Below there is a list of journal prompts, quotes, and questions. Many are from famous people. Read some of them until you find one that catches your interest. What does it make you think about? What does it mean? Use words or phrases from the quotes in your written responses when possible. Do you like the quote or not? How might it apply in/to your life? How does it compare to other/similar ideas?
Copy and paste the quote into a post (at the top) on your blog. Take your time and respond in journal (written) form.
August/September Journal Prompts
Write about a place that you visited over the summer.
“Your time is limited…don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” ~~ Steve Jobs
“You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.” ~~ Regina Brett
Write about some of your school goals for the year? How will you reach them?
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.” ~~ Plato
“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” ~~ Mark Twain
Kenai has a bike helmet law for kids under 16. Do you think Soldotna should have also have the law? Why or why not?
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” ~~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“One determined person can make a significant difference. A small group of determined people can change the course of history.” ~~ Sonia Johnson
“The richness I achieve comes from Nature, the source of my inspiration.” ~~ Claude Monet
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” ~~ George Bernard Shaw
“Circumstances do not make the man, they reveal him.” ~~ James Allen
What is your favorite part of early fall and why?
“It is not length of life, but depth of life. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.” ~~ Dalai Lama
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” ~~ Mahatma Gandhi
“I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become.” ~~ Oprah Winfrey
What is the hardest thing about school so far? How can you make it better?
“No one is in charge of your happiness except you.” ~~ Regina Brett
“Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.” ~~ Samuel Ullman
October/November/December Journal Prompts
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” John Muir
“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.” George Washington Carver
Do you think students should be able to stay up as late as they want on weekends? Why or Why not?
“Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.” Marianne Williamson
“Never look backwards or you’ll fall down the stairs.” Rudyard Kipling
“There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when it’s convenient. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses – only results.” Ken Blanchard
“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” Neale Donald Walsch
Do you believe in ghosts? Why or why not?
“Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are to some extent a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it piece by piece by thought, choice, courage and determination.” John Luther
“Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.” H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“Strength of a character isn’t always about how much you can handle before you break. It’s also about how much you can handle after you’ve been broken.” Robert Tew
Do you think kids should get their Permanent Fund Dividend checks? If so, how much and at what age?
“Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.” Phillip Brooks
“Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise, risking more than others think is safe, dreaming more than others think is practical, and expecting more than others think is possible.” Ronnie Oldham
“Sometimes it’s not the strength but gentleness that cracks the hardest shells.” Richard Paul Evans
“Learn to love without condition. Talk without bad intention. Give without any reason. And most of all, care for people without any expectation.” Unknown
“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” George Bernard Shaw
Do you think we will have lots of snow this winter, and will it be very cold?
“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” Buddha
“Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.” Marianne Williamson
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain
What is special about Thanksgiving? What traditions does your family follow? How do you help out on Thanksgiving? Do you help cook anything?
“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we will change the world.” Jack Layton
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” Albert Einstein
“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to earn it.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The true essence of humankind is kindness. There are other qualities which come from education or knowledge, but it is essential, if one wishes to be a genuine human being and impart satisfying meaning to one’s existence, to have a good heart.” Tenzin Syatso
What is your favorite part of the Holidays? How do you help your family during the Holidays?
“Comparison is the thief of joy.” Theodore Roosevelt
January/February Journal Prompts
“Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.” -Regina Brett
“Trust is a mirror that when broken never shows the same image as before.” –Aubrey Dale Moreland
What was your favorite part of the Holiday Break?
“It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard, impossible is not a word, it’s just a reason for someone not to try.” –Jon Micah Sumrall
Write about something interesting you did over Christmas/Holiday Vacation.
“We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.” –Mao Tse-Tung
“Tough times never last, but tough people do.” –Robert H. Schuller
What do you want to accomplish this New Year? Do you have any goals for 2022?
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” -Nelson Mandela
“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” Martin Luther King Jr.
Have you ever gone ice-fishing? If so, write about the experience.
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” Martin Luther King Jr.
“Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” -Nelson Mandela
What is your favorite book, and why?
“There was never a good war or a bad peace.” -Benjamin Franklin
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.
“If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.” Mahatma Ghandi
“Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.” H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“Strength of a character isn’t always about how much you can handle before you break. It’s also about how much you can handle after you’ve been broken.” Robert Tew
“Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.” Phillip Brooks
“Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise, risking more than others think is safe, dreaming more than others think is practical, and expecting more than others think is possible.” Ronnie Oldham
“Sometimes it’s not the strength but gentleness that cracks the hardest shells.” Richard Paul Evans
“Learn to love without condition. Talk without bad intention. Give without any reason. And most of all, care for people without any expectation.” Unknown
What is your favorite memory of winter so far, and why is it your favorite?
“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” Buddha
“Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.” Marianne Williamson
“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we will change the world.” Jack Layton
“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to earn it.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Have you ever gone ice-fishing? If so, write about the experience.
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes
“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”
- “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”
- “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
- “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
- “Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”
- “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
- “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that.”
- “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”
- “That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.”
- “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.”
- “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
- “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
- “Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education.”
- “We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.”
- “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.”
- “I have decided to stick to love … Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
- “Everybody can be great … because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
- “A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.”
- “No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.”
- “Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a constant attitude.”
- “Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”
- “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
- We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.
- “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
- “We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.”
- “I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.”
- “We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
- “Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.”
- “People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.”
March/April/May Journal Prompts
“Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire” –W.B.Yeats
“Assert your right to make a few mistakes. If people can’t accept your imperfections, that’s their fault.” –David M. Burns
Do you think we will have an early spring/break-up? Why or why not?
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. ” –Bertrand Russell
What did you, or your family do for spring break?
“I’ve learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.” –Martha Washington
“They (children) may forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel.” –Carl W.Buechner
“There is a brilliant child locked inside every student.” –Marva Collins
“Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.” –Dalai Lama
“The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers. ” –Sydney J. Harris
“When you go in search of honey, you must expect to be stung by bees.” –Joseph Joubert
“No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, and show up.” –Regina Brett
What is your favorite book, and why?
“There was never a good war or a bad peace.” –Benjamin Franklin
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.
“If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.” Mahatma Ghandi
End of the Year Reflections
What was the best experience of this school year?
Write about what you are most proud of accomplishing academically?
What would you like to change for the next school year?
Write some suggestions to improve our class; what worked, what can be improved?
Evaluate your learning this year. Are you satisfied/happy with your efforts? In which areas did you feel successful and in which areas did you not accomplish your goals?
If you are a 6th grader and graduating, reflect back on your time at SMCS and think about the questions above? Get ready for a lot of homework!