My Freshmen are using monthly journaling pages, along with other activities I have received several responses about these so I am re-posting.
I simply give my kids the page and check for completeness at the end of the month. I used to give them a prompt every day and make them write it, date it, and write a half-page response. With these, I set no requirements, which threw them at first, but I simply explained that it was their journal and to do what they thought needed to be done. I could tell they thought I had lost my mind, and I wasn't sure how this would turn out. When I went to grade them I couldn't believe how much work my kids had put into their journal pages! Full pages of poetry, illustrations, recipes, stories, etc... Giving up control and letting them take over has been one of the best things I have ever done.
These make good activities for interactive notebooks. Next year I plan on having a "grab a snack and write Fridays." This will allow them to share some of the recipes they have found or shared. This should be fairly quick to do and can lead to other writing activities, i.e. writing critiques, responses, memories, etc...
Here are the links to the other pages:
