The Journal: Refuge, Receptacle and Play Space

By Dinos Aristidou

Being reflective is something we do naturally all the time-whenever we have a major decision to make, whenever something significant has happened, when we encounter the unfamiliar, when we face a major change or need to try to make sense of something. Though we all naturally reflect, we don’t always document or record our reflections. Our thought processes, our responses to our experiences and our insights remain locked away within us.

What is journaling?

Journaling is an attempt to capture both our insights and the processes that have given rise to them. Like the workings out of a maths problem, journaling unlocks us, leads us to a conclusion and shows us how we got there. Through the process of journaling, we reach understandings that help to guide us while also providing us with markings that we can return to, should we lose our way.

I’ve been keeping journals since I was about 13 and though these have changed in nature and format over time, they still provide me with the solace, the insights and the refuge that they offered me then. They are all records of my project of becoming. They transport me back to past moments, show me how some of my ideas were developed and capture the workings of my complicated mind. They are both a map showing me how I got here and a record of who I was and am and might be.

A journal, whether digital or hard copy, provides us with a space where we can: a) Record our reflections to give shape and form to them b) Gather materials or memorabilia that will prompt reflections or evoke memories at a later date

A journal for me is, therefore, both a space to go to and a place to put things in.

Journals and learning

As a tool for learning, the recording of reflection gives educators access to the learner’s thinking, learning and development. The journal makes a learner’s processes visible–the way they think, the impact something has had on them, the way they solve problems and approach their work.

For the learner, journals also operate as a memory prompt. The recording of reflection ensures that thoughts, feelings, experiences and insights are not lost or forgotten. It provides a record of past learning and experience that the learner can return to and refer to. This can help to inform future learning and problem solving. A learner’s reflections in a journal also offer the educator great starting points for conversations and tutorials.

As a tool for creativity, journaling gives young theatre makers a platform to try out new ideas within the privacy of a journal’s pages, away from the prying eyes of an audience. It’s also a sandbox where the artist can play, create, try ideas out and solve creative challenges.

One of journals greatest assets is that it provides us with distance. The records of our experiences, of our learning, of our play give us the chance to look at ourselves and our experiences objectively. When we’re in the heart of an experience we often can’t see it or reflect on it. We’re too close. By recording reflections and then returning to these reflections at a later date, we have the opportunity to see the details of the ‘big picture’ of our development through the lens of time.

Classifying reflection and journaling

Looking through all my journals, I can clearly see a pattern regarding both their contents and their function. For me they fall into 4 categories:

1. Affective reflection and journaling

Affective reflection is the one form of reflection that most resembles a diary or a journal. It is often written as a stream of consciousness and can include drawings, letters, reminders, photographs, video, souvenirs. It provides us with the opportunity to record our personal thoughts and feelings regarding experiences, events and interactions. Affective journals can be used for some of the following purposes:

Tracking - keeping track of the present by recording it

Marking - marking important moments, milestones and experiences

• Mapping - examining an experience or challenge to make sense of it

• Signposting - providing ourselves with strategies for dealing with a problem

• Solace - healing and soothing ourselves after a difficult moment or experience

2. Critical reflection and journaling

Critical reflection, unlike affective reflection, is focused much more on thinking and on unravelling thinking. We usually reach understandings by making connections between present learning and past learning. Critical reflection goes back and forth between the present, the past and the future; what am I learning? How? How does it connect to what I already know? In what way does it change how I will do things in the future? It relies on forming connections, looking for patterns and using these to reach conclusions. It often involves research, notes and inspirations from sources other than the self.

3. Process reflection and journaling

Process reflection focuses on the recording of strategies, processes and procedures for the solution of a problem or for the creation of something new. Where critical reflection has a ‘looking backlooking forward’ dynamic, process reflection has a more organic nature. It is like a tree that has many roots and many branches, growing in all sorts of directions. Because it is the workings out of a solution to a problem – be it an equation, a project, a scientific experiment, or a performance - it is a quest for a successful outcome. Where affective reflection is primarily about capturing who we are, process reflection is about asking questions and involves an evaluative approach - drawing out the value, usefulness, and purpose of what we’re doing, why we’re doing it and how we’re doing it. If you don’t ask the right questions, you will never come up with the right solution, the right answer. In this respect process reflection is fundamentally the recording of a process of inquiry, of trying to find solutions.

4. Organisational reflection and journaling

This is the sort of journaling that is used for planning. It often involves calendars, lists and notes. It is designed to help us keep track of what we’re doing and where we’re supposed to be. It also has the added benefit of helping us to bring order to what is often a chaotic or busy life. It focuses very much on the present and near future.

5. Secondary Reflection

Secondary reflection is where the learning happens. It is the moment when we revisit something we have already recorded, examine it, reflect on it and draw the learning out of it. For me, the journal is essentially the place where I initially record my primary reflections, my initial and immediate recording of learning, thoughts, feelings, processes, and experiences. This then gives me something concrete to return to at a later date. Secondary reflection is then added to my journal, using the primary recordings as prompts to revisit my initial thoughts, feelings, and ideas with a view to drawing the significance out of it. This is the heart of the most valuable reflections and where for me the journal has most value. previous exercise. Ask learners to think of a moment when they’ve felt: Proud

• Challenged Powerful

• Embarrassed

They can adopt a physical posture to show each of these and photograph them or draw them. Alternatively, learners can make a visual and textual collage that presents each state using found images and words.

TIPS, ACTIVITIES AND APPROACHES

These can be used either as primary reflection or as secondary reflection, responding to a pre-existing record. I usually assign journal tasks to learners as I’ve that it’s easier, more enjoyable and less daunting if they have a reflective task to complete rather than a general reflection in their journals.

• Scaling

The blank page can be daunting. Working on different scales can be useful and is a good way of presenting the learner with ready-made boundaries which help to define the length of the reflection. Ask learners to reflect on A4 paper, postcard, flipchart paper, wallpaper, post its, luggage labels, shaped paper, strips, wrapping paper. Add these to your journal.

• Given circumstances

This is a term borrowed from Stanislavski (18631938) and his work on creating a character in theatre. It refers to the time, place, period, personal and public events, and culture relating to a particular situation. In other words, context. Ask the learner to look at particular moments of action or at particular reactions they’ve had to certain experiences and to identify the given circumstances. What is the relationship between context and action? What are the conditions conducive to learning? To creativity? To wellbeing? To feeling safe? Ask the learner to examine the relationship between context and action/ reaction and present this diagrammatically in their journal.

• In a State

This can be instead of or as a follow up to the

Ask them to think of circumstances and/or situations that made them feel like each of these. They should describe these circumstances as a caption beneath each photo/drawing/collage. Invite them to reflect on how circumstances contributed to each state and to record this in their journal. Examine each state, the visuals and the words they’ve used. What does this tell them about themselves?

• What makes an ensemble?

In small groups, learners are given a task to create a scene on a given theme as a whole group. One person takes photographs of the process. Each learner then individually reflects on what they think are the top three qualities and the top three skills required by an individual to make them part of an effective team. They write these down on post-its arranging them in order of importance. In their small ensembles they each share their individual contributions. They discuss all the contributions and as a group they decide what they think is the one most important quality and the one most important skill. They record this in their journal and use photographs taken earlier or a collage of found images to illustrate these. As a follow up for secondary reflection, the group can revisit their findings and discuss what strategies they used to decide regarding which was the top skill and quality. If the group was unsuccessful, they can discuss what prevented them from reaching a decision.

• The unblocking dice

Creative thinking can be considered a problemsolving strategy. This exercise asks learners to come up with generic unblocking/problem solving strategies to help them get unstuck when they are working on a new project, product or artwork and feel blocked. You’ll need a dice making outline for this which you can find on the internet.

The class discusses experiences of feeling stuck or blocked and the different types of products or outputs where a learner might face a problem or a block. Point out that this is not in regard to personal life but related to making, creating or working on something.

Discuss what causes this block and what strategies can be used to get unstuck.

Working in small groups, learners come up with 6 different strategies that could be used if they’re working on something and are stuck. They all write these strategies on their own dice outline, cut it out and each create their personal ‘unblock dice’ which they can decorate.

• The Lotus flower

This is an exercise that can be used to generate ideas. It works on a ‘blossoming’ principle. This gives learners the opportunity to identify key ideas and the various aspects that need to be examined. The learner draws a box in the centre of the page and writes their area of interest/inquiry inside it. Alternatively, this can be a theme/area of inquiry set by the teacher.

Learners draw four diagonal lines from each of the four corners of the square and draw a square at the end of each line of these lines. This creates a central box surrounded by four smaller boxes.

They then write aspects related to their area of inquiry in each of the four smaller boxes. Learners then draw four diagonal lines from each of the four corners of the four smaller squares and draw a square at the end of each line.

They write aspects for each of the areas they have identified in the smaller boxes. This creates a central box surrounded by four smaller boxes, each surrounded by four small boxes. And so on.

• Dialogue with a problem

Ask learners to write a dialogue of a fixed number of lines (10-20) between themselves and an area of concern which is personal or related to learning. This distancing exercise gives the area of concern a voice and through its responses, helps the learners to find solutions.

• Through the eyes of others

Learners create a box in the centre of a page which they title ‘How I see me’. In the box they write a list of what they consider makes them who they are and what areas of themselves they want to develop.

They create and decorate 4 shapes in each corner of the page, giving each a title:

Peer Parent

• Teacher Friend

They imagine themselves as seen through the eyes of each of the people above. In each shape they write a soundbite of what they imagine each of these different people would say about them as well as drawing or sourcing images of how they think each of these sees them.

Shield of me

•

Learners consider themselves as an independent learner identifying:

• their skills how they best learn their passions and interests how they overcome challenges

They create a shield, using visuals, by dividing a page into 4 parts, which represents them as a learner based on all the areas identified above.

Learners look at their own shield and think of a motto which describes their approach to learning. They write this at the bottom of the shield.

All the shields are displayed, and learners look at each other’s.