Sacred Writing Time

This is my second year using Corbett Harrison's Sacred Writing Time in my classroom. Sacred Writing Time is simply ten minutes every single day of free journaling time. Students can write about anything at all: a story, a poem, their day, a letter, anything. To go with it, Harrison has made a daily slide containing a writing prompt, quote of the day, word of the day, and a silly fact. (You can find those in his TPT store if you are interested.)

A lot of my students get really into Sacred Writing Time, and a lot of them don't. I think the lack of structure sometimes makes it hard for some of them to sink into it. But every once in awhile, it finally clicks for one of them. Where there were once random thoughts, suddenly there are personal essays. Where there were once only a few sentences, suddenly there is a three page story.

Yesterday, one of my girls came in steaming. She was upset with another student for some sort of perceived slight earlier in the day. Her first question was if she was allowed to use swear words in her writing. (I don't encourage this, but I do allow it as long as they are not sharing it with other students. I want them to have complete creative freedom during this time.) She set to work, writing three paragraphs in our ten minutes about how angry she was at this other student, and at the end of our writing time, she announced, "Hey! I'm not angry anymore!"

Finally, she gets it. Some of my students never write epic poetry, stories, or sweeping take-downs of the injustices of our world. But using writing to feel peace, to come back from the brink when all you want to do is scream? That is just as good.