Secret Diary
I never understood diaries or journals. Part of this was because nobody in my household seem to use one. I didn’t have the “read this book before you go to bed” family. Not ignorant, but not too exposed to furthering education. Therefore, reading and writing weren’t too high on the priority list. I would always hear my friends talk about a diary, but then hear them say “no you can’t read it”. Like I said, I never understood diaries. Maybe my confusion rested with the fact that people constantly mentioned them, but never let anybody read it.
My wondering mind drove me to find out the secrets of “using a diary”. Honestly, I thought it was about writing secrets that you couldn’t tell even your best friend. On a trip to Walmart, I slipped this all black and white composition book in my moms cart; composition because the colorful and fancy ones were expensive. Very, very anxious to see what the talk was about, I opened my composition book, wrote the date, my name in a cute font, and wrote what I did that day. Ill never forget when my little sister walked in and I immediately hid my book.
Until that day, I never understood a diary. I was able to right about any and everything I wanted to. I expressed what made me happy that day, what I wanted to say to my mom after she made me mad and most importantly, what my crush said to me that day. As typical as that sounds, that’s exactly what my first three pages consisted on.
Being able to write how I felt after something happened everyday was my in my diary, my outlet. I used this tool to compose letters I was too scared to actually write to someone, vent my anger about someone, and about exciting news. The ability to write from topic to topic was what interested me the most. I never had to show or tell anybody my “body of work” and I never did. I found this same diary in an old shoe box last year. I was able to reflect on how I wrote and why I wrote years later.
What I will carry back to my grade level and content area is the value of writing about topics you’re interested in, or about how you feel. These may be very secretive, or something you want to share, but what’s important is the ability to air out your thoughts on paper. What’s grand is the importance of being exposed to your own writing abilities, and reflection.
I never understood diaries or journals either as a child. No one in my household used them. It was not until later that I would hear people in school talking how they would put their most private secrets in their secret journal or diary. It was not long and my little sister had a diary so there was more talk about it at home. As for myself I never had an interest to keep one. It is defiantly a good idea to keep notes of memorable things.
ReplyDeleteI also never had a diary, or a journal and I remember all of my friends talking about theirs but for some reason it just never clicked with me to use one. I really enjoyed how you shared that it is important to be able to get your feelings out in a written way and how that can be a very freeing event. I like how you share about the connection to the classroom and how it is important that we are helping students to be able to write or share their feelings on paper and that they are able to connected that to something that interests them.
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