To Journal or Not to Journal

In the past, my school has used kindergarten journals on a daily basis.  They start the morning out with calendar time and then they have the students draw a picture and write about their picture in their kindergarten journal.  The students are encourage to try to write sounds and make words but the teacher or an aide also write down what the child tells them about the picture.  Sometimes it might be a sentence or sometimes just labels.  Coming from first grade, I'm not sure that I want to approach journal writing like this.  I want my students writing to be more focused and have more of a purpose than just drawing and labeling daily.  This can be controversial so I want to say that I'm not trying to start controversy but would rather have some ideas of how other teachers have used journals or teach writing in the classroom.  What does your writing time consist of?