Journaling: Drama, Wellness and Finding Your Path

By Juliette O’Brien

I don’t like journaling, it just doesn’t come naturally to me. When I was a teenager many a New Year came with the resolution to keep a journal. I think it was partly with a mind to write something that was, in the words of Cecily Cardew, ‘simply a very young girl's record of her own thoughts and impressions and consequently meant for publication.’ It never happened and every year I soon gave up. It just wasn’t meaningful for me.

Yet journaling is something of a hot topic in two fields that intersect with my world: drama and wellness. A couple of years ago I found myself not only asking my students to keep a drama journal, but having to keep a journal myself as part of my yoga teacher training and I began to wonder what these two areas had in common that made the process of journaling so intrinsic to both. Furthermore, I found myself considering how my process of yoga and wellness journaling might inform my understanding of the drama journal and help shape both into a meaningful experience.

Yoga means to ‘yoke’, to connect: in this case the holistic connection of body-mind-spirit. Yoga or wellness journaling speaks to this same goal: to make connections between what we do, what we learn, the journey we are on and how we develop along the way. In addition, a wellness journal can have many purposes, but three common ones are tracking a goal, reflection and gratitude. As drama and theatre teachers, we understand that the process of journaling has many similar intentions and concepts. We want our students to make the same connections and to track their progress and goals, to reflect and perhaps to see their own development as a practitioner and learner could come under the umbrella of gratitude. What both of these journaling processes have in common are the notions of mindful awareness, of consciousness of intention, process and outcome and that word again, of making connections.

But how do we create this in a meaningful way for our students? As a non-journaling journaler, here’s what I’ve learnt and what helped make the process meaningful to me and I have tried, in consequence, to pass on to my students:

Divide and Conquer

I soon figured out that, for me, one linear journal was not a useful tool. If I put all my notes, my ideas, my progressions, my goals and my reflections, revelations and gratitude into a day-by-day, weekby-week format then when I came to look back on it I could never find anything I needed.

The mind works in, what psychologists call, ‘chunks’ or ‘schemas’ - ways of grouping information. It therefore, arguably, makes sense to organise our thoughts and the tangible collection of our thoughts in a similar way. Students can do this through separate notebooks, digital documents, blog pages, YouTube playlists or however else they work. The point is, each is distinct and has a clear purpose. Our students may find their own ways of doing this; here’s what works for me:

Progress and Goals

This is the working part of the journal and the one in which chronology is most important. Whatever the student is working on, this records where they are in the process, what they have created, what problems need solving and what they want to create next. These can be thought of or defined as moments of TEAM that exist or are needed in order to realise the overall intentions of the piece they are working on and can be set down using photos, videos/links to videos, written descriptions, sketches and so on. This part of the journal is integral to their creative process: they pick it up at the start of each rehearsal and check in with where they are at and where they are going. In group projects this can be done collectively and shared or individually. And it only takes one or two ‘oh yeah’ moments of finding things they would otherwise have forgotten to realise the value of this!

Theory

This is simply a record of learning. In some cases this part of a journal might not be necessary, as you might have enough digital resources, text books, handouts, worksheets or other such materials for them to refer to. However, if students are undertaking independent research into a practitioner or tradition and exploring elements of these, this is the part of the journal that becomes their personalised resource. This part of the journal becomes their encyclopaedia, their glossary and can be clearly organised by topic so that information can be found quickly, with space to add further information on each topic as it is acquired.

Reflection

This is the hardest part to write and the easiest to neglect. Reflection can be done in so many different ways and this in itself can be paralysing. When it comes to reflection, those moments of clarity, when the dust settles and everything sinks in can come at any time. That makes timing reflection challenging. I think valuable moments of reflection can take many forms: when creativity gets stuck; when creativity suddenly flows; at the end of a project; before starting a new one. I also think that reflection breeds reflection and so looking back through any of the elements of a journal can create new understanding and awareness. Maybe even encourage students to see reflection as gratitude: because of X I can/understand/appreciate...

Make Space to Make Connections

What reflection does require is slowing down and making space. To this end, I have found reflection rituals to be useful. Mine generally involves a comfy seat, a cup of tea, nice lighting, no phone and even putting my watch aside. My best reflection also comes when I’m walking or swimming and I have to ‘hold my thoughts’ until I have the chance to write down what has come to me. Students need time to develop an understanding of what enables them to reflect, so sharing practices as a group can be useful. If you have time, then creating space within the program to stop work, put on music, find cushions, go outside or to the library, sit down comfortably and look back can be a great way to help students reflect. There is no magic answer, only the need to make space for discovery. This goes for all parts of the drama journal. It’s so easy to run out of time at the end of class and students rush off, taking their focus with them but finding a few moments to somehow consolidate can be invaluable: ‘consolidate’ literally means to combine in order to make more effective.

We know that as drama and theatre teachers we are also teaching young people life skills. Journaling has become a wellness practice because it makes us pause and reflect on the past, present and future. Drama journaling might be the most valuable thing we can teach our students.