Creative Writing to Support All Students

Creative writing is an enjoyable therapeutic activity that encourages growth and self-awareness among adolescents both within and outside counseling sessions. Creative writing can also promote emotional wellness for school counselors whose primary role is to be physically, emotionally and mentally present for student needs, and can potentially reduce burnout or symptoms commonly described as compassion fatigue. As current and former school counselors, we believe expressive arts therapy, as developed by Natalie Rogers, provides an extensive range of creative counseling approaches to use with our students, and can offer students an opportunity to explore their natural language through play and written expression. Unfortunately, these creative counseling approaches can be reserved for students receiving individual or group counseling services, or students receiving specific intervention services through the multitiered systems of support (MTSS) process. Therefore, we encourage school counselors to expand their school counseling programs to include expressive and therapeutic counseling strategies like creative writing, and advocate for a therapeutic outlet for all students through creative writing.

During the coronavirus pandemic, creative writing is more important than ever for our students. Ms. Reinhardt’s middle school has used the Second Step curriculum as the social/emotional learning program during remote learning, and the lesson plans were easily implemented through an online platform. The program offers several advisory lessons that involve creative writing. Students are able to share their thoughts and feelings about the social emotional topic covered each week, and this has been a great outlet for all of our students during this time.

Critical writing skills can also play an important role in social/emotional learning. Through creative writing, students can process emotions and find an outlet to express ideas or thoughts that are bothering them, but that they may be unable to verbalize in front of someone. We have incorporated automatic writing (better known as psychography) during English classes. Psychography is writing that is produced involuntarily without a writing prompt. As a Student Services Team member, Ms. Rains has seen great benefits from this approach and could use these writings to better know students and the needs of her student body.

Prior to entering counselor education, Dr. Mingo participated in the Red Clay Writing Project Summer Institute at the University of Georgia. By the end of the summer institute, she recognized a chance to expand her counseling program to all of her students, and decided to establish the first creative writing organization at her school. Through additional research on creative writing in counseling, Dr. Mingo discovered that a school setting incorporating creative writing could benefit her Latino student population by providing them an outlet to express themselves through their native language. She decided to title the program The Writer’s Workshop. Meetings were conducted once a week for an hour and a half, with students given 30 minutes to silently write on topics of their choosing and an additional 30–45 minutes to write about a photo, phrase or topic that was presented to them at random. In the remaining time, students shared special writing pieces with one another. Student topics included pets, friends, world issues, loss and family. As the program concluded after four months, students chose two written pieces to present to their parents at The Writer’s Symposium event.

We encourage school counselors to promote similar events within their school counseling programs. It can be an opportunity to connect with students you do not get to visit with frequently, and we believe this program gives them an outlet to express themselves through words without an adult deciding on an acceptable format and putting a grade on their creativity. We have also found it beneficial for helping students in a non-crisis setting and connecting with students who were previously in crisis and/or previously participated in the Writer’s Workshop by creating a deeper connection. Therefore, we encourage school counselors to integrate creative writing with all of their students to extend the benefits of counseling to every student. We also encourage school counselors to exercise the use of creative writing as an outlet for personal well-being and self-care during this time of COVID-19.

Contact Taryne M. Mingo, Ph.D., assistant professor at UNC Charlotte, at tmingo@uncc.edu. Contact Nicole Rains, school counselor at Swansboro High School, at nicole.rains@onslow.k12.nc.us. Contact Jamie Reinhardt, school counselor at Liberty Middle School, at jreinhardt@burke.k12.nc.us.
 
Resources
Adding to the toolbox: Using creative interventions with high school students, by L. Bruneau and J. J. Protivnak, 2012
The therapeutic use of journaling with adolescents, by A. Utley and Y. Garza, 2011
Breathing words slowly: Creative writing and counselor self-care--the writing workout, by J. Warren, M. M. Morgan, L. B. Morris and T. M. Morris, 2010