PaperBased.net

I love those quiz lists that come around in the email and on sites such as MySpace. They are such a quick and easy way to sum up exactly where you are at a certain period in your life. Yes - some of the questions can be a bit silly and don’t really search that deep, but I still find it quite revealing when I go back and re-read my answers a few months or even a few years down the track.

With this in mind I have created a printable one page list of journal prompt questions to sum up the last 3 months.

Download Printable Journal Prompts - The Last 3 Months

Two sources I need to credit for sparking the idea for this template:

A post on MetaFilter that asked about good questions to ask ourselves once a year. Check out the responses to the post as there are some great prompts/questions to ponder there.

A post on the Embodiment Livejournal Community by red_sleeve who printed out a 500 Question quiz, filled in her answers and placed it in an envelope inside her journal. The idea was that she could read the list in a years time. A cool idea and the envelope in her journal looked great too!

What is a Response Journal you ask?  It’s basically a journal of responses to something you are reading.  This site explains it as:

Keeping a response journal will give you an opportunity to express your own opinions about what is happening in the novel you are reading. Passages that upset you, make you happy, or that you simply do not understand, can be discussed in your journal entries.

The site also has a great list of prompts to use.  A similar resource, titled "What is a response journal?", is available at Instructional Strategies Online.  This site includes a number of PDF templates to download and print.

Busy Teacher’s Cafe has a great bookmark template of simple response journal prompts.  You can view the PDF template here.  Print one out and use it as a bookmark in the next book you read.  You can jot down notes on it as you read.

Some more prompts and some tips on writing a response journal can be found in the Lesson Bank at Teachers.net .  There’s also a very nice list at brtom.org, these ones are more for older kids and adults - they are well written and will really get you thinking.

I noticed that a lot of the hits on my journal writing prompts lens were coming from Google with search terms like “journal prompts for kids” and “writing prompts for kids”.  There were so many hits like this that I decided to set up a second lens specifically focused on prompts for kids and A Goldmine of Journal Writing Prompts for Kids is the end result. 

Currently there’s only about ten links to prompt resources and a few more links to articles on the benefits of journaling for kids.  The resources listed all have great collections of prompts though and are well worth a visit.  Expect this resource to grow much larger over the next few weeks as I find and add more links.

And of course, don’t forget the original lens if you are after journaling prompts more suitable for adults - A Goldmine of Journal Writing Prompts.

I have created a Squidoo lens that brings together a heap of links to sites that feature journal writing prompts. 

It’s called A Goldmine of Journal Writing Prompts.

I expect to be adding to it regularly as I stumble across more writing prompt sites.

Feel free to let me know in the comments below if you have a site with journal prompt or journal jar ideas!

I’m starting to accrue a bit of a collection of Moleskine notebooks and it occurred to me that I may never get around to using them all.  That got me thinking about all the different ways I could use them and this blog post was the result.  What will follow is 52 posts on different ways that you can use your Moleskine notebook.

The #1 position on my Uses For A Moleskine Notebook list is taken by the Personal Journal.  This is what I use my current Moleskines for.  They contain daily what’s happening entries, responses to journal writing prompts, pasted in items such as movie tickets and programme clippings and anything else I feel like adding.  As well as creating an historical record, journal writing is a great outlet for your day to day worries.

Moleskine’s make great journals, the paper is lovely to write on, the notebooks are sturdy and hardwearing and the back pocket is a great place to tuck mementos.  I also love the size, the pocket Moleskine’s fit nicely in a handbag or pocket so you can take them anywhere.  That said though, I have to admit that my next journal is a large sized one - all that more space to journal in.

There are some great resources on the web for starting your own personal journal.  Here are a handful of sites to get you started:

• How To Start Writing A Journal Or Keep A Diary at webdjinni
• More How To Journal on Oprah’s website 
• Inspired To Journal - possibly the very best journaling site on the web 
• Why journal?  Check out this list of 100 Benefits Of Journaling
• Photos on flickr of other people’s journals

I wrote yesterday about my first Moleskine and what a great little journal it was. I retired it at the end of 2006. I then went and did something very silly. I had a pile of blank notebooks I’d acquired over the years and rather than spending money on a new Moleskine straight away I thought I should use these other notebooks up first.

My new journal for 2007 was a pocket sized Debden lined notebook with a textured red cover. The red cover was cool - it went very well with my Moleskine 2007 red pocket weekly planner + notebook. The pages were a lovely off-white colour, a little more yellow than a Moleskine but still pleasing to the eye. The price tag wasn’t painful at all - I could afford to have a whole stack of these for the cost of one Moleskine! That was about as good as the notebook got though … you really do get what you pay for.

Firstly, there was no back pocket. Nowhere to stash the cool little bits and pieces I pick up and mean to someday glue into the journal. Then there was the fact that my ink bled completely through the page - I could only write on one side of each. (At least that meant I’d be finished with the book sooner.) Also, after only a couple of weeks, the cover was beginning to look grotty from bouncing around in my bag all the time. The Moleskine cover had obviously been a lot harder wearing, and the black had hidden any marks The most annoying thing of all though was how the notebook wouldn’t lie flat properly. It was such a pain to write in that I began to feel reluctant to journal at all.

By the first week of February I’d had enough. It had to go. The next Thursday evening I dropped into Borders and selected a nice pocket sized lined Moleskine. No price tag hesitancy this time - I knew this little notebook was going to be worth every cent. That night I carefully transposed the few journal entries I had made and then ceremoniously tossed the Debden notebook in the bin.

Lesson learnt!