How your notebook can help you navigate life and grow
Illustration by Jerold Sunga
by Leif Gregersen
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I have spent much of the past five years working as a creative writing teacher and much of that time teaching journaling and poetry to psychiatric patients in a mental health hospital. Journaling is something special to me, as the author of thirteen books of different genres. I first was introduced to journaling as a boy, when my mom kept one — on the advice of her psychiatrist. She would write the date and a number from one to ten to indicate her mood for that day, then fill a page with her thoughts. Her journal was her confidant, her best friend. It was also an accurate guide for her to reflect on past events and where she made progress. My mom’s journal was her window to herself, a way for her to get to know herself and how she coped with a diagnosis of clinical depression.
I learned much about journaling when I became a writer. It was not only my guide and confidant, but it was also a place to experiment with dialogue and lines of poems and record ideas for further writing to return to. My first attempts at writing outside of an English class took place when I first had my own apartment and found myself typing out a full page of self-expression each night before bed.
I will never forget, years later, living in a neighborhood with severe poverty all around, twice seeing young women who were unhoused writing in a notebook. When I asked them what they were writing, they simply said, “Just keeping a journal.” These young women prioritized keeping their notebooks handy as a way to keep a record and stay strong through incredible hardship.
It was eye-opening for me. I have learned that creative writing, which journaling has a way of opening the door to, can cause us to reach down inside for something beautiful that we can express and do what we like with. This process can be a little like talk therapy. Not only can it help the person as they write, but it is also recorded for the person to look back on and, should the situation arise, share with others.
When I meet a new class of students eager to dive into poetry, I first teach them about journaling. After trying to impress upon them how journaling can be healing and a vehicle for growth, I start them out by giving them prompts. In my experience, the best ones are seasonal. After getting my students familiar with introspection through written word, I show them how to develop their ideas into poems and, sometimes, other forms of writing. The following are generative prompts I have used as an instructor.
Jerold Sunga
Journaling prompts:
Write for ten minutes about the happiest memory you have from the past year.
Write five things you appreciate about the season we’re in right now.
Write a letter to yourself when you were a teenager. Give yourself the advice you wish you had received then.
Write about your favorite holiday memory — be it Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, or something else. Talk about what you remember… what food you ate, what made you smile, how you felt.
Once I can get their pens moving, I encourage my students to share what they wrote, and then I like to show them mind mapping. This is when you write a topic in the middle of a page, circle it, and draw branches off to where you write and circle other topics that relate to ideas you’ve already expressed, hopefully filling a page with solid ideas. Then I work with them to create further.
Poetry prompts:
Write a haiku. A haiku is three lines — the first with five syllables, the second with seven syllables, and the third with five syllables. Use this format to describe an event in the first line, develop it in the second line, then have something shift in the third line. I find the counting and word-budgeting of writing haikus to be positive for nurturing cognitive and creative skills.
Rewrite an existing song. Using ideas from your journaling, take a song you like and substitute lyrics (this is where I often introduce students to rhymezone.com, a free website that searches for all rhymes to a word) that fit the words of your song. Make it satirical or funny if you want!
Celebrate the contrasts in nature. Write about how summer helps you appreciate winter and, in the second half, how winter helps you appreciate summer. Or perhaps play with themes of day and night, sunshine and rain, forests and deserts, etc. Try to include details that appeal to you personally. Include all of the senses you can.