# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
PD - journals - ideas for getting started

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
PD - journals - emoji feelings - Google Docs

# data[].attributes.headline
Forms of writing for "the big 3" genres of the Common Core

# data[].attributes.subject
Forms of writing for "the big 3" genres of the Common Core

# data[].attributes.headline
LA Times article - "Journaling the coronavirus pandemic"

# data[].attributes.subject
LA Times article - "Journaling the coronavirus pandemic"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Kelly Milligan's mind drifted back to the days after Sept. 11 and the Boston Marathon bombing. These days felt a bit like those did and, yet, completely distinct.

This moment wasn't finite - it wasn't one day, and it won't be one week. Nobody knows exactly how long it will last.

But it already feels historic, so two weeks ago, Milligan, a 48-year-old graphic designer who works at a university and lives in Acton, Mass., cracked open her new black journal. She labeled one of the first pages: "CORONAVIRUS DAILY JOURNAL 2020."

In what feels like an instant, our daily rhythms and routines have morphed into realities that, even two weeks ago, would have looked unrecognizable. As each strange, stressful day started to bleed into the next, Milligan and countless others across the globe decided that if she wanted to remember these days a year or a lifetime from now, she needed to actively construct her memory.

She needed to start a journal.

Everything was moving quickly, and she wanted to remember when the governor of Massachusetts declared a state of emergency and she and her daughter sat on the couch in silence. She wanted to remember the small details, too, as when how after her third trip to the grocery store, her daughters still managed to think of two things she hadn't bought - brown sugar and Nesquik.

"Do I have to bring the entire grocery store home?" she jotted down beneath her Day 2 sketch.

Usually it was just Milligan and her 17-year-old daughter at home, but now her older daughter, a sophomore, had moved home from college and they all were adjusting to living together again.

Her college-age daughter had been scheduled to compete at a dance competition in Daytona, Fla. She'd looked forward to it for so long. Milligan was doing her best to comfort her - you're not alone in your disappointment or in your uncertainty.

Milligan wants to remember the moments of levity, too, as she adjusts to working from home. She wants to remember hearing her daughters shout requests from the next room.

"Mom! Can we get a dog?"

"Mom! Can I go out?"

'I'm scared. The reports coming out of Italy are horrific'

Peter Lipson thought about his grandfather's old letters - the beautiful penmanship and the excavated memories about life around Boston in the early 20th century.

Lipson, 52, a doctor who works in a medical clinic in Farmington Hills, Mich.,thought specifically about the letter his grandfather wrote recounting memories of the house on Elmo Street, where he lived when he and his siblings all contracted scarlet fever.

"The city came and put a red tag on the door indicating we were in quarantine," his grandfather wrote. "My mother, all alone, took care of us and we were isolated in the front room for 5 weeks."

With that letter in mind, Lipson, an on-and-off journal-keeper, recently vowed to write an entry, even a short one, every day. Some days it might just be a line about the weather or a sentence so short it speaks for itself: "I'm home, I'm going to bed."

"Those are the feelings I'm trying to get down," he said, "so, assuming I survive this, when I look back, I can see what it was like."

Two Thursdays ago, he wrote a longer entry - " 3/12/20 Cool, overcast, 40's," it begins - talking about how quickly everything has evolved. Just the other day, he wrote, it had seemed noteworthy that Starbucks had refused to serve his coffee in a mug. Now schools were canceled, and testing for coronavirus in his area was still limited.

"It feels like there is a hurricane offshore and we're boarding up windows wondering how bad it will be," he wrote. "I'm scared. The reports coming out of Italy are horrific."

Then his mind drifted to his parents, who are 93 and 86, and he wrote, "I may have to avoid my folks."Since writing that entry, Lipson has decided that, even though his parents live down the street and they often eat at least one meal together a week, they couldn't see each other for a while.

Every second with someone that age is important, he told himself, but what if he got the virus and passed it to them? It was too risky. Phone calls would have to do for now.

A few days later, Lipson wrote an entry saying he was scared and had texted his attorney, asking whether his own estate plan was in order. His attorney stopped by later, he wrote, and had him sign some papers.

In the office on a recent afternoon, Lipson spotted a colleague carrying hand sanitizer and laughed. "Oh," he said, "you found some liquid gold there."

Although they are telling patients experiencing respiratory problems to avoid coming into the clinic to prevent the spread of the virus, Lipson said he plans to keep his office open throughout the pandemic. He has patients with diabetes and high-blood pressure and all kinds of other problems that don't change just because everything else around us has.

'My mom and dad say that it's day 1 of coronavirus'

Loretta Aporius likes math and she really, really likes writing. She loves recess and eating snacks and talking to her teacher. So a couple of weeks ago, when her parents told her that school was canceled because of coronavirus, the 7-year-old from Winnipeg, Canada, was crushed.

"Disappointment," she said, softly, "and sadness."

But then she talked to her father, who suggested that she start a journal to remember these strange days. Loretta folded a stack of papers, stapled them together and labeled the cover with bubble letters and a drawing of a red-and-green orb. She used a ruler and markers to add lines.

"Dear Journal," she wrote on the first page, "today is Saterday, March 14 th 2020. My mom and dad say that it's day 1 of coronavirus but to me it feels like it's day 4."

It felt like everything in her province of Manitoba was being canceled, Loretta wrote, and she'd had to miss dance class the other day, because she had a stuffy nose. Today it is too cold to go outside, she wrote, and she didn't feel like playing video games or knitting.

"I'm still really sad and bord," she wrote, "so writting in this journal is all I can do."

Loretta thinks that one day she might read her journal to her children or her grandchildren. Or if nothing else, she says, maybe it will help her sometime in the future. "If a virus goes around the world when I'm older," she said, "I could look at the journal and be prepared."

But for now, coronavirus means no birthday parties or sleepovers or play dates. It means that 12 people in her city - or maybe her province, she couldn't quite remember - already had the virus last week and she hoped they weren't older people, because she knew it was worse for them. She knew, too, that everyone should avoid groups and keep doing what they're doing to stay safe.

"Keep washing our hands a lot," she said, "and keep covering up our coughs."

'Right now, everything just feels odd'

It was two Thursdays ago, and the Big 10 basketball tournament had just been canceled. She wouldn't be able to watch her beloved Michigan State Spartans play, but she had already booked a place to stay in Indianapolis, and Airbnb wasn't yet offering refunds.

So, Jessica - a 44-year-old teacher in Saginaw, Mich., who asked to be identified by only her first name - hopped in the car with her husband, her cousin and her cousin's husband and drove five hours south. They explored the city and went to breweries, which weren't super-crowded, so they could keep their distance. Their phones buzzed constantly with coronavirus updates. More cases, more closures.

"What in the world?" she remembers saying aloud. On the drive back to Michigan, they stopped at Cracker Barrel. Normally, the waitress said, it'd be a two-hour wait, but today there was none.

Jessica watched as employees disinfected the salt and pepper shakers and wiped down the spindles of each chair. Everything started to feel momentous.

She thought about her husband's grandparents, who were from Germany, and stories they told about fleeing during the war - stories that had always seemed unrelatable. She thought about how her current reality would one day sound pretty unrelatable to her own grandchildren.

She started jotting down short entries on the Notes app on her iPhone.

On March 16, she wrote, the school shutdown had officially begun, and the governor had ordered all bars and restaurants to close at 3 p.m., which meant her son wouldn't have work for the foreseeable future.

She had attended a staff meeting earlier in the day, she wrote, and another teacher had left early because his wife had a fever and she was told to go to the hospital.

"Right now," she typed, "everything just feels odd."

Social distancing was recommended, but kids didn't seem to be taking it very seriously and she wasn't sure what to make of it herself. It was still so strange, she wrote, to have returned from Indianapolis, where things seemed mostly normal, to this new reality. She ended her entry with an update about her trip to Meijer supermarket.

"Crazy," she wrote. "Tons of empty shelves. People buying large pallets of canned veggies. There were no eggs, toilet paper, tomato sauce."

'Am I going to be able to land a job?'

"Guess what ... I got less hours at my job yay," Sara Juarez wrote in a sarcastic entry in a Word doc dated March 16-17, 2020.

She added an upside-down smiley-face emoji.

The 21-year-old college student, who lives with her parents and siblings in the small town of Fate, Texas, works at a doughnut shop in a strip mall. During a Monday shift, when the shop made only $75 the whole day, Juarez began to realize just how serious this was. Early in her shift, she looked outside and saw almost no headlights on the streets.

"Today looked like a ghost town," she wrote, adding that she'd just found out that her classes at the University of North Texas at Dallas, where she studies communications, were all going to be online.

Most of the things that she had expected to define her senior year - her research symposium, her internship with the North Texas Tollway Authority, her walk across the stage at graduation - would look completely different, if they happened at all.

"Am I going to be able to land a job?" she wrote. "Would I need to line up an internship? All these questions are running through my head."

Juarez has started snapping photos, too, and while she sometimes types her thoughts into a Word document, she's also started jotting down things in a notebook. Eventually, she said, she plans to put all her journal entries together on her website.

Later in her entry about classes moving online, Juarez recounted her recent experience at a nearby Walmart.

"People are wilding lol," she wrote, noting that the only items left on the bread shelves recently were packages of the gluten-free bread.

"Another entry tomorrow y'all!" she signed off. "Stay safe."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Journaling the coronavirus pandemic: 'I'm scared.' 'Can we get a dog?' 'Everything just feels odd'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kelly Milligan's mind drifted back to the days after Sept. 11 and the Boston Marathon bombing. These days felt a bit like those did and, yet, completely distinct. This moment wasn't finite - it wasn't one day, and it won't be one week. Nobody knows exactly how long it will last.

# data[].attributes.headline
Basic Quick Diary Format from Lynda Barry

# data[].attributes.subject
Basic Quick Diary Format from Lynda Barry

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
PD - journals - Lynda Barry basic quick diary format - Google Docs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Today I invite you to join me in art journaling, sharing this creative experience with your kids, too.

I began to explore art journaling after realizing how much joy I find in creating. Before kids, I used my music and dance to channel my creativity. Recently, I've been exploring art journaling to tap into the creative self. And, I've invited my kids along for the journey as well.

Beginnings of Art Journaling

While in the mountains, we used our blank books, colored pencils, Doodle Diary: Art Journaling for Girls, and wrote in our journals daily. Yes, I did this with the girls, too - a very important piece of getting kids to do anything! Mostly, I introduced some new ideas I noticed in the Doodle Diary book like:

This is the cover page AJ made after we played with making swirls.

Here's a page about a play we saw on our trip.

What is Art Journaling?

My definition of art journaling is simple (either because I don't know better or because I'm close to the essence of it) . . .
Art journaling is creating a journal with a combination of words and mixed-media art.
Art Journal Kits

We used these amazing Art Journal Kits from Strathmore Artist Papers. Really it's a spiral hardcover journal book with a lot inside: 14 pages of project ideas, 5 decorative paper pages, 6 construction paper pages for collage, 2 pocket folders, and 25 pages of heavyweight artist quality drawing paper.

Pick a Medium (or Two)

Looking at the ideas in the kit, we started with two art ideas: watercolor and collage.

Then the girl painted a watercolor background on their pages.

After that, they added pictures and words. (Remember when I wrote about word collections? You can use words from your word collection jars!)

There is no right way to art journal. It's all about creating and being creative.

Here's a page from JJ's journal using collage and watercolor.

As we continue on our art journal exploration, I've found some guides including guest posts from experienced art journalers. I'll keep you posted on what we do and supplies we use. So, grab your journals, and art supplies and come along with us!

Art Journal Books I'm Reading
The Art Journal Workshop
Art Journal Blogs I'm Reading
Visual Journaling 4 Kids Balzer Designs Aisling's Artists Journals The Best Journals for Kids 45 Staycation Ideas and Activities for Kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Today I invite you to join me in art journaling, sharing this creative experience with your kids, too. I began to explore art journaling after realizing how much joy I find in creating. Before kids, I used my music and dance to channel my creativity.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How to Combine Drawing and Writing into Deeply Personal Art Journals 750 × 750 - 110k - jpg mymodernmet.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
PD - journals - heads and hearts prompts - Google Docs

# data[].attributes.body
Add comments below about minilessons that I can collaborate with you or create for you.

# data[].attributes.headline
NYTimes article - "The Quarantine Diaries"

# data[].attributes.subject
NYTimes article - "The Quarantine Diaries"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Around the world, the history of our present moment is taking shape in journal entries and drawings.

Margaux Rebourcet, a 28-year-old artist who lives in Nanterre, France, has found solace in her work. "We are now isolated," she said. Credit... Margaux Rebourcet

Before the end of life as we knew it, Ady, an 8-year-old who lives in the Bay Area of San Francisco, read a biography of Anne Frank.

When she realized that she, too, was living through what would soon become history, Ady started keeping her own diary.

In one early entry, she recorded that the judging for her county's science fair would be conducted over the phone, rather than in person. "Not 'fair'!!" she wrote. "Har, har, very funny."

When Santa Cruz County enacted a shelter-in-place order on March 16, she again picked up her pen.

"I'm REALY scared!" she wrote. "Did you know this is getting so bad that I have to go my clarinet lessons on the cumputer!!"

Image

As the coronavirus continues to spread and confine people largely to their homes, many are filling pages with their experiences of living through a pandemic. Their diaries are told in words and pictures: pantry inventories, window views, questions about the future, concerns about the present.

Taken together, the pages tell the story of an anxious, claustrophobic world on pause.

"You can say anything you want, no matter what, and nobody can judge you," Ady said in a phone interview earlier this month, speaking about her diary. "No one says, 'scaredy-cat.'"

When future historians look to write the story of life during coronavirus, these first-person accounts may prove useful.

"Diaries and correspondences are a gold standard," said Jane Kamensky, a professor of American History at Harvard University and the faculty director of the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute. "They're among the best evidence we have of people's inner worlds."

History isn't usually told by the bigwigs of the era, even if they are some of its main characters. Instead, it is often reconstructed from snapshots of ordinary lives. A handwritten recipe. A letter written by a soldier at the front. A drawing of a kitchen sink. One of the most famous works of academic history - "A Midwife's Tale," by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich - came from the diary kept by a woman living in Maine from 1785 to 1812. It won a Pulitzer Prize.

"The personal that is presented in diaries gives us the truth of the era," said Carole Ione Lewis, a diarist and the author of " Pride of Family: Four Generations of American Women of Color," which she wrote using her relatives' diaries.

Today's journals convey the shared experience of life in isolation.

Some diarists record statistics: the number of infections, the number of deaths. Others keep diaries that are part shopping list, part doodle pad. Unidentified phone numbers are scratched out in the margins of punctuation-less pages filled with the frustration of being separated from family and friends. Among these accounts, anxiety is the constant.

Deb Monti, a 22-year-old painter, was in Valencia, Spain, when the country went on lockdown. Confined to her apartment, she painted what she could see from her window.

"I'm looking at other people who are now trying to live their daily lives on these tiny balconies," she said.

Now back in Pittsburgh, where she grew up, Ms. Monti is self-isolating in her childhood bedroom.

"You look at this painting of a person looking out a window and you think, like, 'Oh, how romantic. This person is able to just daydream,'" she said. "But for me, it's so all of a sudden. It makes me feel so suffocated and restrained."

For some visual diarists, making new work has been a way to stay connected with other artists in isolation.

In Manila, before the outbreak, Patricia Joyce V. Salarzon, a 27-year-old production editor, would meet her friends to draw outside. Now they all agree to sketch at the same time, just to feel like they are together.

Credit... Patricia Joyce V. Salarzon

Timothy Hannem, an illustration artist in Paris, made a template for people to fill in and post on social media using the hashtag #coronamaison: corona house. A well-known illustrator, Pénélope Bagieu, shared the drawing with her Twitter followers.

They will each draw their own ideal place to be quarantined, she wrote.

Within a few days, hundreds of people had uploaded their own imagined interiors, with cats and plants and books. They started a website, too, as a landing pad for the project.

Together, the drawings make for a fantastical house, with rooms created by many, many hands.

About two weeks ago, Anna Temkina, a professor of public health and gender at the European University at St. Petersburg, realized she was living through what sociologists refer to as "emergent moment."

"It is a moment when new rules begin to develop, but they are not yet clear," Dr. Temkina, 59, said. "Sociologically, this was absolutely great."

She has started project called "the virus diaries," part of a broader effort by the university to study quarantine's effect on daily life.

"Saturday - a normal crowd out and about," she wrote. "I don't notice any increased caution. People are walking without distancing; two military men shake hands; a man and woman my age greet each other with a kiss."

In the early days of the outbreak, Annie Armstrong, a 24-year-old writer in Brooklyn, went home to Atlanta. Now her diary is filled with questions about her career, how to find meaning in her life, what she really wants.

"I really feel like I'm witnessing the fall of the empire," she wrote. "I'm already mourning this whole little life I made for myself in New York."

Kari Stevenson, a 34-year-old high school librarian who lives near Colorado Springs, Colo., started keeping her own quarantine journal. Writing soothes a nervous ache in her stomach, she said, even when the subject matter is anxiety provoking.

"The grocery stores are feeling the strain + shortening hours," Ms. Stevenson wrote in a recent entry. "I am starting to worry our 14 day supply might not be enough."

The day before public schools closed in Boston, Ari Zimmet asked his middle school students to draw how they were feeling.

Normally, Mr. Zimmet, 25, teaches woodworking. But he remembered how one art professor, in college, opened up her classroom for discussion and sketching after the 2016 election. He wanted to make room for his middle school students to do the same.

As they drew, many seemed unaffected. But one student, a boy, drew frantically. With blue and orange lines, he made frenzied marks as stick figures fell from the sky.

"He didn't articulate his feelings, and he almost never does," Mr. Zimmet said. "But it was like he was constructing this whole narrative with the path that his Cray-pas was taking."

That these accounts are recorded on paper is crucial to their longevity. "People think the internet is going to be permanent, but we're already starting to lose things that were committed to bits and bytes," said Shane Landrum, who holds a doctorate in American history from Brandeis University. "Even with the danger of your house burning down with all your written records inside, I still think paper is valuable as a practice," Dr. Landrum said.

The weight of a personal diary is familiar to Frank Herron, a 67-year-old book publisher who lives in Winchester, Mass. He has studied the journals his great-aunt kept in the early 20th century.

In one entry, she wrote about seeing Austrian royalty from a tailor's window.

"The procession was like a fairy tale," she wrote on June 14, 1900. "I never expect to see such a fine one again anywhere."

She was right. In a few years, in a few more diary entries, World War I would start. A few years later, the Austro-Hungarian empire would fall.

"What makes history is people who write some stuff or keep some pictures," Mr. Herron said. "This is how we communicate across centuries."

Daniel A. Kipnis translated Anna Temkina's diary entry from the original Russian.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Around the world, the history of our present moment is taking shape in journal entries and drawings. Before the end of life as we knew it, Ady, an 8-year-old who lives in the Bay Area of San Francisco, read a biography of Anne Frank.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Do you ever sit down to write in your journal and find yourself completely uninspired? If so, you're in the right place. We love finding inspiration in how other people choose to use their journals. These are some of our favorite pages including doodles, stickers, hand lettering, and more. Which one is your favorite?

1. We loved this one from Jenny's Sketchbook - who wouldn't want to journal on a page with a beautifully painted snake or an ombre color swatch?

2. Hope from Besottment sews things like pockets and envelopes into her journal. Not only is it gorgeous, but it gives her so much more space to write and create!

3. The owner of this journal - Kolby Kirk - hiked almost 1,700 miles of the Pacific Coast Trail and filled 850 journal pages with little pieces of his journey, including everything from juice from blackberries he found on the trail to receipts from long-awaited hamburgers.

4. This journal's author pastes in pictures, maps, and other items to turn his book into a mix between a scrapbook and a diary.

5. This one was made using paint and stencils to create the geographic planet-like shapes. Not only that, but the paint was done on top of a collage of book pages.

6. Abbey uses intricate hand lettering and cute illustrations to journal her travels. We're obsessed with everything she does, so check out her Instagram feed for more inspiration!

7. This artist, Marta, uses a decoupage technique to make beautiful and unique designs on her journal pages. This one is mesmerizing.

8. We love the idea of choosing a color scheme for a page and going from there. This one turned out so pretty, and just looking at it brightens your mood.

9. This " tiny journal " filled with ripped pages to create interesting images and scenes is one of our favorites. Even if you don't feel super artistic, something like this would be easy to do.

10. Even though this one is a planner page and not necessarily a journal page, we loved the texture added here and the way it looks organized but still creative.

11. Another travel journal, but the idea to do cover pages for each place visited helps you separate their thoughts and become more connected to your explorations.

Which one of these inspires you the most? With a blank page in a journal, there are almost endless possibilities for what you can do to make it yours. If you need a new one, make sure you check out our durable leather journals.

---

The post 11 Beautiful Art Journal Pages to Spark Your Creativity appeared first on Rustico.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
11 Beautiful Art Journal Pages to Spark Your Creativity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Do you ever sit down to write in your journal and find yourself completely uninspired? If so, you're in the right place. We love finding inspiration in how other people choose to use their journals. These are some of our favorite pages including doodles, stickers, hand lettering, and more.

# data[].attributes.headline
Middle Web - "Students' journals could be 'primary sources'"

# data[].attributes.subject
Middle Web - "Students' journals could be 'primary sources'"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Lauren S. Brown

Several weeks ago - what is starting to feel like a lifetime ago - I finished grading 100 plus family history projects. Some were videos, but most were illustrated stories my students had written about someone they interviewed in their family.

Some kids interviewed parents or grandparents about their parents or grandparents. Some, who swore to me they had no interesting stories in their families' past, wrote about a parent's experience during 9/11 or how they felt during the last 2-3 presidential elections.

Now all of us, including my students, are living through a historical moment. If you are looking for a meaningful assignment that you can give students while we are all stuck at home, consider doing a "living through history" assignment.

Just a few days ago (which now seems like much longer ago, doesn't it?), I saw a couple of dozen students. Our district had quickly rescheduled an institute day; teachers prepared for e-learning and students were able to get into the building one last time to pick up any belongings.
As students came by, they were eager to share their observations, questions and concerns.

Hey, Ms. Brown, do you think we'll be out of school for longer than 2 weeks?

Do you think we'll still have the Great American field trip at the end of the year? Will we still have graduation? ( I teach 8th graders).

My sister is a senior in high school. She heard there won't be prom this year.

We going to pick up my brother at the airport today because his college closed.

We went to Costco this morning and the line was all the way to the back of the store.

My dad is worried that he will lose his job.

My mom told me a few days ago to stop putting the rubber bands on my braces so I don't have to put my fingers in my mouth.

I think I'm going to go nuts at home.

Ms. Brown, have you ever lived through anything like this? This will be in the history books, won't it?

Students can create "primary sources" for future historians

There are so many unanswered questions right now, but the answer to that last question is yes. So consider a simple assignment in which your students jot down their thoughts, questions, concerns and observations about what is going on. I suggested that they could do this as a letter, a diary/journal entry or just write.

Here are a few suggestions to get them started:

your family's trip to the grocery store and "stocking up"

cancelled family vacations, cancelled field trips, cancelled school

how weird it is to have to "e-learn"?

how are you occupying your time?

how do you feel about this? psyched that you don't have to come to school? bored? worried? bummed that you won't get to see your friends?

what is changing for you because of this?

what kinds of things are your families thinking/saying/doing?

Or have them post short videos about what they are thinking. Flipgrid is great for this. One of my colleagues is posting a question each day for students to reflect on. I know I have enjoyed this glimpse into my students' worlds, seeing the posters on the walls of their bedrooms, or their dog on the couch in the living room. You can come up with some fun questions to get the ball rolling:

What is your "must have" if you are going to be cooped up inside for awhile?

What are your "binge watch" recommendations?

Where is your new "desk"?

And then you can get into deeper questions, as long as you let students know that they don't have to share anything they don't wish to.

What is the #1 concern you have about what is going on right now?

What is a small way in which your life has changed right now?

What mattered to you a few days or a week ago that now seems irrelevant? Vice versa?

Things are changing very quickly now. This seems to be an assignment you could keep adapting as time passes. It doesn't necessarily require the internet, should that availability become restricted in some way.

Remind your students that they are creating a primary source - documentation of what one student was thinking in March of 2020 during the global pandemic. Now we are all a part of history.

Stay well!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Students' Pandemic Journals Could Become Primary Sources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Lauren S. Brown Several weeks ago - what is starting to feel like a lifetime ago - I finished grading 100 plus family history projects. Some were videos, but most were illustrated stories my students had written about someone they interviewed in their family.

# data[].attributes.headline
Article - "Why We Shouldn't Shield Children from Darkness" by children's author Matt de la Peña

# data[].attributes.subject
Article - "Why We Shouldn't Shield Children from Darkness" by children's author Matt de la Peña

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'Why We Shouldn't Shield Children From Darkness'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Maybe instead of anxiously trying to protect our children from every little hurt, our job is to simply support them through such experiences

# data[].attributes.headline
Anchor chart - Things You Can Write In Your Journal

# data[].attributes.subject
Anchor chart - Things You Can Write In Your Journal

# data[].attributes.headline
This Place I Know: Poems of Comfort by Georgia Heard

# data[].attributes.subject
This Place I Know: Poems of Comfort by Georgia Heard

# data[].attributes.body
Website created by literacy coaches that offers daily "missions" to stimulate students' journaling.

# data[].attributes.body
Introduces diary/journal writing

# data[].attributes.headline
Journaling: The Most Important Writing of the Moment

# data[].attributes.subject
Journaling: The Most Important Writing of the Moment

# data[].attributes.body
A teacher in California is sharing the Screencastify lessons she's doing to teach her students about journaling. You have to request access, or you can get ideas for your minilessons just based on the titles.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Shared Journaling Video Sessions from Ms. Nosek 

# data[].attributes.headline
20 Prompts to Get You Out of Your Head - for adults

# data[].attributes.subject
20 Prompts to Get You Out of Your Head - for adults

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Wit & Delight | Designing a Life Well-Lived

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Photo by Nicole Feest at NYLONSADDLE Photography

There is no better way to understand the way you think and what's going through your head than to journal. The problem I've found is that the act of journaling is so open-ended that when it is most beneficial for me to do it, I avoid it.

Sound familiar? If this is one of the roadblocks you face when it comes to journaling, this post is here to help. I want to take the guesswork out of how you can journal effectively, without the impending paralysis that sometimes results from an open-ended prompt.

My first tip? Start by writing "morning pages."

Whether you are new to journaling or are just here to get some new prompts to try, consider doing a "mental download" first using the "morning pages" method ( contributor Ellen Koneck wrote a helpful post about this here!). It's a great way to get your mental gears greased and clean out any fragments of unfinished tasks, things to remember, or notes to self. It's also really effective in priming the pump per se when it comes to getting the most out of more targeted journaling sessions.

Next, dive into journaling prompts.

Once you've done around ten minutes of subconscious, nonlinear writing, I suggest moving on to journaling prompts. I keep a list handy that I can refer to and take inventory of what I'm up against that day or in that moment. If I'm feeling anxious, I know which list to focus on.

Sometimes we journal to connect with ourselves; other times we journal to find perspective in moments that feel out of control. Given the bizarre times we're living in and the spread of COVID-19, journaling is becoming an incredibly handy tool for this worrier.

When done correctly, journaling can be calming and clearing for your mind. It can help in releasing pent-up feelings and everyday stress. It can help you let go of negative thoughts while exploring your experiences with anxiety in a safe way.

The truth is, writing your thoughts down in a journal can positively impact your anxiety on a holistic level. When done correctly, journaling can be calming and clearing for your mind. It can help in releasing pent-up feelings and everyday stress. It can help you let go of negative thoughts while exploring your experiences with anxiety in a safe way.

When we get in the habit of writing about our struggles AND our successes, we begin to see enhanced self-awareness while also teaching ourselves about our triggers. Below you'll find some of my favorite journaling prompts that have worked wonders for me.

Journaling Prompts for Self-Discovery:

1. What do I know to be true that I didn't know a year ago?

2. What distractions get in the way of being my most productive?

3. When do I feel most in tune with myself?

4. If someone described me, what would they say?

5. What can wait until next week?

6. How does every part of my body feel in this moment?

Journaling Prompts for Managing Emotions:

1. What emotions am I holding on to?

2. How can I detach or neutralize this emotion?

3. Why am I doing X?

4. Why am I feeling this way?

5. What is causing these feelings?

6. Have I tried to take my ego out of the situation?

7. How can I detach my emotions from the behavior of others?

8. Did I use healthy boundaries before I began feeling this way?

Journaling Prompts for Anxiety and Depression

1. What hurts right now? How can I find relief?

2. When I look in the mirror, what do I see?

3. What are the things in my home that are the most "me"?

4. What am I doing right now?

5. What happened before I felt a shift in my mood?

6. Write down an entire list of what you are worried about. Star the items that you know are 100% true and not solely a feeling.

If you aren't convinced, research shows journaling can greatly improve your overall well-being. Now grab a notebook, some tea (or whiskey?), and let the words fly.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
20 Journaling Prompts I Swear by to Get You out of Your Head - Wit & Delight | Designing a Life Well-Lived

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There is no better way to understand the way you think and what's going through your head than to journal. The problem I've found is that the act of journaling is so open-ended that when it is most beneficial for me to do it, I avoid it. Sound familiar?

# data[].attributes.headline
anchor chart - write to your future self

# data[].attributes.subject
anchor chart - write to your future self

# data[].attributes.headline
video minilesson - writing a review in your journal

# data[].attributes.subject
video minilesson - writing a review in your journal

# data[].attributes.headline
video minilesson - things to write in a journal

# data[].attributes.subject
video minilesson - things to write in a journal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mini Lesson #1 A Menu of Options to Write In Your Journal While We are Away from School

# data[].attributes.headline
video minilesson - writing a how-to in your journal

# data[].attributes.subject
video minilesson - writing a how-to in your journal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mini Lesson #2 Writing a "How-To" in Your At Home Journal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Time Capsule - COVID 19 Project - Use for Any Class.pdf

# data[].attributes.headline
Writing Reflection Prompts from Jennifer Serravallo

# data[].attributes.subject
Writing Reflection Prompts from Jennifer Serravallo

# data[].attributes.headline
video minilesson - write a letter to your future self

# data[].attributes.subject
video minilesson - write a letter to your future self

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mini Lesson #4 Writing to Your Future Self

# data[].attributes.headline
page idea - what I can't wait to do again

# data[].attributes.subject
page idea - what I can't wait to do again

# data[].attributes.headline
video minilesson - using sensory details and imagery

# data[].attributes.subject
video minilesson - using sensory details and imagery

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mini Lesson #6: Using Sensory Details to Create Imagery & SAY MORE (Micro Progression/GoalSetting)

# data[].attributes.headline
"Why We Should All Be Keeping Coronavirus Journals" from Time 

# data[].attributes.subject
"Why We Should All Be Keeping Coronavirus Journals" from Time 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why We Should All Be Keeping Coronavirus Journals

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Historians will debate this period for decades to come. Our chance to control some of that narrative is in our hands now

# data[].attributes.headline
"Write it down. Keep a pandemic journal."

# data[].attributes.subject
"Write it down. Keep a pandemic journal."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
(Washington Post illustration; iStock images)

Ari L. Goldman is a professor of journalism at Columbia University. His most recent book is "The Late Starters Orchestra."

Keep a journal.

That is what I've been telling my students and my children and my friends, young and old. We are living through extraordinary times. Write it down. Keep a journal.

"But," they complain, "the days are bleeding one into the other and are hardly distinguishable. What should I write? That I watched eight hours of Netflix today?"

Yes! That's exactly my point. Capture it before it's gone. Remember when all this felt new? When it was strange that we wore sweatpants every day (and every night) and never took a shower and stared over and over at the same 12 things in the refrigerator? Remember when Zoom was a novelty? When sleeping until 11 seemed like a luxury? When you first couldn't remember if it was Tuesday or Wednesday?

Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic

That is now the stuff of our lives. But how did it become this way? And what was on Netflix anyway? We won't remember unless we write it down.

Sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter to track the outbreak. All stories linked in the newsletter are free to access.

"But I'm posting on Facebook every day and on Instagram, too," they assure me. But let me assure you: That's not the record you want. Facebook and Instagram are a conversation. They are for others. A journal is for you. You deserve a record. Write it down so you will remember how you got used to this - and how you got through this.

I've been trying to write every day since the sheltering in place began. I write in pen in a blue spiral notebook I keep beside my bed. Sometimes, it is just "I took a shower" or "S and I played Scrabble" or "Tuna, again." Other times, I note the markers of this strange journey. "Stopped walking in Riverside Park" or "Trump says we'll be out by Easter" or "started wearing a mask outside" or "played duets with J" or " Fauci says November " or simply "prayed."

I've been keeping a diary for more than 50 years - since I was 19, in fact. It was the opposite sex that got me started. Nothing mystified me more as a teenager than girls. I needed to write it down, I reasoned, if I was ever going to figure them out.

I kept writing almost daily until I got married more than a decade later. I kept writing through the births of my children, through a switch in careers, through seven years of cello lessons, through the deaths of my parents, through the birth of my first grandchild and into my first pandemic. I like to think that this daily writing practice has kept me sane.

And history benefits from a record, too. One of the other things I am doing to get through this difficult time is reading. I am now well into " The Splendid and the Vile," Erik Larson's eye-opening book about 1940-1941, Winston Churchill's first year as Britain's prime minister. It is hardly a surprise that this book is at the top of the bestseller lists right now. It is about inspired leadership at a moment of existential threat, a dark time when the Nazis were bombing London.

Larson writes how Churchill toured London after the first major attack, which left more than 400 dead and 1,600 wounded. Churchill wept openly, Larson writes, "overcome by the devastation" he witnessed "and by the resilience of the crowd."

"In one hand he held a large white handkerchief, with which he mopped his eyes; in the other he grasped the handle of his walking stick."

That kind of detail, like so much of Larson's book, came from the diaries of those who were there - Churchill, his family, his inner circle and the Londoners who lived through those turbulent times.

Some of the best testimonies came from something called the Mass Observation organization, an academic project that enlisted hundreds of volunteers to keep diaries about daily British life. Some of the entries from the World War II era ring particularly true today.

"One thinks that every noise now will be a siren or a plane," writes a nervous diarist, Olivia Cockett, on the eve of the first bombs being dropped on London.

My contemporary diary also notes the sounds of sirens - on ambulances making their way to Mount Sinai West hospital near my Manhattan apartment.

The Opinions section is looking for stories of how the coronavirus has affected people of all walks of life. Write to us.

There are several efforts similar to the Mass Observation project going on today, including at the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress, as well as academic projects such as " A Journal of the Plague Year: An Archive of Covid 19." StoryCorps has also launched an effort.

I encourage everyone I know to participate in these projects. But I also tell them, don't do it for history. Do it for yourself. Write it down. Keep a journal.

Tamal Ray: I spend my day working in the hospital. Then I come home and bake.

Lenore Skenazy: Why a lockdown is a great time to embrace'free-range parenting'

Michael Leonberger: Weathering the coronavirus pandemic with an anxiety disorder

Bob Brody: The basketball hoops are down in New York. It's painful. It's also our best shot.

'The fear in the air around us': Stories of tough jobs and the loneliness of quarantine

Coronavirus: What you need to read

The Washington Post is providing some coronavirus coverage free, including:
Updated May 9, 2020 Show More Show Less

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Opinion | Write it down. Keep a pandemic journal.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ari L. Goldman is a professor of journalism at Columbia University. His most recent book is " The Late Starters Orchestra ." Keep a journal. That is what I've been telling my students and my children and my friends, young and old. We are living through extraordinary times. Write it down.

# data[].attributes.body
Video introducing the project from the author of the I Survived series

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Scholastic Classroom Magazines: My History Writing Project

# data[].attributes.headline
My History Project - ideas for journal writing

# data[].attributes.subject
My History Project - ideas for journal writing

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
You are living through an important and unique time in history-the COVID-19 pandemic. Years from now, historians will learn from the experiences of people who went through it-people like you and your family.

That's why we want you to be part of our My History project.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
You are living through an important and unique time in history-the COVID-19 pandemic. Years from now, historians will learn from the experiences of people who went through it-people like you and your family. That's why we want you to be part of our My History project.

# data[].attributes.headline
"Journal Writing Strategies While Living Through a Pandemic" from Two Writing Teachers

# data[].attributes.subject
"Journal Writing Strategies While Living Through a Pandemic" from Two Writing Teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Journal Writing Strategies While Living Through a Pandemic

Schools in California closed on March 13th. Initially, our district was to be closed until April 20th, but then it was pushed to May 15, and eventually the remainder of the school year. I spent the first five weeks of the closures supporting parents, students, and teachers with technology to stay connected. After April 20th, our district moved into Phase 2, where distance learning officially began. Teachers and I scrambled to find a meaningful writing workshop approach. At first, we dabbled with an asynchronous method for teaching an information writing unit. We met in small groups, and then one on one. At these meetings, I noticed writing volume was low, and I had come to the hard realization that students were not motivated. Eventually, students stopped coming to small groups, and I often joked that my Zoom meetings were a "Party of one." I needed a vision and support so that I could offer teachers, and ultimately, students, a meaningful experience.

At the end of April, I attended Teachers College Reading and Writing Project's two-day institute on Living-and-Writing Through a Pandemic. Emily Strang-Campbell led a session on journal writing and its relevance during the time of living through a crisis. Journal writing serves three purposes: to document history, to understand our stories, and to help us stay connected. Journal writing lets us be a historian right now. Some of us may feel we have nothing to say, where in fact, our words document this moment in time. On May 10th, in her guest blog on the Two Writing Teachers, author Laurel Snyder wrote, "This is a moment that calls for writing as a record. Because this-what is happening right now, today-is historic." You can read the blog in its entirety here.

Another purpose journal writing serves is to understand our own stories. In How Writing Can Help us Heal, author Louise DeSalvo explained that writing about distressing events and how we feel about them is the only kind of writing that clinically has been associated with improved health. Finally, journal writing helps to build connections. Our words can inspire others and help bring joy to people's lives.

Emily then shared several microsessions on how to generate ideas for journal writing. Here are three transferable ones I used with teachers and kids.

Strategy 1: You can look at objects around you and see which ones have gained significance, lost significance, or that you simply miss. Then make a t-chart listing those items on one side and writing a little bit about its significance on the other. Finally, you can pick one idea and enter as your a journal entry.

An anchor chart I used with students to help generate ideas for journal entries.

Anthony writes about how drawing has taken on a significance in his life.

Strategy 2: You can create a double timeline. On one timeline you record all the events that you have heard about during the pandemic. Below it, you record your emotional response to each event. Then you pick one event and its emotional response and use as your journal entry.

An anchor chart I used to help students visualize a double timeline.

Here is my entry I wrote as a demonstration text.

Paloma's entry on the day she found out beaches were closed and her emotional response to it.

Strategy 3: You can think about topics or people that you are looking at differently. Then create a t-chart where you record the contrast of your thinking. Record on one side what you used to think about a topic and on the other side write down what your now realize. Finally, pick one and enter in as a journal entry.

Anchor chart I used to help students generate ideas for changing perspectives.

My demonstration text on how I have changed my perspective on company visiting.

The journal writing strategies I shared have really helped breathe life back into me. Our kids need to know that they have agency right now, and journal writing help serve to build that purpose.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Journal Writing Strategies While Living Through a Pandemic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Schools in California closed on March 13th. Initially, our district was to be closed until April 20th, but then it was pushed to May 15, and eventually the remainder of the school year. I spent the first five weeks of the closures supporting parents, students, and teachers with technology to stay connected.

# data[].attributes.headline
"The Diary Project: Documenting All the Small Things That Are Easily Lost" from the NY Times

# data[].attributes.subject
"The Diary Project: Documenting All the Small Things That Are Easily Lost" from the NY Times

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Documenting All the Small Things That Are Easily Lost (Published 2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An assignment for all of us to help capture an extraordinary time.