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“Tell me about your Day”: Portraying Student’s
Reflective Practice through Diary Writing

Teguh Kasprabowo
Universitas Stikubank (Unisbank) Semarang

teguhkas@edu.unisbank.ac.id

Endang Yuliani Rahayu
Universitas Stikubank (Unisbank) Semarang

endangyuliani@edu.unisbank.ac.id

Agnes Widyaningrusm
Universitas Stikubank (Unisbank) Semarang
agneswidyaningrum@edu.unisbank.ac.id

Abstract

Although commonly understood that diary writing benefits language learners in many ways, the use of
diary writing as a medium for reflective practice in higher education is still rarely considered. The study
aimed to portray the student's reflective practice through diary writing - to display how the student
made meaning of her daily life and learning experiences. Employing qualitative case study, we observed
one of our students’ reflective practice through her diary entries. Our study employed Rodger’s
summary of Dewey’s reflective practice (2019) as the theoretical framework. The data of this research
was a handwritten diary of a student named Lana containing 30 diary entries written from September 6,
2018, to October 22, 2018. The entries were written in the period when she joined a Creative Writing class.
The diary writing activity was mainly aimed to help the students in the class to build their writing habits
by writing reflections of their daily activities. The result showed that diary writing provided room for
Lana to carry out the reflective practice. This practice helped her to see and to understand herself as a
learner. Also, Lana specifically expressed that diary writing helped her to have ideas for writing easily.
Based on the findings, we argue that in the Indonesian higher education context diary writing needs to
be incorporated in the learning process to benefit learners in their personal development and their
language learningprocess.

Keywords: diary, reflective practice, creative writing

INTRODUCTION
The nature of diary writing as a medium to write
freely and independently provides room for the
students to build their habits and confidence in
writing. It is also believed that diary writing
supports students' personal development.
However, the use of diary writing especially in the
context of Indonesian higher education for
language teaching and learning tool is still
neglected (e.g., Jarvis, 2001). The practice of diary
writing is still considered a personal activity that

cannot be shared. Some language teachers that aim
for accuracy may not prefer diary writing in their
classes. Moreover, diary writing also takes time
and discipline. This may not be easy for busy
teachers and students.

This study explored the possibilities of using
diary writing as a medium to build student's
writing habits and reflection for personal
development, especially in the Indonesian higher
education context. It is important to conduct such a

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study as higher education students have more
potential to practice writing and reflection
independently. This study attempted to answer the
following questions (1) how does the student
perform reflective practice through diary writing?
and (2) how does she perceive diary writing in the
context of creative writing class?

This study showed that it is important to
equip diary writing in the teaching and learning
process especially in the higher education context
in Indonesia in which students are considered
adult learners and are considered as more
independent in learning. Students not only can get
an opportunity to build their writing habits which
in turn will develop their writing skills but also
can perform reflective practice for both their
personal and their academic development.

Despite its popularity that diary writing
supports students learning in various ways, the
use of diary writing seems to be neglected as one
of the effective tools especially in the higher level
of education. Jarvis (2001) argued that journal
writing, often referred to as a learning diary, is a
teaching and learning technique that has not
received a great deal of attention in the literature
of higher education, even though diary writing is
an old and established practice.

In line with the above discussion, Hiemstra
(2001) also explained that in spite of more than
three decades of use and attempts by a few adult
educators to encourage personal reflection in
various ways, journaling remains underused as a
teaching or learning tool.

In the higher education context, and possibly
in any other level of education, it is understood
that keeping a journal on daily basis can be not an
easy task both for teachers and students. Both
teacher and the students are busy and have their
responsibilities of finishing their tasks. However, if
planned and conducted very well, diary writing
not only can become a learning tool but also can
help both teachers and students make sense of the
learning process. Jarvis (2001) mentioned that
journaling can be used more widely than as
reflective practice; it can be a teaching, learning,
and research instrument in the fields of higher

education. Few studies, however, had attempted to
explore the possibilities of reflective diary in the
context of the higher education (see. Colomer, 2013;
Glaze, 2002; Lew, 2011; Wong 2019).

Specifically, in the field of writing, diary
writing also receives very little attention. This is so
contradictory as diary writing should be closely
associated with writing itself. Dincel and Savur
(2019) stated that in the literature, there has not
been any other research conducted other than the
learning journals and teacher journals. Although
the importance of other types of diaries kept daily
regularly in the development of writing skills
cannot be denied, there is no research done on the
role of diary keeping on the development of
writing skills.

Meanwhile, some studies showed the
potential of diary writing beyond a teaching and
learning tool. Hiemstra (2001) argued that in the
adult education classroom, this learning method
becomes a tool to aid learners in terms of personal
growth, synthesis, and reflection on new
information that they acquire. He added that there
also is the potential for a journaling technique to
promote critical self-reflection where dilemmas,
contradictions, and evolving worldviews are
questioned or challenged.

A study conducted by Dincel and Savur (2019)
involving teacher education students showed 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. They added that
the diary-keeping made the participants realize it
has an essential role in personal growth in many
ways. By diary-keeping some of the participants
realized that they were wasting their days, some of
them felt relaxed when writing, some felt it is
therapy or a friend to whom they express their
thoughts, help them put their lives in order. Other
studies involving teachers and reflective practice
are also commonly conducted (see. Azizah, 2018;
Clegg, 2000; Kuswandono, 2012; Lakshmi, 2014;
Trif & Popescu, 2013)

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Specifically, for language learning, the use of
a diary is strongly recommended for some reasons.
Ni’ma (2019) argued that students’ perceptions
showed positive impact of reflective journal to
promote writing skills.

Klimova (2015) explained diary writing is a
very effective and natural tool for both students
and teachers since this informal writing enables
students to reflect on what they have learned, how
they have learned it, what kind of difficulties they
have when they have to write in formal English or
what helps them to overcome these and other
difficulties in the process of learning English.
Citing Rubin in her article, Klimova (2015) further
explained that more successful learners are in
control of their learning; they know what they are
doing and what they want to achieve; they know
when they make mistakes, and they know how to
go about correcting them. And in this process
teachers can help their students provided that
students allow them to see their diaries, comment
on them and make relevant suggestions.

The emphasis of writing using diary that
makes students feel more comfortable and
confident as they write to express what they mean
without thinking much about the grammar
accuracy is also discussed in Taqil et.al (2015).
They explained that diaries usually focus on
meaning rather than the form where learners send
a message about a topic of interest to them.
Similarly, teachers do not correct linguistic errors
but respond to the message in a meaningful way.

In line with the above idea, Dincel and Savur
(2019) explained that the participants of their
research described diary keeping has been
meaningful as they shared a lot of things that
cannot be told to others, sharing a connection with
oneself in a comfortable and reliable environment,
chatting with it as a friend, writing a secret onto it,
diary as a secret friend, a reminder of the past,
putting the person's past into chronological order,
and so on.

The freedom of using different kinds of
languages in writing the diary can surely help
students to just practice writing. Fulwiler cited by
English & Gillen (2001) elaborated the language

used in diary writing. The characteristics of diary
writing are that students can write in everyday
language, use the first-person point of view with
informal punctuation, and experiment with their
writing such as using specific rhyming.

Some studies elaborate more about the use of
diary writing as a teaching and learning tool. Boud
(2001) citing Moon in her discussion of using
journals in learning through reflection identifies
many purposes of writing journals in addition to
those already mentioned—for example, to deepen
critical thinking, to enable learners to understand
their learning process and most of all to free-up
writing and to promote reflective practice.

Meanwhile, according to Hiemstra (2001)
diary writing helps students to do the following: 1)
Personal growth and development, 2) Intuition
and self-expression, 3) Problem solving, 4) Stress
reduction and health benefit 4) Reflection and
critical thinking.

Diary writing can be one effective tool in
teaching and learning. It can even function more
than that. From the above arguments, the personal
growth and development of the students who
write diaries are strongly stated. Therefore, it is
recommended for teachers and students to utilize
diary writing in their teaching and learning
process.

It has been discussed that diary writing is
very useful in the teaching and learning process.
One of the aspects that are discussed is diary
writing for reflective practice. Cited in Klimova
(2015), Race explained: Reflection deepens learning.
The act of reflecting causes us to make sense of
what we've learned, why we learned it, and how
that particular increment of learning took place.
Moreover, reflection is about linking one
increment of learning to the wider perspective of
learning – heading towards seeing the bigger
picture. Reflection is equally useful when our
learning has been unsuccessful – in such cases
indeed reflection can often give us insights into
what may have gone wrong with our learning, and
how on a future occasion we might avoid it now.

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Diary writing is suitable as a medium of
reflection as it involves some aspects of reflective
practice. Rogers (2001) explained that reflection as
a cognitive and affective process or activity that (1)
requires active engagement on the part of the
individual; (2) is triggered by an unusual or
perplexing situation or experience; (3) involves
examining one's responses, beliefs, and premises
in light of the situation at hand; and (4) results in
the integration of the new understanding into
one's experience.

To relate diary writing and reflective practice
Boud (2001) explained that journal writing can be
viewed through many different lenses: as a form of
self-expression, a record of events, or a form of
therapy. It can be a combination of these and other
purposes. He further elaborated that as a device
for working with events and experiences to extract
meaning from them. This perspective views the
various forms of journal writing as ways of
making sense of the world and how we operate
within it. Journal writing can be used to enhance
what we do and how we do it. As a vehicle for
learning, it can be used in formal courses, our
professional practice, or any aspect of informal
learning.

In his study, Jarvis (2001) explained that the
journal serves two reflective purposes. First, it
helps students to become reflective learners,
recording data about reading, study habits, and
attitudes. Students are also invited to write about
their personal development; that is, they can
record information about their increasing
knowledge and their increasing ability to identify
and articulate issues, and they can reflect on
important decisions that they have taken since
they enrolled in the program. Second, students can
examine their self-development and their feelings
of empowerment.

This study is a qualitative case study that
focuses on how diary writing helps one of my
students in Creative Writing class build her daily
habit of writing and how she also practices
reflection through writing regularly. By following
one of our student’s diary, we expect to be able to
unfold her reflective practice through her journal

entries and how she perceived diary writing to
support her learning, especially in the creative
writing context.

This study is an attempt to enrich studies in
diary writing in the context of creative writing
class in which in our case, we have not ever been
equipped with before. It is also an attempt to fill
the gap of the lack of research on diary writing as a
teaching and learning tool in the higher education
context in Indonesia. This study is expected to
show the potentials of diary writing in supporting
students’ reflective practice as well as writing
habits.

METHODOLOGY

This qualitative case study involved a single
participant namely Lana (pseudonym) who wrote
a daily diary with one prompt for the whole
semester: tell me about your day. Lana joined a
creative writing class taught by the first author of
this study. Creative writing is one of the subjects
taught in our English literature study program for
the 5th-semester students. In this subject, students
are required to produce works of fiction in the
form of a short story or short novel.

Based on Rodgers’ (2019) summary of
Dewey's reflective thinking, this study explored
the reflective practice of the students through
diary writing. The diary reflected her daily life
and her learning activities through narration,
opinion, and thoughts.

In doing so, the participant wrote the journal
entry, as many as she can, every day - one entry
for one day. She mostly wrote in the evening to tell
how her day was. She wrote everything about her
journey during her day, especially about her
personal and academic activities, with the feelings
and the thought she had. She narrated events or
incidents that happen during the day. In a certain
period, once or twice a week, she handed her diary
to the lecturer and allowed him to read and to
comment on the entries she had written. She
sometimes replied to his comments or just
continued with her entry.

At the end of the semester, Lana submitted her
diary with all of the entries. This “final” diary was
our main data for this study. We read again the

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entries and coded them to figure out the patterns
to gain the answer to the research question. Then,
we conducted a semi-structured interview to gain
a deeper understanding from our sole research
participant. All the patterns gained from the diary
entries and interview were the findings that were
discussed in this study.

This study was based on Rogers’ (2019) who
summarized these four criteria of Dewey’s
reflective practice. She conceptualized that
reflective practice was 1) a meaning-making
process, 2) a systematic, rigorous, disciplined way
of thinking, 3) happen by interacting, and 4)
requires attitudes that value the personal and
intellectual growth of oneself and others.

We used those criteria while coding the
journal entries to make the categories of my
findings. We grouped the entries with similar
themes and labeled them based on those themes.
Later to further understand her ideas and
perspective towards diary writing, we conducted a
semi-structured interview. Lana's answers were
recorded, transcribed, and grouped into themes.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Result

Kinds of reflections that Lana had in her diary

Based on the criteria of reflective practice by
Rodgers (2019), from the 30 (thirty) entries written
between September 6, 2018, to October 22, 2018, I
selected entries that fulfilled the criteria of
reflective practice. The finding showed that most
of the diary entries depicted Lana’s reflective
practice.

Twenty-four out of 30 entries (80 %) were
considered involving reflective practice. In the rest
of 6 entries (20%), Lana only recounted some
events and those entries are considered lack of any
reflective practice.

After making broad categories by separating
those that depicted reflective practice and those
that did not, I categorized those with reflective
practice into 5 (five) more specific categories
showing that Lana displayed her reflective practice
in her diary entries by:

1. Reflecting her feeling (26.7 %).
2. Reflecting what she learned after having

specific experiences (23.3%).
3. Reflecting her hopes and dreams (13.3%).
4. Reflecting how she identified herself (10%).
5. Reflecting her determination to write the

entries though confused (6.7%).
Based on the above findings, diary writing

does help my student to practice writing regularly
and performing reflective practice. These findings
are relatable with the previous studies that
mentioned the benefits of diary writing as a
teaching and learning tool, especially, in this case,
is the practice of reflection by the student. The
following is the further elaboration of the five
categories depicting Lana’s reflective practice:

Reflecting her feeling

Lana's entries were populated mostly by the
expressions of various feelings that she had after
going through some experiences. Lana mostly
used her diary entries to express her feeling like
sadness, boredom, disappointment, comfort,
feeling blessed, or even feeling of her missing
someone. This is I believe the nature of diary
writing. As it is suggested at the beginning of the
assignment that she might write freely any of her
feeling, thoughts, ideas, or experience that made
Lana seemed to feel free to express her feeling.
Lana found a place to express her feeling without
worrying about being embarrassed or without
worrying other people to get offended. This part of
some entries showed how she expressed her
feelings:

I felt so sad because my friends in a group
made me felt annoyed. I didn’t know it was
because of my fault or just because of their
habit. (Entry # 02)

I felt blessed today because I had a new
experience. I helped Professional Marketing
on their event in Semarang. I was tired but I
was happy. (Entry #03)

You know what? I miss my senior (of course
he is a man) But don’t tell anyone about this
(smiley sign) (Entry #05)

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Lana expressed what she felt about her
friends concerning a group work that she did with
them. After telling her experience, by recounting
the events, Lana explained why she had such
feeling as she had to go through all the process
that was supposed to be a group work by herself.
In other situations (Entry # 03 and Entry # 05) she
expressed her feeling of being blessed after she felt
successful to get a new experience. So, the feelings
she expressed are not always negative.

As suggested by the theory, reflection occurs
in a community. Entry # 02 showed that Lana
recounted how the incident unfolded and resulted
in such feelings after she interacted with her
friends. Lana did not experience this event and
tried to make meaning out of it without involving
other people. Also, she did not suddenly express
her feeling out of nothing. She had facts as the base
of her reflection. Before she finally ended up
expressing her feelings, she recounted some events
happening in her days. In some situations, she
tried to make herself understand the problem first
before she finally stated that she had certain
feelings in her days.

In the other situations, she expressed her
feelings first and later explained the reasons why
she has such feelings. This showed that she did not
express something without making herself
understand why she should express her feelings.
From her entries, it can also be seen that although
they expressed Lana's personal feelings, the
reasons why she had the feelings were often
caused by her encounter with others. Reflection
requires the person to experience something and
Lana fulfills the requirements.

In the interview, Lana mentioned that
expressing what she saw (her experience), what
she thought (her ideas) and what she felt (her
feeling) as "self-reflection". It means that she
realized that diary was the 'right' place to express
all that she mentioned above. She also stated that
besides used as a place to express her feelings, she
used the diary to make some plans and as a
support to motivate herself. She stated:

I usually write my feelings, experiences,
stories, opinions, and dreams. Most entries of
mine are about what I see, think, and feel. I
can say that it’s all about self-reflection. I
share my happiness, anger, anxiety, thoughts
or ideas, some things I want to do next, and
even support myself by writing good quotes
in my entries.

Reflecting what she learned after having specific
experiences

One of the points in the theory suggested that
reflection should involve attitudes that value the
personal and intellectual growth of the person who
makes the reflection and of others, some of Lana's
entries showed that attitudes. In her entries, Lana
implied that she took valuable lessons from some
events that she experienced in her days. The
followings are parts of her entries showing the
case:

I taught Ivan today. It was time to learn about
the universe. I tried to teach him how to
pronounce it and the meaning of the words. He
was so excited! And last, I asked him to draw and
put the name of the picture. He did it well! Even
there were some mistakes but he did a good job.
From it, I know that children have an amazing
imagination. We shouldn't limit them. Let them
imagine everything. We only need to make it
perfect by tell them the other information or
maybe help them to imagine some objects or
others. (Entry #9)

… I went back to campus at 10.30 from home
by BRT. I felt so sleepy. So, I fell asleep on the bus.
I arrived at 11 at the bus stop. … At the traffic light,
I met an old woman that bring an umbrella. That
time was so hot, honestly but I did not bring an
umbrella or hat. I just wore a jacket. I was
surprised because that woman, suddenly, protects
me from the sun with her umbrella. I directly said
"thank you, mam" Then we walked together, by
chance she had the same way as me. I learned from
what happened to me that kindness does not
depend on who and where. You can help everyone
wherever you are and wherever you can. Maybe it
is just a little thing, but it will be precious for

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others. I’m trying to become a helpful person.
Hope I can do that. (Entry #13)

Lana wrote these entries after she had
“special” experiences as she implied or directly
stated that she learned lessons from them. In Entry
# 9, Lana, who gave private lessons to some
children, learned from one of her students that
they did have potentials. This knowledge was not
uncommon to Lana. She could presumably know
this idea very well. However, by having direct
experience and by having direct interaction with
her student, Lana could make such a conclusion.
As the theory suggests that reflection should allow
the person to appreciate others' potential. In this
case, Lana valued her students' imagination as one
of his potentials to help him learn. Later Lana
suggested to herself (or she may refer to everyone)
what to do with children's imagination.

In Entry #13 Lana learned how to value a
person's kindness. Before this event happened,
Lana might have already known the concept of
kindness in which people help other people in
need. This concept is known to everybody.
However, by writing the experience in her diary,
Lana deliberately thought of what had happened
as something valuable. In her reflection she wrote
that even the lady's action of helping her might be
considered a little thing, it might still be so helpful
to others. This showed how an act of deliberate
reflection such as writing an experience in a diary
could help someone value someone else action as
suggested by the theory.

In responding to an interview question Lana
emphasized that she learned from her experiences
and that made her be able to do things in better
ways. Here is her response:

Journaling keeps me sane. I learned a lot from
what happened. It makes me feel that I can
control myself easily when something bad
happens and feel grateful when something
good happens. It helps me to become a better
and wiser person. For me, the benefits of
journaling are mostly for my mental health.
However, it also gives benefit to my writing
habit and skills.

Reflecting her hopes and dreams

It is common for someone who writes a diary to
express his/her hopes and/or dreams. It shows that
someone who makes the reflection wants growth
to happen in her life. Lana displayed her diary
entries. Here are her entries showing the case:

I saw many children with low education
today, especially this evening. I came to
Kaligawe for youth worship. I was so happy
to meet them. I've never met them before, so I
was not surprised about their behavior, Their
"bad words" and their "bad appearance". I
gave them a picture with some words while
the other (youth) did a game. They colored
the picture and I tried to teach them about
parts of the body. Some of them were happy.
My friends and I also gave them biscuits and
milk. I saw them very happy when it was
time for snacks. I felt so pity for them because
of their environment and their family. They
are lack education (school and family), lack of
material, and lack of knowledge about norms.
I knew why they act like that. I think it is
because of the environment (many thugs and
uneducated people). I hope I can help my
friends to serve the children there. I hope I
can have time for it. (Entry #11)
I am so glad because I have good and friendly
lecturers. So, I can share anything. Maybe for
some of my friends or lecturer, I am so
"complicated". I'll ask everything in detail
until I understand. Today I also got an email
from YSEALI that YSEALI opened the
scholarship for spring 2019. I've already tried
to fill in the form for fall 2018 but I was not
ready with some requirements. I want to get
an international scholarship one day. YSEALI
is not so complicated but again I'm not ready
for it. I always pray about YSEALI. Hope I
can make it happen someday. (Entry #15)

These two entries showed Lana tried to make
meaning of what happened in her interactions
with others and to herself and later wanted to have
a change happen. She wanted to grow personally
(Entry #11) by being able to serve more and to
grow intellectually (Entry #15) by trying to apply
for the next scholarship.

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Expression hopes and dreams do not mean
that Lana imagined something that she wanted to
happen. She expressed her hope and dream based
on what she witnessed and what she did. Learning
from those experiences made Lana hope to be able
to do something more. The reflective practice in
her entries so far involved more than just
expressions of feeling and more than just taking
lessons from an experience. These entries showed
that Lana wanted to do the actions based on what
she had experienced.

Reflecting how she identified herself

Being able to see oneself through diary writing is
an important part of reflective practice. Lana tried
to see herself through some of her entries. In some
cases, Lana’s attempts to see herself may seem to
be selfish or judgmental. This may not be alright if
she did it, for example, in front of her friends.
However, n the case of diary writing, comparing
oneself with others is not a bad case at all. It
should be kept in mind that in real diary writing,
no one is supposed to read your entries. That is the
freedom in the diary writing that may help Lana
sees herself as a person. She wrote:

I am a person who can't do anything in a little
preparation. I thought that I have to do
anything totally, even people didn't know
about it. Maybe you can call me
"perfectionist." That's me. I have tried to
become a person who did not care about
everything that becomes my responsibility. I
can understand the subject well because I
make efforts, I study hard because I know I
don't understand the subject well. So, I study
until I can. They didn't know the process. I
don't know that my standard is too high or
just because my friends (some of them) never
try to become "well prepared" (Entry # 07)

I often feel I can't do those things. I can't give
the best to my students. I am so nervous
when I teach English to them. I always say to
their parents that I also still learn English. So,
I'll do my best when I teach them. Hope I can
teach them well and give a positive impact on
them. (Entry #8)

I am not interested in teaching. But, I don't
know why I always fall into the education
field. I don’t know why my day is always
busy (I’m not complaining). Sometimes, YES!
Haha… But I thank God he still gives me a
chance to do the positive things in my life.
(Entry #25)

In Entry #07 Lana decided to identify herself
as someone who prepared everything for the best
result of her work. She implied that the idea of
"being a perfectionist" might be bad in other
people's views. On the contrary, in her view, that
attitude helped her in handling her duties as a
student. This is a bold perception that might not
always be true. However, by doing it, Lana could
see herself which would lead her to actions that
she needed to do. This kind of self-identification, I
believe is important to value one’s personal
growth.

Meanwhile, in entry #8, after Lana realized
her weaknesses when she taught English to her
private lesson students, she ensured herself to do
the best that she could in teaching the students.
Knowing her weaknesses and, at least, tried to do
better could be beneficial for her personal
development. In Entry #25, Lana saw herself as
being in a situation that made her keep doing an
activity that she claimed she did not interested in.
However, she seemed to be doubtful about her
claim. In this situation, Lana seemed to argue with
herself. That means she made interaction with
herself. This interaction, though only to herself,
was a signal that there was a reflective practice
that happened.

Reflecting her determination to write the entries
though confused

In these two entries, Lana tried to be honest with
her confusion about what to write in her diary.
However, she showed her determination to still
write something in her diary even though she just
wrote some lines including her confusion. In this
kind of situation, it cannot be said that Lana did
not want to fill in her diary with an entry. On the
contrary, it showed her determination to keep

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writing even when she thought that she had no
idea. By writing her true situation of having no
idea at all, she wrote something in her diary. She
stated:

I don’t know what I want to tell in this journal
today. Maybe I'll tell you about my activity. I
met my friend on campus. We discussed
everything. (Entry #12)

Honestly, I don’t know what should I tell this
time in today’s journal. (Entry #14)

In an interview, though sometimes she had
nothing to write in her diary, Lana said that diary
writing helped her have the habit to write without
worrying too much about what she wrote. That
was why she felt free to write whatever she
wanted to write like what she mentioned below:

Diary writing helps me in having writing
habits. Believe it or not, when I've finally
written a daily journal in a week without
jumping any days, I feel something's missing
when I didn't write any entries the next day. I
also feel that it helps me in improving my
writing skills. For example, when I wrote my
final project, I didn't think that write some
paragraphs was that difficult. Yes, it was, but
I felt that I could write it easier than before I
know about journaling. I think the difference
is just in the final project, I have to do
proofreading after I write, while in diary
writing, I don't need to do that.

Discussion

Based on our above findings, Lana showed that
she generally used her diary to do the reflective
practice. This finding confirms the previous
studies mentioning the similar case in which diary
writing help learner do reflective practice (Booud,
2001; Dincel & Savur, 2019; Hiemstra, 2001; Jarvis,
2001; Klimova, 2015; Rodgers, 2001).

Specifically, the most dominant finding in this
study is that Lana used the diary to express her
feeling such as sadness, boredom, disappointment,
comfort, feeling blessed, or even feeling of her
missing someone. This may be one of the most
common uses of diary writing. Despite its
popularity as a self-expression medium, especially

personal feelings, only a few studies confirm this
case. Boud (2001), for example, only mentioned
that diary is used as a form of self-expression
without mentioning specifically personal feelings.
In our opinion, this special feature of diary writing
needs to be addressed especially in the context of
the creative writing class. Students' ability to
express their feelings can be an essential tool to
write fiction.

Our findings also mentioned that through the
diary Lana could see herself deeper and therefore
could take lessons from her actions. These two
findings are strongly supported by some previous
studies highlighting that diary writing help
learners to be reflective learners. This means that
they can see what they have achieved and what
they need to do further (Jarvis, 2001; Klimova,
2015).

Some previous studies explained that diary
writing helped learners’ writing ability through
building the habit of writing regularly (Dincel &
Savur, 2019; Hiemstra 2001; Taqil et.al., 2015). The
studies, however, did not mention particular
abilities that helped learners in developing their
writing skills. This is possibly because diary writing
does not require learners to write accurately, for
example, with correct grammar. The emphasis is in
the making meaning as suggested by the theory
(Rodgers, 2001)

CONCLUSION

This study showed that diary writing provided an
opportunity for our students to do self-reflection.
She could reflect her feelings (boredom, anxiety,
anger, etc.), her hopes, and her dreams. It also
provides an opportunity for her to be able to see
herself, to see her success and failures, and to plan
what to do next. From there, she learned some
lessons as her takeaway to decide her next steps. In
short, diary writing provides room for the
participant to do self-reflection.

Diary writing also helped my student to build
a writing habit in which she was so determined to
keep writing on daily basis. This process helped
her improve her writing skills in terms of freely

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384

expressing her feelings, emotions, and ideas. In
turn, it helped her writing more creatively.

For future researches, using more structured
prompts to help students write more even when
they think they do not have ideas to write is
suggested. It is to make sure the participants have
a specific framework to write their entries. In
response to the advancement of technology, diary
writing that is facilitated with technology such as
online journaling and online creative writing
platforms (e.g Penzu, Wattpad, etc) should also be
explored. Particularly for the creative writing class,
diary writing needs to be introduced to the
students as a tool for the students to be able to
express various kinds of feelings based on their
own experiences. The ability to show emotions in
fiction writing is essential.

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Dincel, B.K., & Savur, H. (2019). Diary Keeping in
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