According to Dessoff (2008), familiarity with computers makes the
journaling process easier and more enjoyable for the technologically adept students of the
twenty-first century. This was, however, the only peer-reviewed article on journaling and
its use for writing improvement with technology revealed by a search of the literature
through books, search engines and websites.
Another issue that negatively affects the experience of writing in the classroom is
the amount of time required by high school teachers to assess written assignments.
According to Digital Bridges (2004), many teachers have stated that there is an
inadequate amount of time to assess students’ written work and provide individual
feedback, resulting in fewer writing assignments. This lack of writing assignments was
the topic of a study by Sanoff (2006) of high-school and college instructors. This survey
showed that 19% of the high school teachers never assigned a paper of one to five pages
in length, and 61% never assigned a paper that exceeded five pages (Sanoff, 2006). The
survey also showed that 48% assigned papers of one to five pages at least once a month,
while 37% assigned papers of more than five pages at least once a month; 24% assigned
papers of one to five pages a few times a month, while 2% assigned papers of more than
five pages a few times a month; 9% assigned papers of one to five pages weekly or more