This week’s application assignment required that we write journal entries for three consecutive days. Taking 15 minutes each time, we were asked to write a reflective journal in dialogue form. Once a journal entry was completed we were to review and reflect on our writing and the journaling experience. The following assignment includes an account of the experience and some “considerations of how journal writing can help with the development of a qualitative researcher” (Walden University, 2013).
When I was younger, before I had children I used to regularly put my thoughts on paper. More accurately, I kept a journal since I was approximately eleven years old. I do not quite recall how it started, but at first I wrote little stories. Later, as I grew older I confided into my diary – my hopes, my dreams, my heartaches, my problems, and successes. Thus, being asked to keep a journal was not necessarily a new experience. However, what was unique was the dialogue form. Although I always wrote in a conversational tone and manner, I had never used the dialogue form to formulate my thoughts and experiences. At the beginning it felt awkward, strange, and uncomfortable to write a dialogue. Indeed, I struggled a little adhering to the form, constantly being tempted to fall back into essay style. However, after an initial feeling of being stuck, I found myself enjoying the experience.
Since I simply let my thoughts flow, looking back and reviewing what I had written was an interesting