Diary Keeping in Writing Education

Abstract

One of the many types of texts that can be used in writing education is the diary. In this study, the opinions of the Turkish language teacher candidates about diary keeping and their diaries kept for two months in which they could freely express their thoughts were analyzed. It is a qualitative study in which thirty-four participants' diaries were examined, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with seventeen randomly selected candidates. It is observed that the topics dealt by the teacher candidates in their diaries mainly focused on themes such as education-teaching activities, life, feelings, thoughts, relatives, nature, important days, diary, problems, personal development, and writing skills. The emerging codes from these interviews were grouped as: Diary, problems, personal development, and writing skills. The results of this research reveal that candidates who regularly keep a diary begin to question their lives and try to manage them better. Moreover, it was shown that diary keeping, which is regular writing, has an important role in the development of writing ability.