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Appendix B-- Another Sample Study
Allowing Space for Not-Knowing:
What My Journal Teaches Me

by Marne' Isakson

Appendices: Appendix A. . . . Audit Trail; Appendix B. . . . Initial Domain Analysis; Appendix C. . . . Focused Domain Analysis; Appendix D. . . . Initial Theme Synthesis; Appendix E. . . . Criteria for Judging Study

List of Tables: Table I. . . . Sample Fieldnotes--Carolyn; Table II . . . Semantic Relationships used in Domain Analysis; Table III. . . Contrasting Journals of Fall Semester 1985 with Fall Semester 1989; Table IV . . . Taxonomy; Table V. . . . Componential Analysis Matrix; Table VI . . . My Assumptions

Accepting the Challenge

One day in the fall of 1985 I was pumping a colleague for answers to questions about my teaching. She stopped me and said, in essence, "Marne, you are the one who has to make sense of what is going on in your classroom. Write what you see happening." Some suggestions she gave were: "Be as specific and precise as you can. Look back at those observations and reflect on what you are learning. Think about what the events mean for instruction" (Marjorie Siegel, personal communication, September 21, 1985). I took her advice and thus began my odyssey as kid watcher. For five years I kept teaching journals.

During the last two years I did not keep a journal because journal writing was time consuming. Instead I experimented with alternative ways to record kid-watching. I have not been as pleased wath the results. Though I found ways to record observations, mainly on seating charts, the reflection part of the journal process had no counterpart. I missed the journal keeping very much and began to ponder the effects of writing upon my teaching practice.

I decided to take a thorough look at my journals to determine why they were so valuable to me and why they seemed to be such a strong force in my evolution as a teacher.

In this article I share the results of an in-depth analysis of ten pages from two journals written five years apart, a 1905 journal and my 1989 journal. My initial plan was to contrast the two journals to see how I had changed as a teacher. I was surprised to discover how strongly my current theories of teaching were in evidence in my actions as early as 1985. A main difference between the two journals is my improved ability to record observed events. Another difference is that some of the questions I asked in 1985 had answers by 1989. For example, in a journal entry written in 1985 I had asked myself if it would be all right to allow Tom to tell Marty something about his book during Sustained Silent Reading. My response to reading this entry in 1992 was:

TN (Theoretical Note) 85F2-p6-9/26a (year [1985], semester [Fall], period [2nd], page [page 6], date [September 26], section of page [a=top quarter of page])-- Of course it is okay! I see that I was wondering about breaking "the rules" for SSR that the reading time be individual, uninterrupted, and sustained. But I was also seeing the support of community and the natural bent to share something interesting. I certainly should not discourage such interaction. On the other hand to verbally "encourage" it might kill it also. An overzealous, over-enthused teacher is not what these kids need. They need to see the sharing as their discovery not as "doing what the teacher wants." Just let it happen naturally.

As I revisited the two journals, I saw that I am still struggling with many of the same frustrations and seemingly unanswerable questions I was then. So maybe all the work of taking notes has been for nothing? I want to stamp my foot and say "Certainly not!" I decided to go exploring using methods of naturalistic inquiry (Williams, 1992) to see what meanings would surface without imposing a focus at the outset. This article shows this journey.

Methodology

The basic method I followed was to make fieldnotes while reading the journals and then to analyze those fieldnotes in four different ways: domain analysis, taxonomic analysis, componential analysis, and theme synthesis (Spradley, 1980). I describe each process below.
Fieldnotes

In Table I is a sample of fieldnotes I made about a jourfal entry from page 3 of the 1989 journal. The Actual Entry (AE) is bolded; the ParaPhrase (PP), summary, or quotes of the entry is underlined; and the thinking I did about the entry, my reflections, follows. I categorized these reflective notes into three kinds: PN, TN, or MN. Personal Notes are those notes which explained the situation as I remembered it, providing more background to it, or giving my feelings and reactions to the events then or now. In the Theoretical Notes A attempt to explain why I did what I did, guess the reasons behind my actions and those of my students, try to provide theoretical perspective on the incidents, and otherwise reflect on the meaning of those happenings. In Methodological Notes I talked to myself about what I was doing, the inquiry process I was going through, and the resulting products. Methodological Notes became part of my "audit trail" (Appendix A) which serves as a record for review by others in establishing the quality of this study.

In the sample in Table I and in all examples given throughout this paper, ONLY the Actual Entry is from my journal. All the other fieldnotes have been made recently to make sense of the entry.

How did I go about making fieldnotes? I started to copy an entry from my handwritten journal onto the word processor. When something occurred to me that I wanted to say about that part of the entry, I summarized that part (PP), and wrote my thoughts about it, labeling these reflections as mentioned above either as TN, PN, or MN. I continued copying from the jourfal and trying to react fully to what I had seen in the entry. Some of these reflective notes were very short while others were a page or more; the personal notes and theoretical notes sometimes became quite long as I grappled with the meaning I was making of the journal entry.

Table I: Sample Fieldnotes

AE - (89F-p3d-8/22)
Carolyn came early to class to tell me she had already finished her first book. "I read 90 minutes last night." She told me about questions she had as she read: "Why did it have that title Three Mile House?" She told about how she figured out the afswer. "The author told where four miles was on his jogging route and later that the house was about a mile closer than that." In other words she had made an inference. She also told about sticking with the book until it was finished.

PP - Carolyn came in early to tell about her reading experience the night before and to tell some of the thinking she did as she read. She had completed the book in one night.

PN - She had read a Besteller, a high interest, low vocabulary, short book of 60 pages.

TN - She wanted to celebrate this accomplishment. She was not only pleased with having read an entire book in one evening but especially in being aware of how she figured things out. Other seniors and other peers may have thought this no big deal, but it obviously was for her and she "needed" to share it. It is important that teachers support these little celebrations. She is coming to value herself as an active, thinking reader. I wonder if she came to the class determined to make sense and to progress, after all this might be her last chance for instruction because she was a senior, or was there something about the first day's activities and climate that made her decide to jump in with both feet and take on the challenge of reading. Another remarkable thing about this event is that she did it on the second day of class! Had I so soon built a trusting relationship or was she trying to brown nose me? Either way I think this was a remarkable risk on her part.

PN - The year showed Carolyn to be a reader who could become completely involved in what she was reading. She earned all A's in my class. Why had she struggled so much with reading in her previous high school classes? She proved to be a determined meaning maker in mine.

For the purposes of the present study, which was to experience the processes of naturalistic inquiry, I limited myself to five hours of fieldnote making for each journal. This resulted in covering six pages of the 1985 journal and four pages of the 1989 journal. I quantified some contrasts of the two journals by tabulating such things as numbers of long entries and numbers of pages filled for the fall semester of the two years.

Domain Analysis
Domain analysis (Spradley, 1980) was the first analysis I did. This procedure involves looking for items in the fieldnotes which fit within a particular semantic relationships. I started with Spradley's relationship of "Strict Inclusion" (p. 93), i.e., something that is a kind of something else (X is a kind of Y). I noticed in the first entry in 1985 how vague the descriptions of the events were. So my first domain became "X is a kind of vague description." I listed about six included terms (the X's), such as "good discussion," "smooth day," and "they." I again looked at Spradley's list of relationships and realized t`at the included terms were more "examples" than "kinds of" vague descriptions, so I changed the heading for the semantic relationship to Examples (X is an example of Y).

I had Spradley's list of semantic relationships in front of me as I read through the fieldnotes. From five of those relationships sixteen domains surfaced for me. See Table II.

Table II: Semantic Relationships used in Domain Analysis

Attribution

1X is an attribute of my role as a teacher of reading.

2X is an attribute of my theory of teaching reading made manifest

Strict Inclusion:

3X is a kind of participant written about in the journal

Actions:

4X is a way to collaborate

Examples:

5X is an example of something I wish I'd done at the time

6X is an example of a question I asked in the journal

7X is an example of a contrived task

8X is an example of an observed classroom event

9X is an example of my taking cues from the student(s)

10X is an example of impassioned reflection

11X is an example of something I'd like to consider doing again

12X is an example of a vague description

13X is an example of an anomaly

14X is an example of an instructional decision

Functions:

15X is a use of the journal for me

Some of the domains no longer interested me, so I stopped looking for their included terms, i.e., X is an example of a vague description. (See Appendix B for the results of the first domain analysis.)

After I had combed ald the fieldnotes looking for included terms for the semantic relationships I had chosen, I felt ready to select a focus. I based the decision on two criteria: the domain intrigued me, and it seemed to have a substantial number of included terms. Four domains emerged. I reformulated these into questions:

What is my role as a teacher of reading? (from #1 in Table II)

Which student acts captured my interest enough that I recorded them? (from #3)

What examples are there that I'm taking my cues from the students for what I do in the classroom? (from #9)

What are the uses of the journal for me? (from #15)

I went back to the original journal entries to do focused observations looking for more included terms for these four domains. I rephrased some included terms into more general statements. For example, instead of "Matt dissented but when he found out he could work on his own, he decided to join the forces" I put the following into the domain of my-role-as-teacher-of reading: "let students vote but don't force consensus; let dissenters go their own way." I also put this same Matt-event into the domain of student-acts-which-captured-my-interest: "Students who don't want to accept class voted decision." I was surprised how many more included terms I found by the time I had completed the second domain analysis. (See Appendix C.)

I now needed to limit my study further and I stewed over which domain to choose for further analysis. I finally selected "The Uses of the Journal for Me" because of several reasons: what I saw surfacing through the domain analysis fascinated me; it had one of the smaller lists of included terms and so seemed more manageable in light of time constraints of the current project; and I am wanting to promote teachers as researchers and thought that such analyses might provide some insights for me to share with colleagues.

With this focus, which by the way came five weeks into the study, I went back to the journals for "focused observations" (Spradley, 1980) searching for more included terms. The list expanded to 31 included terms.

Taxonomic Analysis

To perform a taxonomic analysis, I took each of the 31 included terms and placed it into a group of similar terms. I worked through this process until I felt comfortable with the arrangement. The terms within each group were further sorted into sets and subsets. I then asked the superordinate question "What is `The Uses of my Journal' a subset of?" I continued to ask that question of each answer until I stopped with "Making the world a better place." The resulting taxonomy is shown in Table IV.

Componential Analysis

Componential analysis (Spradley, 1980) helped reveal contrasts among the terms of the taxonomy and showed the unique attributes of each of the categories. An performing componential analysis, I went through five steps:

I selected two terms in the taxonomy and asked the dyadic contrast question, "How are these two terms in the taxonomy different?" For example, "How are 'confronting my fears' (3.2.1) different from 'justifying my actions or concerns'(3.2.2)?" In this particular case, three answers came to mind: a. I want to placehold my fears at a conscious level, in writing, so I can force myself to deal with them, but I justify something I did and then am done with it--I know what I did and why, fine; tuck it away and move on. The latter is more of a validation to myself where the former is a demand for action. I labeled these dimensions of contrasts as placehold for reflection and end thoughts. b. Whereas the first is written to cause change ("Deal with this fear, Marne'!"), the second is written so I can remember the situation in order to repeat the process if a similar circumstance should arise ("This is what you did, and this is why you did it. Learn from this experience and let it impact future practice subconsciously.") I labeled these dimensions of cgntrast as understand to cause change and understand so can be repeated. c. The fears are forward-looking because I must deal with them now, tomorrow, or soon; the justification is primarily backward-looking because I am reflecting on events in the past and pondering why I did what I did. I labeled these contrasts forward-looking and backward-looking.
By asking this contrast question of several terms on the taxonomy, I derived six dimensions of contrast.
I set up a matrix to see what would be revealed about each term on the taxonomy if I thought about it with each contrast dimension. The six dimensions of contrast were placed across the top of the matrix. Down the left side of the matrix I listed the terms of the taxonomy.
I proceeded systematically through the taxonomy, deciding how each term fit with the dimensions of contrast. For example, I looked at 1.2.1 "Focus on the anomalies" and asked: Is this more placehold for reflection or end thoughts?, more understand to cause change or understand so can be repeated?, and more forward-looking or backward-looking? I put the answers on the matrix. See Table IV.
When I had finished, I noticed that sixteen of the twenty-eight terms in the taxonomy had the same configuration of contrasts along the entire row as did one other term. This fascinated me. How could they look the same when they were so different? For example, the uses of the journal 1.3 "pull out buried assumptions and verbalize underlying theory" and 4.2 "react to my participation as a language user" showed identical dimensions of contrast. I solved this by asking the dyadic contrast question again for each of the terms having a matching configuration. The answers revealed five new dimensions of contrast. In this case, the dyadic question "How are these two uses of the journal different?" evoked these new dimensions: discovered while writing vs. discovered later; outgrowth of the situation vs. student initiated; overall vs. specific.
I added these new dimensions to the matrix and did the analysis again for all terms on the taxonomy. Table V has the completed matrix showing results of componential analysis. By the way, I was curious about the meaning of the name of this analysis and searched Spradley (1980) for an explanation. "Components of meaning are discovered by a systematic search for attributes associated with the categories" (p.130). This now made sense. Componential analysis is indeed a way to see various components of meaning or attributes for each of the terms in the taxonomy.

Theme Synthesis

The value of finding themes is based on the assumption that "every culture, and every cultural scene, is more than a jumble of parts....[consisting] of a system of meaning that is integrated into some kind of larger pattern" (Spradley, 1980, p.132). Themes are not found physically, actually, in the fieldnotes. I could not read the notes and underline or point to the themes. Themes are a synthesis of all the meaning made from the fieldnotes and their analyses. For some people the themes "jump out." For me, discovering these themes was not an easy task, certainly not as straightforward as performing the three earlier analyses. I approached the finding of themes in the following ways:

I concentrated on the meaning and uses of journal writing for me and tried to come up with some themes. It helped to ask, "What are the major principles underlying the uses I made of journals in my teaching" and "What are the larger patterns at work here?" Eight ideas came to mind.
I did not feel as if I had found the overriding themes yet, so I did a componential analysis of the cover terms of all fifteen of the original domains. Refer to Table II. From the resulting dimensions of contrast, I discovered eight additional themes.
I was intrigued with the results of the above process and decided to go further by looking at the dimensions of contrast shown in Table V. I looked at the list of contrast statements from a more global perspective than I had before to see if any themes could emerge. Five did.
I tried to put into words the essential principle that surfaced from the above three procedures. I boiled the many themes down to one, the core of what my journal signified for me. I decided upon a statement that was the overriding theme of the present study.

The results of anitial theme synthesis is in Appendix D.

Some Other Aspects of Methodology

While doing this study I kept a detailed audit trail in which I recorded methodological decisions, confusions, sources I went to for help, dates, and time involved. (See Appendix A.)

All the parts of the journals and all the other journals which were not analyzed have been kept for referential adequacy checks, so in future analyses, I can see if my conclusions hold for the other journals as well.

Some peer debriefing was done when I spoke to colleagues about what I was doing and asked for their points of view. It was valuable for me to talk through what I was seeing and to have them ask me questions and make comments for me to consider.

A complete analysis of procedures used to establish the trustworthiness of this study (credibility, dependability, confirmability, and transferability) are found in Appendix E.

Portrayal of the Researcher

This portrayal does not quite belong in the methods section because it is about the person being studied, yet neither does it belong in the results section because it is about the person doing the study. The research not only looks at my teaching journals but I am the one who is looking at the journals. For this reason, a special section has been created. This unique condition of data maker being data-gatherer is strong reason for the reader knowing who I am in order to put what I say into perspective.

I have taught English, reading, or both since 1968 in junior high schools, an elementary school, private practice, a university, a community college, and now a high school. I have presented inservice courses on reading, thinking, and writing and have done some writing for professional journals. I have a B.A. in English, a MSED in educational research, and am working on a Ph.D. in Literacy Education. All along I have sought out professional supportive communities by attending inservice and professional conferences, being active in professional organizations, reading professional literature, and finding colleagues to talk to.

My life outside of school is full also. I belong to an active and loving family. My husband is a counseling psychologist. We have two daughters and two sons. We have lived in the East, the Midwest, and now the Intermountain West. I am active in my church, usually in a teaching capacity. My favorite leisure-time activities include jogging, walking, swimming, biking, hiking, going fishing but not fishing, writing poetry, visiting relatives and friends, canning, and reading biographies and young adult literature.

From being around me, one might see that I love to read and write and that I wonder about things all the time, feel compelled to make a difference in this world, and am "weird" according to my seventeen year old.

But who am I in the classroom? What guides my practice? I will share some major turning points for me in this regard:

While teaching reading in a junior high school, I finally heard the voices of my students, "But Mrs. Isakson, I hate to read." What did it matter if they could master skills at 80% or better if they would not read? I realized much to my dismay that we had been so busy learning skills that we had only read out of "real" books twice the entire year and then only for thirty minutes!
In 1974 I stayed up all night reading a most intriguing book, Reading Miscue Inventory Manual: Procedure for Diagnosis and Evaluation (Goodman & Burke, 1972). This gave me a new way to think about the reading process. I tried some things but had many questions. Until 1984 I could find no one who knew much about the procedure nor could I see its far-reaching implications for instruction. However, I was searching and wondering. I now find it unbelievable that I did not for a moment consider writing to the authors with my questions. I suppose that says t`at, like many of my students, I did not connect a flesh and blood person with the "author."
In 1982 I heard Frank Smith speak. Everything he said made sense and yet was diametrically opposed to what I was doing in the classroom. When I asked him what I should do, he said that he couldn't tell me, but that I could figure it out for myself. I took that challenge.
In 1984 I saw an advertisement about a ten-day workshop by the authors of the Reading Miscue Inventory Manual. I traveled to Tucson to study wit` Ken and Yetta Goodman and Dorothy Watson. This was undoubtedly the biggest turning point for me. I came home a new person.
I joined a support group mentored by Marjorie Siegel. She and the members of the group have had a powerful impact on my thinking. In those monthly meetings we meshed practice and theory, discussed classroom anomalies and suggested strategies, socialized and developed professional relationships. Marjorie challenged me to keep a journal and furthermore to write a professional article that first year. I did both. I also met with her individually every month one spring to study her ethnographic dissertation on semiotic theories applied to reading (Siegel, 1984).
In 1989 I attended an IRA Special Interest Group on teachers as researchers. I left convinced that I would like to find a collaborator to come into my classroom to help me make sense of what was happening. I found a professor who was interested. One of his graduate students became a participant observer in my classroom. This association resulted in much thinking and growth for both of us and a dissertation for him (Boody, 1992)&

Results

Portrayal of the Journals

The basic format of the 1985 journal was to put the date and to write what I saw happening. I kept a separate journal for each class period in a spiral-bound 8 1/2"x 11" notebook. I wrote in ink as I do any journal or daybook, because they are who I am and I want to save them. I tried to write daily but that did not always happen. To give a flavor of that journal, I provide four complete entries:

85F2-p3-9/23c:
Tom--came tardy--his 4th. During 15 min. of SSR: Fiddled with his art supplies, pens, markers, putting them in bags. I whispered a question to him, "Do you know what you are to be doing now?" "Yes, I know." -- 2 more min. of fiddling. Then he started reading. He read 3 min. - looked around, at the clock, did not disturb others--but no reading. Got up 5 min. early to put book away. "That's stupid. I'll leave it out then," when I told him he couldn't but had to stay in his seat until the bell. -- He didn't put it away either. He didn't write in his journal for the 5 min. He had made a note earlier, ___?___ lines. Oh, the book he had selected was C. Sandburg's Complete Poems. I would infer that he wasn't interested.
Forgot to mention Yellow sheet. All Vocab. people don't have supplies.

85F2-p4-9/24d:
Tom read orally from Black Boy into the tape. He didn't want to do it in the hall where the others preferred to do it. He recorded right in the class -- at my desk. He set it up. He thought about what to write for our classroom. He said, "You mean like the lie that guy wrote about the steer?" (I was excited. He had been listening.) During reading time -- he read 13 min. and 25 sec.!

4B>85F2-p6-9/26a:
Tom was reading That's Incredible. He had to tell Mark about something from it. Do I encourage or discourage this during SSR?
Semantics didn't go well because I didn't introduce it right.

85F2-p6-9/30c:
Tom came to tell me before being excused for a senior career day that he'd stayed up until 3 A.M. reading Rambo.

In succeeding years I kept all the journal entries together and labeled the entries according to class period. This worked better because the overall events for the day were often similar, and I did not have to repeat myself. The format was a three-part entry: description of the overall literacy events, observations of specific students in those events, and reflections on the significance of the observations, i.e, what I was learning about the students, conditions, interactions that might help me support the learners in my classroom.

The 1989 journal could best be characterized as a notebook filled with longer, more specific observations and more pointed reflections than the 1985 journal. Also by then my reflections had become interspersed throughout the observations. If an idea occurred to me while I was describing an observation, I did not wait until the "Reflections" section because I might forget the thought. So I put OC (Observer Comment) and wrote my thoughts immediately.

To give a view of that journal, I provide an example from later in the semester than the entries analyzed:

89F-p68-11/28:

Literacy Events: Book share three young adult books, read literature study books.

Observations: (OC) Quite by accident I stumbled on something that I plan to try again.
5th Hour--I didn't want to take the time to write the names and authors on the board so as I finished sharing a segment of a book, I passed it to Cora; she wanted to know the names of the authors. But then she kept passing the books around. They read the jacket, flipped through, started reading parts. Jed pointed to the song of one of this favorite rock groups. He asked how he could get the book Rock and Roll Nights. Terri stayed after class to talk about child abuse -- Secrets Not Meant to be Cept. Her friend had been sexually abused as a three year old by her brother and his friends -- gang rape. She had blocked out the memory until her brother came back recently -- the scars and memories are coming to light [as they did in the book]. Winn and Erin spent quite a bit of time looking in Rock and Roll Nights together.
(OC) Touching good books is a good idea it seems.

An analysis of the 1985 and the 1989 journals shows that I wrote about the same number of entries each time but that the 1989 entries were longer. See Table III.

Table III: Contrasting Journals of Fall Semester 1985 with Fall Semester 1989

1985-1989 equivalent number of pages 91-118 equivalent number of entries52.7 56
number of pages with 3 or more entries (short entries)24 2 number of pages with 1 or more extended entries (long entries)41 97

I found time to write because I came to value the process. I considered it some of the best time spent preparing for teaching. I found time to write when the students wrote in their journals, between classes, during my planning period or lunch break, after school (the usual time), and in the evenings. If I did not write the observations immediately, some wonderful stories I could feel in my bones would elude retrieval. After a while I did not let that bother me because there were plenty more stories where those came from--any class period on any day. Since immediate recording was usually impossible, I tried memory jogging strategies with varying degrees of success: recording notes on a 3" x 5" card in my pocket, the seating chart, or in the margins of my journal; pondering the events of the day and writing what is salient; and looking at the list of names in the roll book at the end of the day to stimulate recall of events.

Three general rules of thumb for deciding what to write became:

Accept that I could not see everything so select something that interests me and go with that.
Write what I actually perceive with the senses. Concentrate on writing enough detail so the situation could be saved for future reflection and insight.
Try to see the situations from the point of view of the participants. This involved several procedures, namely, interviewing them, studying documents produced by them, and talking to important others (parents, other teachers, classmates).

Following these principles, I wrote the stories in as much detail as time would allow. If I had only five minutes, that is what I would spend. If I was waiting for a ride, I would write. If something happened during the day that I felt compelled to explore, I would make the time needed and sometimes that exploration for connections and insights took several pages. Sometimes I did not have time to reflect, but I did try to capture t`e event so I could think about it later -- such as now, seven years later!

"Is it worth it? Does writing in a journal make a difference in your teaching?" my colleagues ask. My intuitive feeling is an overwhelming yes. The analyses of the fieldnotes also shows a strong case for this practice.

Results of Domain and Taxonomic Analysis

I narrowed my focus from fifteen domains (see Table II) to one domain: the uses of the journal for me. Through a taxonomic analysis of the 31 included terms in this domain, I generated five main uses of journal-keeping for me:

DETECTIVE--to help me make sense of what I am seeing in the classroom,
BOOKKEEPER--to keep track of what was done and what needs to be done,
CHEERLEADER--to cheer me up and keep me going,
PEER-LEARNER--to be a place where I can record my thinking as I transact with texts as any reader might, and
MENTOR/FRIEND--to explore what I am learning about individual students so I can support their learning.

The initial domain analysis is in Appendix B, the focused is in Appendix C, and the resulting taxonomy is in Table IV.

Results of Componential Analysis

The matrix in Table V shows the results of the componential analysis. Doing this analysis evoked some strong moments of insight for me. To show an example of what this analysis revealed, I supply a journal entry and its accompanying fieldnotes, followed by a discussion of the dimensions of contrast in terms of that specific entry. For the discussion I focus on Domain 5, which is MENTOR/FRIEND.

Example from Fieldnotes: (See Methodology for explanation of abbreviations.)

AE (Actual Entry) - 89F-p4/a-3rdPer-8/22. Sharlene, Cal, and Brent were the drunken driving group. They decided after the whole class discussion of possibilities to find out more about S.A.D.D. Cindra had shared with the class some very strong experiences about this group's impact in Las Vegas where she had lived. Cal had also known of S.A.D.D. in Canada and had a contract he had signed there. He said he would find it and bring it tomorrow. In their group they thought they could find information about the group from Mr. McKay, Mr. Bolander, or the phone book. Brent said he'd research that out.

PP (Paraphrase/Summary) - Two boys and a girl decide to find out more about Students Against Drunk Driving. Two people in the class had personal experiences with the group in locations out of state. They thought of some resource people in the school who could give information. Two volunteered to look for information, Cal a contract and Brent some local resources of information.

PN (Personal Note) - Looking at this entry, I can see that I learned much about these students and also that I should have had focused questions about them.:

Overall -- Why did each choose to join this group? What in their backgrounds led to such intense interest on their part? They are resourceful people, brainstorming some excellent sources of information.

Cindra -- She can listen to several things at once. She was involved in her own group on capital punishment, contributing to that discussion, but she heard what this group was talking about and had something so important to say that she left her own group for a few minutes.

-- She used to live in Las Vegas. Why the move here?

-- She knew a lot about Students Against Drunk Driving. Why? What led to her involvement? She feels so strongly that maybe she has had some personal experiences. I ought to be open to her if she wants to share.

Cal -- He used to live in Canada. Why the move here?

-- He had signed a contract with S.A.D.D. It seemed to mean more to him than just a signature because he had brought it with him from Canada. What preceded his signing this document?

Brent -- He seems to be confident in that he volunteered on the second day of class to research information that would involve interviewing people. Impressive.

Sharlene-- No comment about her; however, I knew her family and thus knew her better than anyone in the class. For this reason I probably focused my observations on the unknown students first. I hope I realized the great probability that she could be very different with her peers than with her family. I should not assume I know her well.

TN (Theoretical Note) - The collaboration and intense discussion probably came about because of deep personal concern for a problem affecting their lives directly or the lives of their friends. We do not need to contrive problem-solving exercises to get students thinking. We just need to open the doors and let their real world in. Look at all the effective language use going on in the above scenario: reading an article, relating to something they know, getting ideas from someone else, deciding where to go for information, deciding who will do what, sharing personal experiences. At this point the best support I could give would be to stand in the shadows and let them go full steam ahead, perhaps asking a question to prompt their thinking if roadblocks arise. It is obvious they have the ability to pursue their own course. The best support I could give is not to take this ownership away or dampen their enthusiasm. I also could support this effort by sorting out my own mental obstacles and being sure this is not a contrived task but a real and relevant one. I must be willing to let them take it as far as they want. -- scary stuff for me at that time.

PN (Personal Note) - I respect their privacy and will not probe into their private lives& I will not press them whatsoever to share (unless I have reason to worry, then the talk should be private and probably for purposes of referral). On the other hand, it is important to build a trusting, warm relationship so they can feel comfortable sharing with me and class members if they think it would benefit themselves and others.

Example from Taxonomy:

5 MENTOR/FRIEND--help me see students as individuals so I can support their learning

5.1record specific observations (timings, behaviors, attributes) so I can learn about students and how to support their learning.

Example from componential analysis:

1 2 3

Ain-coming purpose for discovered while discovered later

writing writing

Bobvious underlying

Cpuzzled, confrontingcelebrating

hard issues

Dstudent-centeredme-centered content-centered

Edescribinghypothesizing categorizing

Fwhere to startplacehold forend thoughts

tomorrow reflection

Gunderstand to causeunderstand so can continued

changebe repeated

Hunderstand teachingunderstand learning

Istudent-initiatedoutgrowth of situation teacher-initiated

(intentional) (unplanned)

Jforward-lookingbackward-looking

Koverallspecific

Cells	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K
5.1	1	1	2	1	1	1	2	2	2	1	2

In order to explain the componential contrasts, I have selected on row of cells from the taxonomy, category 5.1 (record to learn about students and how to support their learning), provided a specific classroom event (in the fieldnotes given above), and then tell what each of these cells in the above matrix means given this specific context.
Cell 5.1/A: I usually start writing my observations of particular students for the purpose of understanding them better. The reason I did not tell anything about Sharlene, for example, is because I already knew her. However, as I wrote I also discovered some things I may not have noticed if I had not been writing. As I reread the notes later, additional insights came. Nevertheless, I have categorized this as primarily an in-coming purpose for writing (#1) as contrasted with discovered while writing (#2) or discovered at soee future time when rereading the entry (#3).
Cell 5.1/B: What I recorded gave obvious (#1) understanding about the students -- such as where they had lived, their opinions, their physical appearance. Some underlying characteristics may also have become apparent over time such as Cal's drug abuse problems. This is in contrast to something hidden or underlying (#2).
Cell 5.1/C: The act of recording the information for this entry was an act of celebration (#2), one of appreciating each person's unique qualities and contributions. Notice how much happened that was worth celebrating: the collaboration, the sense of community, the willingness to share, the brainstorming, the decision-making, the volunteering, and the evoking of prime resources to answer group-generated questions. This is in contrast to my being puzzled or confronting hard issues (#1).
Cell 5.1/D: This entry involved close kid-watching and was therefore definitely student centered (#1). I was trying diligently to see the situation from their point of view and to obtain a feel for their backgrounds and skills as contrasted to my being introspective (#2) or being mostly concerned with the specific content (#3) of the article they were discussing.
Cell 5.1/E: The mental process used in this journal entry was the process of describing (#1). Notice the descriptions: focus of study (drunken driving), decisions made (find out about S.A.D.D), experiences shared (by Cindra and Cal), make-up of group (the three members + Cindra), and volunteered assignments (by Cal and Brent). Distinguish this from hypothesizing (#2! or categorizing (#3).
Cell 5.1/F: The main use of the information was to decide what to do tomorrow in class (#1), how to support the learners, as opposed to placeholding for future reflection (#2) or to looking at the events with interest and then being done with my involvement (#3). The type of information given in the entry would be noticed day by day throughout the year and would often have immediate impact on my interactions with students the next day. In this particular case, I changed my entire plan for the next day, which had been to play a get-acquainted game and to discuss the purposes and expectations of the course. Instead, their excitement and involvement deserved to be nourished and set free. As it turned out, projects developed and evolved into much authentic language use: letters to the mayor, phone calls, surveys, library research, and interviews.
Cell 5.1/G: The purpose for understanding these events was to supply data from which future instructional decisions would be made. I wanted to understand what was going on with Sharlene, Cindra, Cal, and Brent so I could think about the conditions that nurtured this quality encounter; I wanted to orchestrate such conditions again so that this type of engagement would be repeated (#2). If I could understand this, perhaps I could position myself to be of service to the learners. This is in contrast to understanding it so I could change something that needs changing (#1) or to continue something without attempting to orchestrate events or change anything (#3).
Cell 5.1/H: The focus for understanding these events was to understand learning (#2). The quality of this collaboration and the degree of interest was far beyond what I had hoped or had planned for. Something about the situation was ripe for learning. I wanted to probe the implications of this event for what it said about language learning. This is opposed to my trying to understand what my teaching (#1).
Cell 5.1/I: The immediate cause of the event was an outgrowth of the situation (#2). It was unplanned. Certainly I had initiated the process (#3) by my brief sharing of enthusiasm for their letters the day before and suggesting that they take their ideas beyond the classroom to make a difference. But these instructions could not account for the snowball effect that grew from that little suggestion. Furthermore, the students did not plan that this would happen either (#1), but were captivated by a concern important and timely for them. The situation grew out of hand quickly in a very positive way.
Cell 5.1/J: The predominant direction of focus of my writing this event was forward looking (#1). I was wanting to keep the magic, yet learn how to support the learners tomorrow. Of course, I would have to logk backwards (#2) for data to try to understand the situation in order to offer effective support, but the purpose is forward-looking.
Cell 5.1/K: The scope of this entry was specific (#2). I was focused on four kids around one table for a discussion on S.A.D.D. I am not looking at an overall, general picture (#1). Nevertheless, my probing this story for implications for instruction should certainly impact a larger audience of my students. But that is true for everything I do, i.e., I hope I can learn from each specific incident so I can be mgre effective as a facilitator of learning overall.
The above insights came to me as I used Componential Analysis to make sense of the journal entries.

Results of Theme Synthesis.
The three procedures described in the methodology section under Theme Synthesis helped me discover the belief statements or assumptions in Table VI.
The essential principle to surface from this list was this: TEACHER AS LEARNER. This is the core of what my journal signifies for me. This, I decided, was the overriding theme of the present study.
Table VI
Assumptions Surfacing because of Theme Synthesis

-Respect the learners in my classroom, including myself as a learner of how to teach.
-Teach people not subjects.
-Make collaboration an integral part of the classroom process.
-Write to learn to teach.
-Use reading as a tool for students to meet important personal needs, interests,
goals, rather than as the subject of study
-Foster the learner stance in students through choice and ownership -- force and manipulation, if they work at all, dissipate after a short term impact.
-Realize that good teaching is a never-ending journey.
-Probe why I choose to do what I do in the classroom.
-Be in a constant mode of inquiry and encourage such in my students.

-Recognize that learners have to find their own way, although teacher instigated experiences, demonstrations, and expectations can help.

-Reduce my controlling behaviors in favor of behaviors which liberate students.

-Realize how much better students learn when the reasons for doing so are authentic rather than contrived

-Take cues from the students rather than strictly adhering to the expectations of tradition; I need to find my own way, too.

-Facilitate learning in others rather than making decisions they could be making on their own.

-See myself as a mentor rat`er than as a director.

-Realize that real learning is a generative process rather than stenciling someone else's learning into the mind.

-Share the stories of my own learning and solicit such stories from other learners in the classroom.

-Use "child as informant" to see individual personalities rather than a class conglomerate.

-Realize that learning is messy not orderly.

-Give up wanting to feel comfortable and accept the frustration of uncertainty.

-Do more researching for truth with the students than disseminating of it.

A. The quest is to discover the right way to handle every situation (go to experts to find out)

VERSUS

B. The quest is to act ethically and responsibly (go to the participants' hearts, values, and experiences to find out)

A. The quest is to find the right techniques to make good things happen

VERSUS

B. The quest is to uncover assumptions and theory so these can be thought through and accepted or rejected and then because of this process of significant change, good things will happen

III

A. My lived theoryVERSUS B. My espoused theory

The answer to my colleagues' question now becomes clear: "Is it worth it? Does writing in a journal make a difference in your teaching?" Most certainly, but not in finding the one right answer (which was probably my purpose in starting the journals). Remember all the questions I was throwing at Marjorie Siegel in 1985? Remember Frank Smith's refusal to give me the answers but his "you can figure it out for yourself"? I discovered that the act of struggling with these issues through writing was helping me realize that teaching is a transaction with unique people resulting in change of both student and teacher. The teaching/learning paradigm is a generative, caring act by both participants. Looking for a set answer for dealing with that delicate, unique learning moment is the antithesis of the real answer. What is the real answer? An uncomfortable, messy one: Do a "close reading" of the student and the social/psychodogical/physical context. From heartfelt information generate the supportive action to take.
The overall theme of TEACHER AS LEARNER has two features which seem to fit as underlying themes in nearly all the journal entries:
THEME ONE: A reflective teaching journal can help me learn how to teach better by making visible my assumptions, thereby helping me close the gap between lived theory and espoused theory.
THEME TWO: A journal of observations and reflections of what goes on in the classroom and the meaning of those events can impact instructional decision-making and my ability to nurture the learners in my care (including ourselves).
I have selected two examples from the fieldnotes to discuss in light of these two themes, one entry from the 1985 journal and the other from the 1989 journal.

85F2-p6-9/27b:

AE (Actual Entry) - Smooth day. They [Tom] wanted me to keep reading. Tom, "Why not keep reading? It's Friday!" Tom read the entire 15 min. + more during SSR. Had written in journal earlier.
We did a +, -, & wish.

PP - "Smooth day." I read aloud to the class and Tom wanted me to keep reading when I stopped. "Why not keep reading? It's Friday."

THEME ONE (My assumptions)
Reading aloud even to seniors in high school can be a pleasurable activity. Reading aloud has enormous benefits for building reading proficiency: enjoying the reading process, seeing good oral reading demonstrated, using the same comprehension strategies as during silent reading, having a shared experience for later reflection and connection.

THEME TWO (Learning from the events tg nurture learning)
The Friday part interested me. Had he been read to by teachers on Fridays? Did he view Friday as a day to kick back and relax. Whether or not, I infer he saw "reading" as a way to kick back and relax. Was this a new insight for him? or was he being put back in touch with pleasant memories listening to someone else read?

PP - Tom read the entire SSR time and through the journal writing time. He had written in his journal earlier.

THEME ONE (My assumptions)
Providing class time for pleasure reading is vital for introducing the reluctant to the joys of books. They certainly won't find time to read at home if I can't find time for them to read at school. Besides, my allocating this time shows how much I value reading, letting it take precedence over most other activities. Choice is important. Whenever possible, I should let students have free rein to find their own way to be successful readers and writers. The purpose of the class is not to see how well they can follow my specific instructions but how far they can come in becoming proficient, self-confident readers and writers.

THEME TWO (Learning from the events to nurture learning)
Things are really starting to happen for Tom. Sustained reading behavior beyond the "required" time is evidence that he is coming to enjoy reading. It is also evidence that he is a proficient reader, at least in this context. What was he reading, That's Incredible? If so, that fits what I was thinking about "the lie" earlier. (See entry 85F2-p4-9/24d discussed in "Portrayal of Journal" in this article.) I think he would rather read non-fiction rather than fiction.
What are the conditions that could help Tom find the reader within? Some possibilities: abundance of good books from a wide variety of genres, free choice, time to read in class, expectation to read at home, sharing of books and the pleasure of reading, being in charge of his reading, freedom to express his confusions and favorite parts, demonstration of other's engaged reading behavior, sharing of good books through listening to segments, discussion of reading strategies so he could learn how to deal with frustrations while reading, and his giving a gogd book a chance to hook him. Maybe he found out that he was smarter than he thought and that he could read better than he thought he could.
As much grief as Tom causes by his behavior, he is willing to try. The evidence for this is that he wrote in his journal early in the period. If he had not cared, he would have ignored the assignment.
Tom wants to do things his way and on his time schedule; he wrote before reading instead of after as suggested and that he continued reading after everyone else had quit.

PP - "We did a PLUS, MINUS, WASH."
PN - A PLUS, MINUS, WISH is a means of soliciting feedback from kids about any topic. I asked for reactions about the class as a whole. I probably gave these instructions: "PLUS -- What is something you really like about this class? What is helping you be a better reader and writer. MINUS -- What is something you really do not like about this class? What do you feel is a waste of time or detrimental to your becoming a better reader or writer? WISH -- What is something you wish we would do in here that would help you with reading or writing?" I wonder if I have their responses stashed in some file folder at school.

THEME ONE (My assumptions)
Soliciting feedback from students helps me facilitate their learning. They need a voice in the planning and implementation of instruction and in the evaluation of their learning. Voice breathes life into a class. Negotiation means respect. If students feel ownership in the activities of the class, they are more likely to engage fully and to bring their best effort to the task. All of which results in a more successful learning experience for them. The discomfort and uneasiness I feel in giving up power is worth it because the payoff can be so much greater than if I manipulate everything.
THEME TWO (Learning from the events to nurture learning)
PLUS, MINUS, WISH gives a feel for the underlying current of feeling in the class. I think good teaching requires a feel for that. Over the years some responses have been hard to take and painful, but I'm tough. Besides from this easy survey I obtain valuable information use in instructional planning.

DISCUSSAON
Why keep a professional journal, a record of teaching struggles, observations, and reflections about what is occurring in the classroom? The preceding analysis was of only ten pages from two journals four years apart. I need to delve at length into more of my journals; nevertheless, this brief look revealed five uses of the journals for me as a teacher.
The following discussion takes another look at these five uses by going to the literature to see if there is support for these findings. Short of doing an exhaustive search, I found verq little research on teacher journal keeping. What I found is conceptual or narrative rather than experimental or ethnographic. Furthermore, I admit to searching out scholars who have a similar world view to mine. Should I decide to share this study more widely, I will do a thorough search. Surely others have been interested in teachers as journal keepers trying to make sense of the practice of teaching.

1.Keeping a journal can help teachers puzzle through what they are seeing and why they are doing what they are doing.

Journal writing makes it possible for me to refer back to some of the events in my classroom and my thinking about those events so that I learn from those experiences over time as well as immediately for tomorrow. "Writing about what happened each day, thinking about why I made specific decisions and responded as I did, has allowed me to reflect anew" (Newman, 1991, p. 341). Writing is a way to placehold my "kid watching" for later reflection that may lead to insights about how to support learners or to revelations about underlying assumptions that deserve celebrating or that need changing or augmenting. I know from first hand experience what Henke (1990) means about the pressures of teaching too often causing us to get through the day, sometimes mindlessly. I have likewise experienced the power of the pen in helping me reflect, conceptualize, and gain courage to experiment:

Teaching is such a busy profession that it is easy to fall into the habit of "just doing" without thinking about the doing. Active learners, however, need to reflect, conceptualize, and experiment. In order to learn about teaching, then, we needed to build in time and tools that facilitate the process& The professional journal seemed an ideal place to begin (p.283).

A journal can be a conversation with my evolving self. Mary Snow (1990) wrote that we need to role-play ourselves into being the new kind of teacher we visualize. We need a period of self-regulated practice (p.277). A journal can help me work through my learning in these novice situations. Even though I have taught since 1968, situations occur daily where I am a novice, doing things for the first time. So learning and making sense is always what I am about. I suppose I will always be in a period of self-regulated practice--perhaps that is what being in "professional practice" should mean.
I have other compelling reasons to write. I find myself agreeing with the following authors quoted by Donald Murray (1990, pp. 4-9):
Edward Albee "I write to find out what I'm thinking about."

Something is under my skin about a situation in a class, such as Tom's phenomenal progress during that first month of school in 1985. I need to write about it to discover what it is about the situation that keeps stirring up my thoughts. Joseph Conrad "I don't like work -- no man does -- but I like what is in the work -- the chance to find yourself."
Writing is a chance to find myself as a teacher, care-giver, scholar, person.

Keeping a notebook is one way to keep in touch with our past and present selves. A notebook, a diary, or a journal is a form of narrative as well as a form of research, a way to tell our own story, a way to learn who we have been, who we are, and who we are becoming. We literally become teachers and researchers in our own lives, empowering ourselves in the process (Cooper, 1991, p.98).

When I feel stretched and stressed, when I am feeling dysfunctional as a teacher because of trying events, or when I flit around not knowing my purpose, I know it is time to put pen in hand- somewhat like Ismael's need "to get to sea as soon as I can":

[sailing about a little and seeing the watery part of the world] is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can (Melville, 1959, p.28).

Herbert Gold "I write to master my experience."
I write to make sense of my experience and to make it serve me to improve my teachifg and student learning.
Wallace Stegner "We do not write what we know; we write what we want to find out."
True, entry after entry reveals that I write about the anomaly, the puzzle, the thing I most want to understand. For instance, I flipped open a journal to page 93. The date is January 29, 1990, and I see myself trying to deal with anomalies such as:
--"Where had she heard it? Who? What had they said?"
--"Steve is on his second book recommended by his father. I can't tell if he's enjoying them or not. I hear mixed messages. The first Trump he quit. Now he's reading Iacocca. `I think he wants me to be a businessman.' But one of his letters told how boring it was. . . .He wrote flippant letters. Why?"
--"Natalie came after lunch to ask if she could check out two books for the weekend. What is her background? Why such an avid reader [and yet does so poorly in English classes]?"
--"Jennifer went to the library and checked out a new paperback. She's enjoying it. Is this the first book someone else hasn't recommended to her?"
These questions were nearly all addressed later, evidence that they guided my observations.

Harste, Woodward, and Burke (1984) created a theoretically based view of the language arts curriculum, rooting instruction in theory. What is known about language learning should be meshed with what is known about the language learners in order to provide instructional support for the learner. A teacher could ask, "In light of what we know and how these language users are performing, what curricular support should I provide?"

Implicit in the paradigm is a call for conscious awareness, for meta-researching and meta-teaching examinations of what one believes about language and language learning. What a teacher or researcher believes in these areas constitutes a set of relations upon which behavior is organized. . . .The paradigm argues that all research and teaching in the language arts, whether examined or unexamined, is theoretically based, and that researchers and teachers owe it both to themselves and to the profession to lay out what they perceive to be key relationships in language learning (p. 224-225).

These arguments tell me to think about and learn abgut the reading process, be a careful kid watcher to determine how the readers in my class are performing, and then decide how to support their learning.
This is backwards from the usual of going in with pre-set lesson plans to thrust upon kids no matter what and then test to see if they "learned." Nancie Atwell (1987) finally gave up her lesson plans, her marvelous "creations," and by so doing became a learner in her own classroom:

I learn in my classroom these days because I abandoned that creation. I had to. I saw that my creation manipulated kads so they bore sole responsibility for narrowing the gap, and my students either found ways to make sense of and peace with the logic of my teaching, or they failed the course. In truth, it was I who needed to move, to strike out for some common ground. I learn in my classroom these days because I moved, because the classroom became a reading and writing workshop, a new territory my students and I could inhabit together (p.4).

Oh, this is hard to do, to break away from the security of having everything planned and to take the cues from the students. T`e journal becomes my security. It placeholds my frustrations and my anxieties and my vacillations so I can deal with them. As I go back to the entries later, a transformation has taken place--the frustrations have become fascinations. Inquiry supplants anxiety and off I go on the adventure of another day in the classroom.
So writing about my classroom experiences extends my awareness and understanding of why I do what I do in my professional life:

This no self-indulgent navel-gazing exercise. It is a serious exploration and examination of the roots of our beliefs and practices which has the potential to lead us to greater insight, confidence and control over our work. If we are unaware of the forces that shape our actions, we are doomed to work within them and remain without options. If knowledge is power then perhaps personal knowledge is the greatest (and most practical) power of all. (Nielsen, 1991, p.1)

Margaret Voss (1988), a writing specialist for a school district, started keeping two journals: a classroom journal listing ideas and questions, summing up feelings, reviewing past experiences, and documenting new knowledge; and a double-entry academic journal as part of a course project with field notes on the left and analysis, reflections, feelings on the right. She studied her journals to find out what she could about herself as a learner. "My discoveries not only clarified the processes and strategies that I employ as I learn, but led me toward new processes in my teaching" (p. 669). "My journal writing not only led me to discoveries about how I learn; it helped me learn" (p.672). She gave the example of how her procedures for interviewing improved because of the reflecting and analyzing she did in her journal.
As I write about my experiences in the classroom, describing the situations and the students, the transactions come into focus, take on added meaning, and become the object of thought. "When a practitioner becomes a researcher into his own practice, he engages in a continuing process of self-education" (Schon, 1983, p. 299). Through reflection in my journal I can evaluate the events of my classroom and learn from them so I can better support learners:

...such evaluations should be providing continual feedback to the teacher's construal of the situation which, ideally, will result in modification of that construal in ways which will permit ever more successful teaching acts. This process of feedforward and feedback is characteristic of what Donald Schon (1983) characterizes as "being in conversation" with the situation "so that his own models and appreciations are also shaped by the situation. The phenomena he seeks to understand are partly of his own making; he is in the situation he seeks to understand" (p. 151, his italics). . . &What we did think we could identify. . .was the one essential ingredient they [new teachers] would need to keep on getting better: the capacity to learn from their teaching by being in continual conversation with it....Teachers can continue to grow by inquiring into their own practice....Teachers will never be sufficiently autonomous to free ourselves from the packagers and the testers until we can demonstrate to each other and to the public that we know what we are doing. Reflective practice involving inquiry can provide the strongest possible basis for such af assertion (Mayher, 1990, p. 283).

Writing in my journal often helps me see the need for more information which at times only students can provide. (Notice how that is true for the questions I listed from my journal above-- 1/29/90, p.93). "Often teachers are curious, wondering about things for which they have no immediate answers. Those answers often lie with the students -- if only we'd ask them" (Huntsman, 1990, pp.40-41). Writing about answers I need often gives me the courage to be the learner and ask students to be the teacher, teaching me about them. Courage? Indeed, for I must give up "the rewards of unquestioned authority, the freedom to practice without challenge to our competence, the comfort of relative invulnerability, the gratification of deference" (Schon, 1983, p. 299).
In my reading class I desire so much to help these often reluctant readers come to the joys of books that I can become overzealous or forceful. The journal is a place to reflect upon the best way to be a subtle influence which, of course, must be an invitation and not a manipulation:

Motivation for growth and the direction of growth are the responsibility of the individual teacher/learner....What we recommend is a cycle of reflection, planning, action, and observation, which may begin with any one of these stages and continue indefinitely (Jones, 1990, p. 56-57).

2.Keeping a journal helps teachers keep track of what has been done and what needs to be done -- BOOKKEEPER.

Though important for orchestrating events and bringing about order, this is the most mundane and an obvious use of the journal3 therefore, it will be skipped as part of this discussion.

3.Keeping a journal helps keep teachers fired up and trying--CHEERLEADER.

Self-talk helps a lot. Some of my journal entries are pure pep-talks, to gear myself up for what lies ahead or to keep myself going when the going is tough. Notice the coaching and cheerleading in the self-talk of this journal entry:

89F-p2-8/21c: I'm starting this year out feeling nervous because more than ever before I'm determined to move with the students, grab unscheduled opportunities, and follow their lead. I'm also committed to more "authentic" reading and writing. It's scary because each day is an unknown. It also hold the most exciting possibilities. --Go for it, Marne'.

Sometimes things happen that I want to share, but doing so might be too strong for the delicate relationship with a particular student and an outside colleague probably wouldn't understand or be interested, so I talk it through in my journal. Joanne Cooper (1991) expresses this use of the journals for me:

Journals allow us to examine our own experiences, to gain a fresh perspective, and by that means begin to transform the experiences themselves. I was startled by the power of this process. . . .It is through telling our own stories that we learn who we are and what we need (p.99).

It is interesting to me that I gain sustenance from rereading my journals. I am not sure why. Perhaps the stories remind me what I have been through and that I can continue with renewed vigor and confidence.

Telling our own stories is a way to impose form upon our often chaotic experiences (Grumet, 1988) and, in process, to develop our own voice. Listening to our own stories is a way for us to nourish, encourage, and sustain ourselves (Howe, 1984), to enter into a caring relationship with all the parts of our self (Noddings, 1984) (p. 97).

Writing in a journal is. . .a way to attend to the self, to care for and to feed oneself. It can be a place to dump anger, guilt, or fear instead of dumping it on those we love. It can be a place to clarify what it is we feel angry or guilty about. It can be a place to encourage ourselves, to support ourselves, in working through that anger or guilt, and it can be a place to transform silence into language and action (p. 105).

In regard to this last point, I would like to share a poem from my journal. In it I vent my anger, my frustration, my concern, my wanting out of this situation. But, of course, I stuck it out. I submit that writing this poem helped. Through writing it, I discovered how to handle the situation for the month left of school, and it worked.

Crowther
Crowther
tears me apart.
He shouts his profanities at me
while screaming inside
at his car accident,
"This is a bull-shit class,"
"You're not fair,"
"You should do this and this
not this and this."
He's on the brink
of violence, wrath,
a semiautomatic gunning the room
and all of us.
He seethes.
He festers.

He's going to show US though
(or himself).
He'll be vastly wealthy someday
and then...
I'll regret
asking him to remind me that he rereads,
asking him to tone down his blue language,
walking away when I can no longer take his abuse.
I'll regret all that.
I must learn not
to take him on.
It only enlivens his explosion
and upsets me for HOURS,
DAYS.
I must try
to let him be invisible,
to understand his white hot bitterness
and not shovel in fuel,
and not give him one more thing to dislike about himself,
but give him a cool drink, even a doughnut of goodwidl.
Or just let him be
because he'd probably throw the water in my face
and mash the doughnut to crumbs
with a thousand pounds of his rage,
"Don't touch me!"
Crowther
tears me apart.
When will it end?
How can I help it end?

Another month of this seems an eternity.
This poem, written when I was feeling crushed by frustration, helped me understand what I had to do (I had exhausted most other options). I asked him where he would most like to sit. He chose the corner gf the room, off by himself. Of course, I tried not to let him see how pleased I was with that choice. Then I let him vegetate. I did not initiate any dialogue with him; I avoided eye contact; I let him be invisible, requiring nothing of him. If he made a derogatory remark, I did not hear it. He did remarkably well under these conditions, so foreign to my usual ways. He turned in his weekly reading logs, brought his book and journal daily and used them faithfully, and was always on time. Furthermore, the next fall he made a special trip to my class to show me a letter he had received from Lee Iacocca because of a letter Crowther had written to tell Iacocca how much he had enjoyed reading his book and to ask him some questions. I guess I learned that sometimes the best thing to do is go against my principles. Yet in this case my overriding principle besides self-preservation was to move with the kid, to help him to good works.

4.Keeping a journal helps teachers to react to their involvement in the language processes in the classroom and to provide a demonstration for other language learners--PEER LEARNER.

If I wanted students to write, I needed to be writing. "Something was immediately apparent: the writing [of Newman's students] was guarded and cautious. Their brief synopses lacked spontaneity and offered little insight into any connections they might be making....Something was lacking -- I wasn't writing" (Newman, 1988, p.134). Part of my role as a teacher trying to increase literate behavior was to demonstrate such behavior myself. Something interesting happened. What started out for the purpose of demonstration, became me, not something I was performing for the benefit of my students, though they probably did benefit even more so. Shirley Brice Heath suggests that the single most important condition for literacy learning is the presence of mentors who are joyfully literate people (1983). "Adolescents need teachers who demonstrate that reading and writing can bring tremendous joy to life" (Calkins, 1986, p.103).
In 1987 I had been reading Last of the Breed by Louis L'Amour while my students were reading silently. When it was time to write about their reading, I felt an overwhelming desire to write about what I had been reading, and I did. Up until that event, I had written with the students during that time but about my observations and reflections on the class. This time I wrote as a reader. I wrote in the form a letter to several students who were fans of L'Amour. They wrote back. The experience was so enjoyable that I began writing regularly to students in a separate journal about my reading (Isakson, 1991). I was glad to discover this naturally from a authentic need as a reader. Atwell (1987) shows herself as a reader and a writer to her students:

I put my true authority on the line from the very first day of school: `I'm a writer and a reader. Writing and reading and teaching them to you are my life.'....My reputation as a teacher depends on the importance I place on writing and reading, how my passion informs my teaching, and how I invite kids to share that passion" (Atwell, 1987, p.48).

Reacting authentically to my personal reading and writing can have a strong effect on my students, I believe. So does Frank Smith (1990):

The development of thinking depends on the company we keep.... The development of how we think is affected by how we see people around us behave, and by the role we see for ourselves in their activities....People become thinkers who associate with thinking people, including the thinking people who can be met through literature and art (p. 125).

If they see my thinking, if I engage them in thinking with me and with the community of thinkers in the classroom, they will be affected for good by this company they keep. Furthermore, I need to see what my students are going through from the inside out. I need to be reading the kinds of books they are, writing in genres my students are, and pondering the processes I go through in order to talk about reading and writing with insight and credibility. "The quality of teaching can only be enhanced when teachers think through the question of the nature of the learning process they want to promote in students" (Blue, 1981, p. 20).
The journals are tools for making visible my processing as well as the joys and challenges of my reading and writing.

5.Keeping a journal helps teachers see students as individuals so they can support optimal learning--MENTOR/FRIEND.

I wrote in my journal to learn from my students by trying to make sense of what I was seeing in my classroom. I had heard of Lucy Calkins who had done an ethnography studying one child (Calkins, 1983). I had heard of the Graves, Sowers, Calkins NIE project where they observed sixteen children for two years in classrooms in the process of writing in order to discover how children develop as writers and how schools can help (Graves, 1983). These folks were actually watching students and learning how to teach from them. Yetta Goodman's "kid watching" has had a big impact on me (Goodman, 1978). The notion that I could learn how to teach by watching the kids instead of leaning on "experts" or finding "programs" was an empowering idea for me.
"When I stopped focusing on me and my methods and started observing students and their learning, I saw a gap yawning between us -- between what I did as language teacher and what they did as language learners" (Atwell, 1987, p.4). I discovered this also. Moreover, writing down observations helped individual kids jump out of the crowd and into my focus. Insights would come or sometimes the opposite would happen, and I felt uncertain and confused about what to do to support a learner. I kept thinking about the situation, however. The only things I could think to do at times were to "interview" the student to try to understand events from his/her perspective and then to collaborate in coming up with an answer. Perhaps this was the best thing to have done:

We have much to learn by using the child as our theoretical and curricular informant. "The Child as Informant" is our call to the profession to go beyond kid watching to the active examination of current assumptions about language learning and instruction" (Harste, Woodward, Burke, 1984, p. xvii).

Voss (1988) learned about the learning of her students by writing down her observations of their learning. "When most of the first graders in one class suddenly began collaborating with each other on original stories, I wrote about it in my journal and discovered some of their discoveries -- and became more aware of the kind of help they needed from me" (p.673). Likewise, my journals are filled with narratives about my students. Quite often these stories result in discoveries about how to support them, but always such entries help me see a real human being worth knowing and caring about--a valuable accomplishment given that I face well over a hundred students a day.

The above detailed discussion explicated the five uses I make of my journals, weaving in the experiences shared and the opinions expressed in the professional literature.

IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION
Why tell this story? First, for me tg find out why I keep a teaching journal, a time consuming task. The act of writing this report of my inquiry has been another "write to learn" experience. Second, to share its values with other professionals, who thereby might come to view the time it takes as well spent and inquire into and reflect upon their own practice.

My results invite other researchers to look where I did and see what I saw. My ideas are candidates for others to entertain, not necessarily as truth, let alone Truth, but as positions about the nature and meaning of a phenomenon that ________ their sensibility and shape their thinking about their own inquiries (Peshkin, 1985, p.280).

Keep a reflective journal. "Just try," Judith Newman says. Before long we can be a voice of support to our colleagues who are trying to risk a learner stance in their classrooms. We can nurture in surprisingly effective ways those we care about, our students.

A transactional theory of reading (Rosenblatt, 1978; Goodman, 1984; Harste, Woodward, & Burke, 1984; Siegel, 1984) has strong parallels to what my journals do fgr me as a teacher. Just as readers transact with texts and both are changed in the process, I am changed by my transactions with the participants in the teaching situation and so are they. "The inferential processes we use to interpret the text/situation simultaneously change it and us" (Mayher, 1990, p.283). Change is what reflective journals help us do. Robert Boody (1992) says that teacher reflection has to do with change: "change of heart, change of being, change of actions" (p.157). It also has to do with keeping what is good and knowing why.
We teachers need to stop the "unquestiofing compliance with curriculum guides, blind faith in instructional materials, impotence in the face of government and administrative edicts, guilt and anger about innovation, and lack of confidence as decision makers" (Nielsen, 1991, p.1). Journal keeping seems to be powerful way to get in touch with our professional selves, learn from our experiences, and struggle to make sense of the anomalies that surface daily.
Analyzing these journals has made it clear that I will always have something happening in the classroom that I wall find unsettling and puzzling. This goes for things I think I have figured out, too. I suppose those "sure things" change inevitably as my awareness deepens and expands. But I can find my own way, just as Frank Smith told me in 1982, as can all of us who ask questions of our practice and replace the continuum from apathy to frustration and burn-out with an inquiring, observant, reflective and rejuvenating fascination for what goes on in our classrooms. Levine (1979) suggests a non-fluttered approach to all this thinking:

We're constantly building a new image of ourselves and wondering what's next. We have allowed ourselves very little space for not-knowing. Very seldom do we have the wisdom not-to-know, to lay the mind open to deeper understanding. When confusion occurs in the mind, we identify with it and say we are confused; we hold onto it. Confusion arises because we fight against our not-knowing, which experiences each moment afresh witho ut preconceptions or expectations. We are so full of ways of seeing and ideas of how things should be, we leave no room for wisdom to arise. We desire to know in only a certain way, a way which will corroborate our image of a rational, separate, autonomous self. When we open our minds, our hearts, not trying to understand, but simply allowing understanding to occur, we find more than was expected. When we let go of our ignorance and confusion, we allow our knowing mind to arise (Levine, 1979, pp. 38-39).

Jane Birch (1992) puts forth the hard reality that we must face in order to be the kind of teachers we want to be:

Could there be something in the kind of thought that compels us to "pause to ask" that we are afraid may require more of us as people than we are willing to give ? By pausing to ask are we not in danger of hearing something we may not want to hear? Something that may call on us to give‹not just our time‹but our souls: our care, our concern, our passion? And perhaps even more than this, our willingness to change in the face of those things we might see in ourselves‹those realizations we might come to when we pause long enough, not just to still our bodies, but to also still our minds and hearts? Are we perhaps afraid of something within ourselves, something we are not sure we are ready to give up and so are not sure we want to face? If so, then the problem with reflection is not technical at all, but spiritual (p.2).

If we are willing to be teachers as learners, we all too soon will come to the realization that "discovering who we are is to confront who we are not" (Julie Preece, personal communication, October 7, 1992). But then that is where learning begins. "Too often we find ourselves running away from something that we can't progress without. To sit still long enough, and listen close enough, and care enough to "hear" the problem is to already be reaching into the solution" (Birch, 1992, p.3).

REFERENCES

Atwell, N. (1987). In the middle: Writing, reading, and learning with adolescents. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Birch, J. (1992). Reflecting on reflection. Unpublished manuscript. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.

Blue, T.W. (1981). The teaching and learning process. Washington, D.C.: National Education Association. Quoted in S. Kaplan. (1987). The teacher as learner. In G. L. Bissex and R. H. Bullock (Eds.), Seeing for ourselves: Case-study research by teachers of writing (pp. 41-58). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. 56.

Boody, R.M. (1992). An examination of the philosophic grounding of teacher reflection and one teacher's experience. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.

Calkins, L.M. (1983). Lessons from a child. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Calkins, L.M. (1986). The art of teaching writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Cooper, J.E. (1991). Telling our own stories: The reading and writing of journals or diaries. In C. Witherell & N. Noddings (Eds.). Stories lives tell: Narrative and dialogue in education (pp. 96-112). New York: Teachers College.

Goodman, K. (1984). Unity in reading. In H, Singer & R.B. Ruddell (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (3rd Ed.). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. 813-840.

Goodman, Y. (1978). Kid watching: An alternative to testing. National Elementary School Principal, 57: 41-45.

Goodman, Y. &, Burke, C. (1972). Reading Miscue Inventory Manual: Procedure for Diagnosis and Evaluation. New York: Macmillan.

Graves, D.H. (1983). Writing: Teachers and children at work. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Grumet, M. (1988). Bitter milk: Women and teaching. Amherst: University of Massachusetts.

Harste, J. C., Woodward, V. A., & Burke, C. (1984). Language stories and literacy lessons. Portsmouth,NH:Heinemann.

Heath, S.B. (1983). Ways with Words: Language, life and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Henke, L. (1990). quoted in C. Weaver. Understanding whole language: From principles to practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. p. 283.

Howe, F. (1984). Myths of coeducation. Bloomington: Indiana University.

Huntsman, R. (1990). Questioning and responding. In D. Stephens (Ed.) What matters? A primer for teaching reading. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Isakson, M. (1991). Learning about reluctant readers through their letters. Journal of Reading, 34, 632-637.

Jones, N.K. (1990). Getting started: Creating a literate classroom environment. In D. Stephens (Ed.) What matters? A primer for teaching reading. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Levine, S. (1979). A gradual awakening. Anchor Press.

Mayher, J.S. (1990). Uncommon sense: Theoretical practice in language education. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Melville, H. (1959). Moby Dick. New York: Dell. (Original work published in 1851)

Murray, D.M. (1990). Shoptalk: Learning to write with writers. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.

Nielsen, A. (1991). Reading and writing our professional lives: Critical reflection on practice. Course announcement. Mount Saint Vincent University.

Newman, J. (1988) Journals: Mirrors for seeing ourselves as learners, writers and teachers. English Education, 20, 134-156.

Newman, J. (1991) Interwoven connections. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley: University of California.

Peshkin, A. (1985). Virtuous subjectivity: in the participant-observer's eyes. In D.Berg & K.Smith (Eds.), Exploring clinical methods for social research. Beverly Hills: Sage. pp.267-281.

Rosenblatt, L. (1978). The reader, the text, the poem. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University.

Schon, D.A. (1983). The reflective practitioner. New York: Basic Books.

Siegel, M.G. (1984). Reading as signification. Unpublished dissertation. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University.

Smith F. (1990). to think. New York: Teachers College Press.

Snow, M. (1990). quoted in C. Weaver. Understanding whole language: From principles to practace. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. p. 276-277.

Spradley, J.P. (1980). Participant observation. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Voss, M.M. (1988). The light at the end of the journal: A teacher learns about learning. Language Arts, 65 (7), 669-674.

Weaver, C. (1990). Understanding whole language: From principles to practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Williams, D.D. (1992). Naturalistic inquiry. Unpublished manuscript. Brigham Young University.

APPENDIX A

AUDIT TRAIL, Summarized
June 23, 1992: Thought of several ideas to study.

June 24, 1992: Fleshed out three ideas.

June 28, 1992: Thought of six more ideas.

June 30, 1992: Listened to others ideas, talked to David about two ideas. He liked the second best: look at my journals. I listed three reasons why I like that idea also.

July 1, 1992: Read a naturalistic inquiry study. Decided what to look for as I read the journals. Read how to make fieldnotes and listed questions I want answered.

July 7$ 1992: Read four pages of 1985 journal, was confused about what to look for, listed possibilities that I would find interesting, wrote for four pages trying to find a focus. Read the entire year's entries for 4th period in 1985-86. Then started to read 1989. Expressed my fears about doing this, "I am afraid to read these journals. Approach/Avoidance. I'm afraid of seeing the teacher in those journals. Was my first year my best year? Has it been downhill since then?"

July 8, 1992: Made decisions about how to organize the data, set up a coding system. Thought about my focus again for two pages.

July 9, 1992: Entered 14 ideas for focus onto the computer.

July 10, 1992: Decided to go into journals with no focus, but just to see what I could see. After one hour, I was surprised to see that my reflections about the entries were substantially longer than descriptions of them. I spent five hours and twenty minutes making fieldnotes. I narrowed the project from all journals to two journals then from whole journals to one month each.

July 11, 1992: Worked on the 1989 journal for five hours and covered only first two days of school! Decided to stop taking fieldnotes.

July 13, 1992: Made an appointment to interview my department chairperson about me as an example of teacher change.

July 14, 1992: Printed out fieldnotes--17 pages single-spaced. Talked to Rob as Peer Debriefing about Tom in 1985 journal, trying to understand dramatic change in him in seven days. Told David about my frustration in doing Domain Analysis--doing fieldnotes of fieldnotes!

July 16, 1992: We helped Rick find domains: this greatly helped me. Determined that I could do domain analysis.

July 19, 1992: I read and reread chapters on domain analysis and focused observations. Interviewed my husband about me changing as a teacher.

July 20, 1992: Appointment with department chair fell through.

July 21, 1992: Reread my fieldnotes and listed a question for focus. Decided I was not ready for a focus yet. First I should do a domain analysis.

July 22, 1992: Went back to fieldnotes and inserted the actual journal entry before the fieldnotes about it. I added more fieldnotes to several. I worked 5 1/2 hours on fieldnotes. Started domain analysis, easier than I thought--eight pages in one hour!

July 23, 1992: Worked one hour on domain analysis. This is fun.

July 25, 1992: Finished domain analysis for 1985 journal in 1 hour 40 minutes. Finished domain analysis of pages 14-19 of 1989 journal in 1 hour 15 minutes. Finally understand "focused questions." Selected four.

July 27, 1992: Finished 1989 domain analysis to page 25 in 55 minutes. Did the focused questions and added to the domains for the four selected. 3 hours, 27 minutes. Used only the actual journal entries, note my 1992 fieldnotes for these focused observations. Studied how to do taxonomic and componential analysis. Reread and made notes. Finally decided the best way to learn it is to try it.

July 28, 1992: Selected a focus, then changed my mind. Decided to go with "Uses of the Journals for Me." Read through items under this domain, sorting them into groups. Hardest part was giving labels to the categories. A semantic map helped me do this. Created inclusive domains by asking "What is 'the uses of my journal' a subset of?" Asked dyadic and triadic contrast questions.

July 29, 19922 Worked on componential analysis 1 1/2 hours. Generated six dimensions of contrast. Looked at terms that matched other terms in these six ways and asked dyadic questions again. Generated five more dimensions of contrast. Redid the analysis-- another 1 1/2 hours. I really enjoyed doing this. Read how to do theme analysis. Listed a plan for doing so. Changed my mind and decided to type up the three analyses completed and to percolate on themes while doing so. Listed some ideas for themes. Read about how to write the ethnographic report. Decided I needed more models. Decided on an audience for my report--inservice teachers considering becoming researchers in their own classrooms. Came up with two major themes. Worked on tentative outline. Stayed up until 2:52 A.M. July 30. "William Andrews has been executed. I'm going to bed." I put in over 17 hours on this project today!
July 30, 1992: Reread what a quality report should include.

July 31, 1992: Worked on report for 2 hours 15 minutes: added more references to literature review, wrote three sections of methodology. "I dgn't know how specific to become in explaining what I did--I probably erred on the side of too much detail."

August 1, 1992: Read Spradley pages 130-139 on componential analysis. Discovered why it is called that: components of meaning discovered by systematic search for attributes associated with the categories.

August 10, 1992: Wrote rough draft most of the day, revising earlier sections and hammering out the theme section. Created meaning in the act of writing. Generated more insights concerning themes.

August 11, 1992: Randomly selected one event from each journal to use as an example to analyze in terms of each of the two overriding themes. Reminded self to be sure to change all the names of students.

August 21, 1992: Reread entire manuscript. Explained what I was learning from the componential analysis. Selected two items from the taxonomy that most interested me and looked up the stories that caused the formulation of these domains. Selected one of these, copied the fieldnotes into the body of the paper and proceeded to discuss the line of the componential analysis matrix. Strong insights evoked and had to rethink some of the contrasts. Added another component because in depth probing revealed inadequacies. Decided to do a cursory review of literature using only the sources I have at home. Worked on review for 4 hours. Is a conceptual piece acceptable in a review of literature? Found some relevant quotes but are they the "literature" I should be reviewing?

Sept. 3, 1992: Looked at literature again and was struck with how all my sources are comments, opinions, experiences; none are experimental or results of research. "So, is this a valuable 'review of literature'? I suspect not, but for me it is because it is helping me articulate what journals do for me."

Sept. 4, 1992: In reviewing Rob's dissertation, I realized an entire domain to add to taxonomy.

Sept. 17, 1992: Worked on rough draft.

Sept. 20, 1992: Worked on rough draft until 5 A.M. next day. Ugh! I am least pleased with theme synthesis and conclusions--needs lots of work yet.

Sept. 25, 1992: Worked on theme synthesis, review of literature, and discussion. Decided to arrange review according to taxonomy.

Sept. 26, 1992: Worked on revising entire report. Put references into APA format. Added more examples.

Sept. 28, 1992: Gave copy to David and Teresa for feedback. Gave copies to counseling interns as an example of learning by reflecting on classroom observations.

Oct. 3, 1992: Worked on editing the paper. Revisions occurred also.

Oct. 5, 1992: Received feedback from David and Teresa. Need to put in more examples and rewrite for audience. Don't worry about sounding so academic. The sections for a research report will probably turn off teachers. Write this article for them. Made lots of notes for changes. Sent a reminder to interns that I'd appreciate their feedback on the article. Typed up this summary of Audit Trail. Actual audit trail is 54 pages!

Oct. 6, 1992: Reread entire manuscript with audience in mind. Revised entire manuscript. Put in more examples. Rearranged sections. Gave more catchy titles to sections. Looked up some references I had questions about. Gave new draft to David.

Reflecting on Reflection
Jane Birch

One woman's thoughts on being asked to spend time reflecting on her experiences: "My life is so hectic I barely have time to breathe, much less reflect, and if I take time for reflection, something else in my schedule is going to have to go. There is no way to get everything done!"
When this person finally "schedules" time for reflection, one questions the quality of the reflection she will be able to engage in. For such a person, who embodies the modern anxieties too many of us feel, is it possible to "schedule" time for reflection? Or is it only possible to set aside time for the body to remain immobile while one allows one's mind to race about?4BR> While many of us feel the need to take more time to think, to ponder, to reflect upon our experiences, too often we reach the end of the day so exhausted that we don't even take the time to reflect upon the lack of reflection during our day. And too often we construe the problem in terms of limits on our time, resources, and physical strength. Do these limits define us, or do we define the limits? If the limits define us, then the answer is technological, but if we define the limits, perhaps the problem is spiritual, and the only answer, moral.
On the side that argues for technological solutions, are those who resist the idea that modern man is not reflective. They assert that surely the progress made by modern man in science, technology, law, government and world order are evidence that at no time more than the present have men and women been more anxiously engaged in thought. Of this type of thinking, one of the most important 20th century philosophy, Martin Heidegger, wrote:

Man today is in flight from thinking. This flight-from-thought is the ground of thoughtdessness. But part of this flight is that man will neither see nor admit it. Man today will even flatly deny this flight from thinking. He will assert the opposite. He will say‹and quite rightly‹that there were at no time such far-reaching plans, so many inquiries in so many areas, research carried on as passionately as today. Of course. And this display of ingenuity and deliberation has its own great usefulness. Such thought remains indispensable. But‹it also remains true that it is thinking of a special kind.

Its peculiarity consists in the fact that whenever we plan, research, and organize, we always reckon with conditions that are given. We take them into account with the calculated intention of their serving specific purposes. Thus we can count on definite results. This calculation is the mark of all thinking that plans and investigates. Such thinking remains calculation even if it neither works with numbers nor uses an adding machine or computer. Calculative thinking computes. It computes ever new, ever more promising and at the same time more economical possibilities. Calculative thinking is not meditative thinking, not thinking which contemplates the meaning which reigns in everything that is.

The kind of thinking Heidegger criticizes in modern man coincides with the type of thinking one imagines can actually be scheduled into one's daily planner‹the kind of thought one questions is really thoughtful at all, in the sense of having the quality of care, concern, and passion. Somehow, the words reflection and thought have been transmuted by the modifier of "calculative." This transmutation, not at all isolated at this partacular instance, should be of concern to all of us. As Neil Postman claims:

Technology imperiously commandeers our most important terminology. It redefines "freedom," "truth," "intelligence," "fact," "wisdom," "memory," "history,"‹all the words we live by. And it does not pause to tell us. And we do not pause to ask.

And why do we not pause to ask? Is it really a matter of time? Is not "thought" in fact as inescapably a part of daily life as breathing? If so, then perhaps, as Heidegger suggests, it is the kind of thought that we are concerned with here.

To the mind enamored with framing problems within a technological framework, the "problems" one reflects on are problems "out there," away from us, public, restricted, essentially technical in nature. This "objectificatign" of the problems divorces us from not only the world, but from each other, and from ourselves. The ability to "schedule" time for reflection in an otherwise hectic, and anxiety producing life-style, posits our ability to reflect as an essentially active, aggressive, calculative role in which one takes on the world‹a role that appears to contradict with the inner transforming effect we might otherwise hope to be the result of serious, deep, and profound reflection. Parker Palmer succinctly analyzes the problem in terms of the academician's pursuit of truth. But his point is equally poignant for a discussion of reflection:

When academics speak of "the pursuit of truth," they rightly imply that a gap exists between ourselves and truth. But there is a conceit hidden in that image, the conceit that we can close the gap as we track truth down. In [my] understanding, the gap exists not so much because truth is hidden and evasive but because we are. We hide from the transforming power of truth; we evade truth's quest for us. That is why [many ancient seekers of truth] went into the desert, into solitude and silence: they were trying to sit still long enough, in a space open enough, that truth could find them out, track them down. The truth that sought them was not an inert object or proposition. Rather it had the active quality of a person who wished to draw them into a community of mutual knowledge, accountability, and care.

By this understanding, I not only pursue truth but truth pursues me. I not only grasp truth but truth grasps me. I not only know truth but truth knows me. Ultimately, I do not master truth, but truth masters me. Here, the one-way movement of objectivism, in which the active knower tracks down the inert object of knowledge, becomes the two-way movement of persons in search of each other. Here, we know even as we are known.

Too often we find ourselves running away from something that we can't progress without. To sit still long enough, and listen close enough, and care enough to "hear" the problem is to already be reaching into the solution.

Appendix E

Criteria for Judging the Quality of this Study

A discussion of methodology should also include the steps I went through to meet the standards of quality research. Lincoln and Guba (1985) suggest that four types of standards or criteria be used to ensure the trustworthiness of naturalistic inquiries: credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. Below I show to what degree I meet the criteria in this study of the uses of journals for me.

1. Is a meaningful (not trivial) topic addressed?
Yes, it is certainly meaningful for me. I came into the project knowing that journal writing was a way that I made sense of what was happening in my classroom; I came away understanding why this is so and that the process might be valuable for other teachers who also want to improve as facilitators of learning.

2. Is naturalistic inquiry appropriate for the topic?
Yes. Indeed I can think of no other method that would bring about the insights I gained from this methodology. Certainly no experiment would have lead to the same type of discoveries.

3. Is the study credible? This will be addressed by answering the seven questions below:
a. Is prolonged engagement adequate? Yes, the "prolonged engagement" in this case was five years of keeping journals and seven years of thinking about their value.
b. Is persistent observation adequate? Yes, as I went back to look at the journals I spent over 17 hours making field notes over only 10 pages of original journal entries and another 38 hours analyzing the data, much time of which necessitated going back into the journals to "observe" again.
c. Is triangulation used appropriately? I do not know what sources I would have used for triangulation in this case because the question of what are the uses of the journals for me have one source of information, the journals. I submit this criterion does not apply for this study.
d. Is peer debriefing used appropriately? Yes, though I could have done more or it. I shared some of my confusions about what I was seeing in the journals with another doctoral student, a professor, and several people in a class about naturalistic inquiry. However, the encounters were informal and short rather than in-depth debriefings. Nevertheless, they helped me grapple with some difficult assues and I made headway because of their input. I had also planned to visit with a colleague at school but the appointment fell through.
e. Is negative case analysis used appropriately? As I was doing the taxonomy I checked and rechecked the data to see if all instances could fit within the categories. Some new categories merged. What I did not do was look beyond the specific pages analyzed to see if their was evidence for other conclusions about how I use journals. There very well may be other uses. Therefore, I conclude that I could have done a better job of negative case analysis using the "referential adequacy checks."
f. Is referential adequacy used appropriately? I have plenty of additional journals for this purpose. They are considered archival data and at some point I can go to them to do a negative case analysis. I did not do this; therefore, the answer is no. I am very interested, however, in doing so.
g. Are member checks used appropriately? Yes, I am the only member in this study. I was studying myself as a journal-keeper. Actually this criteria does not apply in this study.
I think the answers to the above questions show that this study is fairly credible. There are some steps I can take to make it more so: Go over the data again and do a negative case analysis; do domain analysis on pieces of the archival data to further check the conclusions (taxonomy, components of meaning, and themes) for adequacy.

4. Is thick description adequate to make the study transferable? Yes, I write portrayals of the journals and of me that include lots of stories creating a picture of me as a teacher and of the journals as a record of my observing and thinking. Also I flesh out the domain analysis with examples from the field notes. Furthermore, I list what I learned from the study, what I think will "transfer" for me from this study to my classroom teaching.

5. Is the study dependable and confirmable? I will answer three questions to address this criteria:
a. Is an adequate audit trail maintained? Yes, my audit trail is 31 pages long. It includes every decision I made, the chronology of those decisions, and the time spent. It also is a record of my confusions and struggles and the sources I went to for help. Some of the audit trail is in the fieldnotes also. Those comments are labeled as MN = methodological notes.
b. Is an audit conducted? Not at the time of this writing, but Dr. Williams plans to conduct an audit when he reads this report. The audit trail will accompany the report.
c. Are data collection and analysis procedures adequate? Yes, the descriptions in the first part of this section explain in detail the procedures I went through to collect the data (FIELDNOTES) and how I analyzed the data (DOMAIN ANALYSIS, TAXONOMIC ANALYSIS, COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS AND THEME ANALYSIS).

6. Other considerations:
a. Is the study conducted under natural conditions? Yes, the journals are real.
b. Are the members treated ethically? This does not apply as I am the only member.
c. Are emic perspectives highlighted in the study? Emic and edic are inseparable in this study. I did try to come to understand the 1985 and 1989 self I was.
d. Are sampling strategies logical and clearly reported? Yes, the audit trail shows that I started too big and had to keep cutting back on how euch of the journals to analysis. I started at the beginning of two school years -- 1985 and 1989.
e. Are all contradictions in the report analyzed and resolved? The main contradictions were found as I searched for themes. They became the impetus for some of the themes, namely, the clash of lived theory with espoused theory and the search for "right" ways to do things in the face of wanting learners to find their own way. Otherwise I have not become away of other contradictions.
f. Are emergent issues inductively identified? Definitely. The domains emerged, the taxonomy emerged, the components emerged, and the themes emerged from the analyses of the fieldnotes.
h. Are alternative perspectives/interpretations included? No, other than the thinking I showed in trying to arrive at my conclusions.
i. Is the researcher described clearly? Yes, in the portrayal in the results section. Plus, since the study is about my journal and about me as a learner in my classroom, I am very much put out on the line for all readers to see.
j. Is the report well written? To the best of my ability given the cgnstraints of time.

With a few exceptions this study fits the criteria for a study using naturalistic inquiry methods.

Table IV

TAXONOMY OF INCLUDED TERMS

Making the world a better place
Improving education
Understanding learning and teaching
Making sense of classroom events
Using methods to kid-watch
Using a journal for improving classroom practice

Semantic Relationship: FUNCTION

X is a use gf my journals for me

1DETECTIVE--help me puzzle through what I am seeing and why I'm doing what I'm doing

1.1make sense of daily experiences so I can make sound instructional decisions

1.2write to learn

1.2.1focus on the anomalies

1.2.2record surprises for later reflection

1.2.3discover ideas for instruction

1.3pull out buried assumptions and verbalize underlying theory

1.4consider problem

1.4.1ask questions about my concerns

1.4.2record a concern to think about later

1.4.3work through decisions, making progress to solve problems

1.4.4record students' misgivings about my choices or procedures so I can think about how to deal with them

1.5puzzle over the appropriateness of something I did or did not do

2BOOKKEEPER--help me keep track of what was done and what needs to be done

2.1categorize types of events and thinking

2.2make reference lists

2.2.1make general list of overall events of class

2.2.2record what each class did to keep track of where each class is

2.2.2.1list names of books shared to avoid duplication and remind of who has shared

2.2.2.2record student-voted decisions

2.2.3record what small groups do so can keep track

2.2.4record what individuals choose to do if different from a group so I can give follow up support

2.3remind me of specific things I need to do

3CHEERLEADER--help me keep fired up to keep trying

3.1You can do it!

3.1.1cheer myself on

3.1.2give self a pep talk

3.2deal with the difficulties

3.2.1confront fears

3.2.2justify my actions or concerns

3.3Look at the positives

3.3.1record evidence of engagement so I try to understand the magic and keep it coming

3.3.2show the valuable things that are happening

4PEER-LEARNER--let me react to my involvement in the language processes in the classroom

4.1describe my learning from books and creative writing

4.2react to my participation as a language user (reading, writing, speaking, listening

5MENTOR/FRIEND--help me see students as individuals so I can support their learning

5.1record specific observations (timings, behaviors, attributes) so I can learn about students and how to support their learning.

5.2see progress of students over time by contrasting earlier and later observations

5.3placehold events of developing relationships so I can move with students, caring for them as people and supporting them as learners.

Table V

COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS MATRIX
In the cgmponential analysis matrix the numbers refer to the items in the taxonomy (Table III). The letters refer to the dimensions of contrast listed below. 1/2/3 denote which dimension applies. "ei" = can fit in either dimension. "na" = not applicable

1 2 3

Ain-coming purpose for discovered while discovered later

writing writing

Bobvious underlying

Cpuzzled, confrontingcelebrating

hard issues

4DL>

Dstudent-centeredme-centered content-centered

Edescribinghypothesizing categorizing

Fwhere to startplacehold forend thoughts

tomorrow reflection

Gunderstand to causeunderstand so can continued

changebe repeated

Hunderstand teachingunderstand learning

Istudent-initiatedoutgrowth of situation teacher-initiated

(intentional) (unplanned)

Jforward-lookingbackward-looking

Koverallspecific<'DL>

A B C D E F G H I J K

1.1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 ei 2 2 ei
1.2.1 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 2 2
1.2.2 1 2 1 1 1 2 ei 2 2 2 ei
1.2.3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 ei
1.3 3 2 1 2 2 2 ei ei 2 2 1
1.4.1 2 2 1 ei 2 2 ei ei 2 ei ei
1.4.2 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 2 ei
1.4.3 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 2 1 ei
1.5 1 2 1 2 1 2 ei 1 2 2 ei
2.1 1 1 na na 3 2 ei ei 2 ei 1
2.2.1 1 1 na na 1 2 ei ei 2 ei 1
2.2.2 1 1 na 1 1 1 3 na 2 1 1
2.2.2.1 1 1 2 1 1 1 3 na 2 1 2
2.2.2.2 1 1 na 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1
2.2.3 1 1 na 1 1 1 3 na 2 1 2
2.2.4 1 1 na 1 1 1 3 na 2 1 2
2.3 1 1 na 2 1 1 1 na 2 1 ei
3.1.1 1 1 2 2 1 3 3 1 2 1 1
3.1.2 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 1 1
3.2.1 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 1 1
3.2.2 1 2 1 2 1 3 2 1 2 2 ei
3.3.1 1 2 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 ei
3.3.2 1 1 2 1 1 3 2 ei 2 2 ei
4.1 1 1 2 2 1 3 3 2 1 2 2
4.2 2 2 1 2 2 2 3 2 1 2 2
4.3 3 2 na 1 3 3 3 ei 3 1 1
5.1 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 2
5.2 2 2 2 1 1 2 3 2 2 2 2
5.3 3 2 ei 1 1 ei 1 ei 3 1 ei