Journal

Journal Worksheet

Artists, writers, and scientists depend on their journals to help them remember and organize their thoughts. Part of your museum experience will be to make notes in a Museum Journal before, during, and after your museum visit. The more complete your journal notes are, the more complete your museum experience will be.

What kind of journal can you use? Let your teacher help you decide. He or she may provide you with a sketchbook or notebook, or you may be asked to bring one from home, or even to make one. At the end of this worksheet is a diagram for making a simple journal, or "chapbook". Make sure your journal is ready to go with you to the museum - it is your "silent partner" and helper!

What should you write in your journal? Many of the activities you will be doing have specific questions to answer. But the beauty of a journal is that you can add your own notes and drawing to help you remember facts and make decisions about what you are seeing and doing. Some of the general questions you might be answering are:

– What was the most interesting thing to me?
– What ideas did I get from what I saw?
– What did I already know about?
– What things were new to me?
– What did I do best?
– What do I need to work on?
– What would I like to know more about at the Museum?

Hints:
Be sure to date your entries - we always think we will remember, but sometimes we don’t
Make accurate descriptions - "big mask" is too general. Try to give enough details to make the picture come into your mind as clearly as if you were standing in front of the object.
Use lots of drawing and diagrams - these help our brain to remember in a different way than words do, and we remember symbols longer than we do written words

Your teacher may choose to display your journals as part of your post-visit activities - journals can be works of art in themselves. Leonardo da Vinci's journals are masterpieces of ideas, words, and pictures - do an internet search to find and explore his inspiring journals.