"The most useful way to raise consciousness of texts as intermediary form and to develop a method of critical reading is, simply put, to have students write continuously in a double -entry notebook." -- Ann E. Berthoff

        When we read critically, we read for meaning. Meanings are relationships: they are unstable, shifting, and dynamic; they do not stay still nor can we prove the authenticity or the validity of one or another meaning that we find. Based on this theory, if we are to teach our students to read for meaning, that is to say, to construe and interpret and appreciate literary text, we need to teach them to use the tool of language such as speaking and writing to describe, define, argue, defend and persuade using the texts only as mediating forms. If meaning depends on its context and the viewers' perspective, then meaning is dialectical. When we treat writing as a process, then we are really trying to interpret our interpretations as Berthoff pointed out once that "thinking is a matter of arranging our techniques of arranging; criticism is a matter of coming to know our knowledge".

     In teaching Hamlet and A Streetcar Named Desire, keeping double-entry journals has been the major form used in my classroom to generate literary responses to the play. After reading each scene, for ten minutes, students are asked to do a double entry journal in which they can choose and copy down any line(s) they feel like responding to by following the format:
 

Quotes from Hamlet(Act I, scene 2)	Commentary

Ten minutes later, students either post their responses in the Forum we use for a class discussion in the Internet, and respond back to each other's responses or we share our responses by reading aloud and commenting on each other's responses. Sometimes students are asked  to exchange notebooks and repond in the third column to their journal partner's literary responses .But before they do so, I will tell them beforehand that they should not write anything that they do not want to share with other people. Here are some examples that show how my students use the double-entry journals to read literature critically.

 Example 1
Quotes(Hamlet Act IV, scene 4)                                                 Responses

"How all occasions do inform against me, and spur my dull revenge!"(lines 34-35)	Hamlet is talking about how although everything is against him, now his revenge has been fueled.  he is now angrier than he has been and is more determined to take revenge for his father's murder.
"I do not know why yet I live to say "This things to do."(lines 45-47)	In this quote I feel Hamlet is still debating why he is still alive.  Which again brings up the question of Hamlet contemplating why he should still be alive instead of having killed himself a long time ago.
"When honor's at the stake.  How stand I, then, that have a father killed, a mother stained." (lines 59-60)	I find this quote to be an insight on Hamlet's feelings of honor, duty, and respect for his family.  He feels he must stand up and defend his family, even if he is unsure of what he is to do.
"O, from this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!(lines 68-69)	Hamlet has decided that he must be harsh from now on, and he must stick to what he has to do to take revenge for his father's murder.  This quote led me to believe that the play is almost over because Hamlet is now determined to beat the odds and take his revenge. If he doesn't do it then his life is worthless.

- by Aimee Pichardo

Example 2

Example 3

Example 1
Double-entry journal on A Streetcar Named Desire

Quotes( scene 8)	Commentary	New Comments(2weeks later)
She is, she was.You didn't know Blanche as a girl. nobody, nobody, was tender and  trusting as she was. but people like you abused her, and forced her to change.	I think that Stella is trying to explain to Stanley what Blanch's problem is. She feels that Blanche was sweet and trusting and that she cared for many things but when people like Stanley try to break her down they take almost everything that is left of her mind.	I now think that Stella is trying to proctect her sister. She is showing Stanley that because of people like him she has turned to alcohol and lies to protect herself from the truth. She would have never done this if people like Stanley had treated her right.

 
Journal: I feel that my opinion has changed because I understand the story better now and I have an overall view of the characters such as Blanche and Stella. I also understand their relationship better . I especially understand totally what kind of man Stanley stands for in the play  after I read the last scene. He drove Blanche to a mental institution. Stella's statement proves to be true.
 - by Adam Simpson
Example 2
 

Quotes( Streetcar Scene 8)	Commentary	New Comments(2 weeks later)
"She is.  She was.  You didn't know Blanche as a girl.  Nobody, nobody, was tender trusting as she was.  But people like you abused her.  Forced her to change."	Stella is explaining to Stanley that Blanche was a very nice and trusting person.  But people took advantage of her kindness.  They keep going at her until she was forced to change and act in insentive ways.	I don't feel it is like Blanche  to change. To me,she was a person who always wants to look good in other people's eyes no matter how rotten she is inside.  She would always put on an act. Blanche has everyone fooled including her sister Stella.

 
Journal
  My response to the quote has changed because I felt sorry for Blanche for a good portion of the play until I finished reading the whole play and  realized that she had me fooled.  Now I think she is really that type of person that would make people feel sorry for her when she is in a bad situation but in reality she would keep putting herself in those situations.  Then when other people react in a negative way towards her she would make it seem like she was the victim.
 - by Rosalyn Felipe
 
                    According to Berthoff, the reason for the double-entry format is that it provides a way for the student to conduct that "continuing audit of meaning" that is the heart of learning to read and write critically. The above examples are the modified activity basedon Berthoff's suggestion of classroom activities using the bouble entry jounals : 1.Each day should begin with rereading the notes from the day before and writing a recapitulation on the facing page. At the week's end, two paragraphs are assigned: 1) a description of the object based on the right-hand side entries; 2) a comment on the process of observing and interpreting based on the left-hand side-but in either case, the writer is free to move back and forth from notes to recapitulation. This activity will reveal to students that meaning is not stable but dynamic, and our thinking also constantly changes. Therefore, the interpretation of any text could be open for further discussion.
 
               Double entry journals could be extremely helpful in preparing students for the New Regents  Task III- Reading and Writing for Literary Response and Expression .
            Copy the task situation and place it above the double-entry journals as a thesis statement students have to prove by using specific references from two texts, a poem and a story. For example "Read the poem, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, an excerpt from The Old Man and the Sea, and answer the questions. Then, write an integrated essay about how people make their choices about life when so many elements of life are unknown as symbolized in the description of nature in the selections."

Double-entry Journal on the Poem
 

Quotes (original lines or paraphrased lines)	Responses  in Relation to the Task(Point out the literary devices used in the poem)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, /And sorry I could not travel both	I like the image depicted in the two lines and also it seems the diverged roads are not real roads but a crossroad in the speaker's mind. The poet uses the metaphor to indicate a person facing a decision-making moment in his life.
Yet knowing how way leads on to way, /I doubted if I should ever come back.
I took the one less traveled by, /And that has made all the difference.

Double -entry Journal on the Story (An excerpt from the Old Man and the Sea)
 

Quotes(original lines or paraphrased lines)	Responses  in Relation to the Task(Point out the literary elements used in the story)
His choice had been to stay in the deep dark water far beyond all snares and traps and treacheries.	The old man seems to talk to the fish as if it were a human being. This personification indicates that nature and animals make their choices too under certain situations.
My choice was to go there to find him beyond all people. Beyond all people in the world.	The old man repeats "beyond all people" to show his determination about the choice he has made
But what a great fish he is and what will he bring in the market if the flesh is good. He took the bait like a male and he pulls like a male and his fight has no panic in it.	The old man compares the fish to a male and praises him as if it were one of his companions. He seems to take his tough choice in such a humane manner although he is not certain whether he'll survive this or not.