Students handed in their journals. It is fun to read. From one view how can anyone judge a journal? How can I assign a mark for something subjective. What if Van Gogh only doodled in his? So one uses a rubric and makes them all aware of what the rubric is. They are supposed to make an entry every day. Some do not. That’s one way to mark it higher or lower, did you follow the rules which were addressed many times, which are written in the syllabus? Some try demonstrate a wide spectrum of experimentation, following various exercises from haikus to stream of consciousness writing, others only talk about what they had for breakfast over and over. The job of teaching writing, from my view, is just positioning them to be writing and that in itself is a catalyst with which they take the ball and run or not. I also realize the timeline isn’t only about right now, these seeds might bear fruit some years from now.