher I run out of ideas sometimes for kids to write about. This was a big help. It is so worth the money.

You live in Europe but speak English at home. English Classes (English as a foreign language) are compulsory at school. Your bright middle schooler or high schooler is bo'o'o'red absolutely silly?This is a book that has the potential to put all that "silly" to some good use. Open-ended, clever, funny exercises, many of them basically brain teasers that really demand some thought and creativity but, as the cover promises, don't have any potential to get embarassing or too personal. Depending on the exercises, one to three of them could easily inspire 45 minutes of writing. And they do sneak some curriculum concepts in the back door (point of view, alliteration...) If you can just manage to convince the English teacher that creative writing would be a better use of your kid's time than sitting through endless explanations and vocabulary tests...! Good luck.

Book of all sorts of creative writing prompts and exercises. Fantastic for stimulating creativity and imaginative writing. Great jumping off points for people who want to write but are feeling flat. Also, I want to foster my creative writing skill by writing something everyday and this book provides lots of little exercises to do!

Excellent resource for a classroom teacher or a home school! Each page has several interesting, unexpected and motivating ideas for any kid to write about. You could easily use the same prompt with kids of wildly varying degrees of ability, which makes it invaluable in an inclusive classroom.

The book is ok, there are definitely some great ideas in the book but I thought there would be more.. not exactly what I expected.

Arrived as expected. The prompts are probably better for middle school.