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Self-evaluations of the stream of thought in

journal writing

James L. Myers*

Applied English Department, Ming Chuan University, Taoyuan, Taiwan

Received 1 March 2001; accepted 8 August 2001

Abstract

William James theoretical model of consciousness known as the stream of thought has

been applied in this study as an impetus for English as a foreign language learners self-

reflections on the purpose of journal writing. They evaluated their thought processes by fol-

lowing a guided questionnaire designed to elicit thought patterns based on James concept.After having written their journals over a 3-month period, students were able to trace their

strengths and weaknesses and describe their own learning patterns and needs in regard to

learning how to write in English for both personal expression and academic writing. Through

an analysis of their reflections, certain general patterns emerged in relation to vocabulary

acquisition, organizational strategies, invention, personal expression, and thought. These

patterns are described as well as examples of individual variation regarding students con-

scious awareness of their writing processes. # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Student journals; Consciousness; Meta-cognitive learning; Academic writing; Psychology and

language learning

1. Introduction

This paper applies aspects of Jamess (1950/1890) famous theory of the stream of

thought, to journal writing. It takes a case study approach to delineate individual

differences by focusing on 15 students writing processes. By using James model of

consciousness as a heuristic for Taiwanese students self-ruminations while writing

System 29 (2001) 481488

www.elsevier.com/locate/system

0346-251X/01/$ - see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

P I I : S 0 3 4 6 - 2 5 1 X ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 3 7 - 9

* Present address: 1, 6th floor, Alley 7, Lane 50, Chien Kuo Road, Pateh Hsih, Taoyaun Hsien, Tai-

wan, ROC. Fax: +886-3-3651583.

E-mail address: [email protected] (J.L. Myers).


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their journals, I hoped to discover to what degree self-reflection about their journal

writing also influenced their writing for academic purposes. My interest in this was

partially motivated by a study by Leki and Carson (1994). Undergraduates reported

that English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses do not prepare them well forwriting in other disciplines besides English. A popular activity in such courses is

journal writing. Hence, Leki and Carson question its appropriateness in preparing

students to write in EAP courses (p. 96). However, this paper contends, as EAP

writing courses cannot meet every students needs, journal writing can be an effective

method for them to independently discover and develop their individual academic

interests and their EAP writing capacities. Thus, this study applies a theoretical

model of consciousness in order to see to if it can be practically beneficial in

improving EFL students journal writing and also examines the academic value of

journal writing itself in EFL composition classes.

Prior to being capable of academic writing, EFL students must also be able to

develop such skills as invention and organization. I wondered if journal writing

could aid students in acquiring these abilities. What patterns might emerge from

their self-reflections in terms of reoccurring images and topics that demonstrated an

enhancement and increased awareness of logical organization and inventiveness in

essay writing?

Journals or diaries can be used as introspective tools, but as Bailey has contended

(1990, p. 224), to acquire maximum benefits, writers should re-read the entries and

attempt to locate the patterns in their writing. Moreover, as Halbach (2000) con-

cludes in a case study of learning strategies in diary writing, weaker students lack thestrategies of self-evaluation while more successful students are able to make full use

of a wide range of resources and re-enforce their learning with follow-up activities

(2000, p. 93). Therefore, I wondered to what extent re-reading journals helped indi-

vidual students, especially weaker ones, to clarify and realize their language learning

objectives.

2. Writing, self-reflection, and the stream of thought

Even though James wrote Chapter IX The Stream of Thought in his Principlesof Psychology in the nineteenth century, many modern researchers probing into the

nature of consciousness such as Baars (1997), Natsoulas (1997) and Singer (1998)

view it as one of the most significant and influential models of consciousness. As

Singer (1975, p. 32) points out, much great literature has been established on interior

monologues taken from streams of thoughts. Twentieth century writers such as

Proust, Kerouac, and Joyce come readily to mind.

James described the stream of thought as having five characteristics: (1) every

thought is a part of an individuals consciousness; (2) each thought is always

changing; (3) each is sensibly continuous; (4) every thought is directed toward

objects outside itself; (5) and thought discriminates among those objects, includingsome while rejecting others (James, p. 225). James also sees the stream of thought as

developmental in that a baby does not have one and even lacks a pure principle of

482 J.L. Myers / System 29 (2001) 481488


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subjectivity. . .(but certainly needs a stream of thought) to make him sensible at all to

anything, to make him discriminate. (James, 1950/1890, p. 321). Of course, the

stream of thought is a metaphor of consciousness which not everyone may agree

with, but James uses such a metaphor to emphasize that thought processes happenso rapidly that by the time one can report them they have disappeared. Most likely,

everyone can agree that describing ones experiences completely in words is virtually

impossible. Thus, introspection must also involve retrospection to truly capture the

most significant aspects of ones own experiences. In journal writing, a re-reading of

their journals may provide most students, who take such an activity seriously, with

both a retrospective and introspective perspective on their writing.

As Vygotsky (1999/1934) contends, thought and speech are the essence of human

consciousness and writing is speech in thought and image (p. 181). If this is the case,

it appears then that writing can be a means by which a person can understand and

refine her personal language development, especially by studying her own writing

and seeing within it a reflection of her attitude toward learning and experience as

seen in her recorded thoughts at different periods of time.

3. Method

3.1. The population and setting

In this study, 15 Mandarin-speaking Taiwanese students were randomly selectedfrom two second-year university composition classes for Applied English majors at

Ming Chuan University in Taiwan. The classes had a total of 68 students. Most

of the students lived off-campus, near the university. Their ages ranged from 19 to

25 years. Three of the 15 students were males and 12 were females. These ratios

reflected the preponderance of females at Ming Chuan and in the Applied English

Department. Their English ability was at an intermediate level; the writing class was

a required subject for their major and was intended to teach them practical and

academic writing skills. The department offered specialized Applied English courses

in three career tracks: teaching, business, and tourism.

3.2. Procedures

The students had the assignment of writing journals for 3 months, three times

per week. Although not every student in the class managed to faithfully write

three entries per week, the 15 random selections in this study fell into a range of 30

34 entries over the 3-month period. I told the class that their grade would be based

on quantity, coherence, and interesting content rather than on grammar. They had

the option of choosing from a list of 50 topics which allowed them to practise such

invention skills as comparison and contrast and persuasion or to indulge in guided

fantasies. They also had the option of writing about anything that they wished towrite about. They exchanged journals once during the semester with a student of

their choice in order to increase the communicative aspect of the activity and to

J.L. Myers / System 29 (2001) 481488 483


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these questions on the premise that an interesting journal should describe a variety

of events or topics. Also, by asking themselves these questions students could

evaluate to what extent they were actually observing their own experiences or

environment or developing ideas and attempting to depict them in their journals. AsJames says, many objects, events, changes, many subdivisions, immediately widen

the view as we look back. Emptiness, monotony, familiarity make it shrivel up.

(James, 1950/1890, p. 624).

The final question was: What do you think you can learn from writing a journal?

From this, I hoped the students might provide an overall assessment of themselves

or reveal some new aspect to the process.

3.4. A discussion of the responses to the questionnaire

The students responses indicate a great deal of individual variation in their writ-

ing processes. I have identified each student by a letter A through O and analyzed

the self-monitoring of each ones (1) language use, (2) rhetorical organization (3)

invention; (4) the role of their thoughts and (5) emotions in regard to their experi-

ences as writers and learners by seeking statements that reflected these items in their

self-evaluations. I derived these five points inductively by means of an analysis of the

patterns, which emerged from the students replies. I was also informed by informal

interviews that I held with several students. Moreover, as the students exchanged

journals with each other once during the semester and wrote down their reactions to

each others journals, I have also interpreted these responses in regard to the fivecategories above.

In terms of language use, the most outstanding concern was with vocabulary.

Eight of the 15 students in this study directly expressed or suggested that a lack of

vocabulary was a problem while writing. Six of these eight stated that they simply

repeated the same words over and over because of this lack of vocabulary. In terms

of individual variation, student C reported that she strove for variety and deleted

entries where she was being redundant. Student F stated that in certain cases she

repeated certain words for emphasis and not because they were redundant, but in

other cases it was because of a vocabulary deficiency. Student B stated that she had

had no vocabulary improvement and her English vocabulary had been deterioratingsince she had entered the university and she only wrote superficially about topics.

Two of these eight students also mentioned that journal writing was a good way to

improve their vocabulary, as did an additional two students who otherwise did not

state that a lack of vocabulary was a problem. Additionally, in terms of language

use, two students showed a concern for grammar and wanted more feedback about

their grammar errors. Thus, vocabulary and to a lesser extent grammar, were their

two main concerns about language use.

In terms of organizational strategies, 11 students stated or suggested that journal

writing was a way of improving their organizational skills in general.

Eight students discussed invention strategies which also seemed to contain pos-sibilities toward enhancing their academic writing. Student I, for example, used

mind-maps before she wrote about a topic in her journal and felt that she had

J.L. Myers / System 29 (2001) 481488 485


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improved her organizational skills and generated ideas with this strategy. Student L

imagined herself as a popular writer who interacted with her readers and that they

gave her suggestions as to what to write about; student N took a problem solving

attitude toward different topics; she also found it fascinating to look up infor-mation that could support her viewpoint; students G and K also found that journal

writings provided the impetus to research and read about various topics before

writing; student O drew from her past childhood experiences to write her journal;

student E compared the difference between free-writing and structured writing and

preferred structured writing such as writing a topic sentence, supporting sentences,

and a conclusion which he thought was easier than free-writing. Student E also

observed that journal writing helped his observational skills and he felt that this led

him to have more ideas. Several more students felt that they noticed things more

than before; such as student H, and the above mentioned L and K.

Thirteen students directly referred to how journal writing influenced their

thoughts or cognitive skills. For example, both students H and K stated that not

only had they become more observant but also wrote in more detail than before.

Students H, F, and G, stated that they often repeated the words, I think. Student

H wrote that she repeated these words because she had a purpose behind her writ-

ing: to collect her thoughts. Student F wrote that she repeated I think along with

so and added that she had become more independent in her thinking. Student G

emphasized that the journal made her realize the importance of thinking and she

strove for variety and tried to avoid cliche s. Student I repeated although and

she thought she did this because everything has two sides. Student J wrote that shehad begun to think more before she wrote and did this to avoid making mistakes.

Student L stated somewhat paradoxically that her sensitivity to the environment had

increased, but at that the same time she was unable to really see any change in her

writing because she just wrote about her thoughts. Also in relation to the cognitive

aspects of journal writing, Students A and E saw their journals as aids for memory.

Moreover, Student B wrote how sometimes something that happened led her to

connect things and she wrote it down. Almost all of the students stressed that

thinking was an important aspect of their writing processes. Journal writing was an

impetus for thinking about themselves, their learning processes, current events, their

interests, social life, and environment.Ten students discussed matters of an emotional or affective nature which emerged

in their journals. Often they were reoccurring topics which dealt with their social life,

family, or childhood. Student O, for example, noted that she wrote frequently about

her feelings concerning these three aspects of her life. She also personally felt that she

had become a more energetic person during the 3-month period of her life while

she was writing the journal. Student O also wrote about her childhood and her

relationships with others. Student A expressed her feelings and moods and said she

loved doing this. Student E wrote frequently about the news and music which were

his interests. Student G wrote about her mothers laugh, country trees and flowers.

Not all factors were positive, student L wrote that she lacked self-confidence, andthis is where she recognized that she needed to make improvements. These are a few

examples of affective factors the students saw in their writing.

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After performing this analysis, I asked another experienced EFL teacher to

evaluate the 15 students. I did not tell her the nature of my research questions, but

requested that she try to find five patterns in the writings. Her categories did not

completely match mine, but what she provided confirmed most of my observations.Three patterns corresponded almost identically with mine; that is, the components

that dealt with emotions, thoughts, and organization. With regard to these cat-

egories, she saw that some students preferred to develop topics rather that write

emotionally whereas other preferred to be more personally expressive. The two

other patterns she observed were that the responses contained students reflections

of past experience and this especially provided an aid to memory; and they self-

evaluated their own learning strategies to determine their learning needs. She saw

four types of writers emerging from the journals: historical; rational; metacognitive;

and emotional. Some writers possessed a combination of these characteristics and

others were purely of one type.

3.5. Journal exchange

In addition, six of the 15 students in this study commented on the journal

exchange and had positive comments about its value. For example, one commented

that she learned from the other students mistakes; another said she learned to

improve her study habits and to seek out ideas from various sources as her exchange

partner had done; another student analyzed the other students journal for simi-

larities and contrasts with her writing; yet another student appreciated the encour-agement which she received from her exchange partner.

4. Conclusion

These results suggest that students reflections induced by a Jamesian model of the

stream of thought, involved students in an increased self-monitoring of their

writing skills which led them to increased insights into their strengths and weak-

nesses as writers. Several patterns emerged. Many of the students became especially

aware of their vocabulary deficiencies and the need to strengthen their vocabularythrough increased reading and writing. Journal writing also provided opportunities

for the development of their own individual invention strategies, and several stu-

dents saw factual knowledge as the basis and jumping off point to further creativ-

ity and discovery. This suggests that journal writing contributes to academic writing

and can be used for discovery, research, and data collection directed toward future

essay writing in which students develop and refine essays around topics that interest

them which they have already initially explored in their journals. Moreover, in the

affective realm, many students felt comfortable expressing their feelings in the non-

threatening way which journal writing provided.

Significantly, for most students, a reoccurring theme that they recognized in theirwriting involved thinking itself. Many of them saw themselves as improved thinkers

and saw a connection between thinking and writing. Perhaps Vygotsky made an apt

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