CONVERSATIONS OF THE MIND: THE USES OF JOURNAL WRITING FORSECOND-LANGUAGE LEARNERS. Rebecca Williams Mylnarczyk.Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1998. Pp. xvi + 215. $49.95 cloth, $26.00 paper.

Abstract

This easy-to-read paperback is the result of the author's desire to learn more about how students think and feel about themselves as learners in a “large urban college” pre-freshman ESL composition class. It is intended for teachers, scholars, and graduate students who are interested in how students learn to write as well as their accompanying thought processes and emotions. The main body of the book, chapters 4–7, presents “case studies of the journal writing experiences of five students” (p. 8) chosen to represent the variety of cultural backgrounds and personal involvement with the freewriting process in journal keeping. The students came from Colombia, Ethiopia, the Dominican Republic, People's Republic of China, and Japan.