In my own life, I have used journal writing as a way to engage in personal and reflective thinking. Journaling has also given me space to generate new ideas -- to "write myself into clarity." I can still remember the first diary I got when I was about eight years old. It was white leather and it had a lock with a very small key that I kept in my bank-safe (which was also where I kept all my baby-sitting money.). In this journal I recorded my daily activities, like where I road my bike, what books I got at the library, and what fun I had with friends or my cousin on the weekends. I can also say that one of the reasons why I wanted us to read Tompkins' (2012) sixth edition rather than seventh edition (2017) is because in the sixth edition, Tompkins still identifies journal writing as it's own genre with unique elements of text structure and text features. In the seventh edition, she only discusses journal writing as a tool for learning abo...