An Oregon school implemented a program of journal writing in grades 5 to 8 and evaluated its effects upon the language arts curriculum and students' writing ability. Each of the 11 teachers in the project decided the amount of time to allocate to journal writing and the routines to establish, although all followed certain guidelines on confidentiality, daily feedback, and students' choice of topic. Questionnaires and interviews with the teachers at the end of the school year indicated that most attempted to respond in writing to students' journals regularly, but only two teachers responded daily; many found the task of responding to be a very heavy burden. Teachers reported obtaining useful diagnostic information from students' journals but very few used this information for establishing instructional priorities or teaching needed skills. Over the period of nine months every journal writing class showed gains in spelling performance ranging from slight to almost two years. Over the nine months, the total group also made modest gains in general writing ability, and the lower ability groups made substantial gains. In addition, the journal writing program positively influenced student scores on language usage tests. (HTH)