Generative Journaling for Teens

Funded Jun 3, 2024

Last Friday, the Dean who takes in kids when their behavior means they need to not be in class for a period, also a Pueblo parent, passed me on our way out the door. He was with his daughter, my student. "How is this year?" he asked me.

"So much better than last. I'm calmer. The students are more chill."

"I notice that," he said. He'd heard from me many, many times the previous year. Movies or worse on phones, yelling, cursing, pushing - the list of disruptions went on and on. This year, in six weeks, I think I sent kids to him twice. The factors that influence student success are many and varied. While John Hattie never mentioned owning your own class journal in his analysis of effect sizes, I truly believe that the project you supported has brought a palpable sense of focus to my teaching at Pueblo High School.

Outside the AP's office last Friday, the Dean and I wished each other a good weekend. I left campus thinking about all the reasons my classroom management underwent such a drastic change. There's the new curriculum, there are my two Dual Enrollment classes, there is the year of district and school experience I now have. All those matter, but from day one with this year's kids, many of whom were my students last year, too, I had these colorful, unique journals to share. I truly believe that my students start each day in my room with a noticeable sense of purpose is because they know exactly what they need to do: get their journal out, pick a prompt, and write until the timer goes off and we start the lesson.

And let's be real. I'm writing this during an era of social media threats, anxiety, vaping, and old-fashioned disenchantment. I teach teenage mothers, teenage workers, and teenage runaways. I teach teenagers with severe mental health issues and teenagers whose home lives offer them little stability. Nothing about post-pandemic education resembles the childhood or adolescence in which I scribbled secrets in spiral-bound pages - yet this small project isn't just impacting me. It's affecting these kids. They walk in, find their green journal, their orange journal, their journal that got stuck in with the wrong class. "I found mine," they tell me.

"Good," I say. "Write."”

With gratitude,

Ms. Levine