The Story Task
You might want to play it safe in your classroom and just have students write about bland topics. Those are pretty easy to grade, after all. But, sooner or later, a student will end up sharing something challenging with you anyway. Don’t worry. Just trust your instincts. Most students only need a kind teacher to listen to them and hear what they have to say. So read their work and talk to them about it. If the student is especially troubled because of what they have written about, then get them to a professional who can help them. The majority of universities offer resources to assist students who are struggling with problems.
Part of the goal for this writing task is to prepare you so that when that student does give you a challenging paper, you have gained some experience in working with this kind of writing. But, the other goal is to help you write an important story for yourself and, if you are lucky, to perhaps find some healing as you go.
Story Guidelines
- The final version of your Story of Healing should be about 4-6 pages in length. Although I won’t penalize anyone for page length, I do like to give you a target range. You don’t need to write 10 pages now because we have a lot of other stories still to write!
- This narrative should be in a typical 12-point font, double-spaced, with 1 inch margins.
- You MIGHT be sharing a draft of this story with other class members. That will be up to you. Be sure to write something that you can eventually share with Dr. Pagnucci.
Story Linkages
- If you can see a useful way to link your Story of Healing to one or more of the the other stories you write, I encourage you to make that connection. Your book will feel more cohesive if there is some common ground among the stories.
- You might want to use some of the same characters or settings across your stories.
- You are not required to make connections like this. It’s fine if all the stories you write are entirely stand alone. But if you can make connections among your stories, that’s even better.
- Remember, though, that these are your stories, so tell them however you think is best.
Step 1: Select a Challenging Story
For this story, I want you to pick something challenging. You might consider writing about a conflict you have had with someone. You might write about a mistake you made. You might write about something that upset you. You might write about a relationship that became troubled. You might write about a time you got hurt.
Another direction to go is to write about a larger social issue. Perhaps you have been troubled by the current state of politics in the world or climate change or the pandemic. All of these things can unsettle you and give you something worth writing about in a story. If you take this approach, you will probably want to look for some way to connect this bigger social issue to your personal life. Perhaps you could describe a debate you had with friends at a coffee shop or attending an event that other people were protesting.
Pick a story that feels important to you. But also make a wise choice. I do not want you to write about something if the writing will cause you harm. At the same time, you don’t have to pick something entirely simplistic either. It’s ok to pick a hard story. Just choose carefully and wisely.
You might focus on writing a story about something that has troubled you as a way to help yourself move past that trouble spot toward better ground.
Optional Step 2: Interview a Person
If your conflict involves someone else, you might want to talk to that person before writing your story. Perhaps getting their point of view on the conflict will help you think more clearly about your own point of view. Perhaps you want to tell the story entirely from their point of view. That could work as well. You don’t have to involve anyone else in this story writing task, but you are welcome to do so if it will be helpful to your writing process.
If you decide to do an optional interview, please tell the person that this is a class project. Be sure to explain that you will share the story with Dr. Pagnucci and/or people in our class. Ask for the person’s permission to include their thoughts in the story.
If later on you hope to publish this story, you would most likely need to get a signed consent form from the person before publishing.
There is one other potential benefit I should mention in case you decide to interview someone. Perhaps this conversation will give you a chance to move past a lost connection with a friend, to reach a better place in that relationship. If that’s where you are at, I hope this story opens a new doorway of communication for you. Sometimes stories have surprising outcomes.
Step 3: Write a Draft of Your Story of Healing
Now dive in and start writing your story. Describe what happened in detail. Describe how you felt about the events. Describe anything that particularly stands out to you about this event. Perhaps some image or sound or feeling has stayed with you. If so, try to capture that. Write the whole story down as best you can.
Step 4: Focus on Adding Dialogue to Your Story
When people write for therapy, they are often guided to recall dialogue from particular experiences. Writing down the words people said can help give you understanding and, sometimes, a sense of closure. You might not be able to remember every exact word a person said at an event, but try to get the gist of what they said. People’s words carry weight and history. So if you can put into your story something another person said, those words might carry great meaning.
Step 5: Add Pictures to Your Story
It might be harder to come up with pictures for this Story of Healing, but since the rest of your book has pictures, it will probably feel like an oversight if there are no pictures in this story. So try your best to find a couple pictures that fit with your Story of Healing.
Step 6: Write a Reflection About What Happened
Re-read your story to see what you have documented. Then step back and think about what it means. Frankl says that we can use even the bad things that happen to us to give our lives meaning. You might still feel some hurt about this event. Maybe that hurt will last for a long time. But, the hurt does not have to define you. We can use the past to reorient ourselves for the future. We can use a challenging story to redefine the story we are living. We can use our past hurts to help give ourselves a sense of purpose and meaning.
I don’t want to pretend that this is easy. It isn’t. But it can be done. And writing a story down about a trouble is a good way to unload some of the burden you have carried.
After spending some time thinking, write this reflection into your story. It might be a very good way to end your story. I also hope that writing this reflection will give you some distance and perspective on the events through which you lived.
Step 7: Think About Your Growth as a Teacher of Writing
Hopefully writing this Story of Healing has helped you to think about how you might respond to a student in one of your courses who writes a story that deals with an equally challenging topic. The best thing to do is respond to the student with kindness and support. If the student has suffered a serious problem, try your best to get them some professional help.
I don’t want you to become a counselor, that’s not the goal here. But I do want you to be ready for the time when a student in one of your classes does write something really challenging.
Step 8: Share Your Draft
In our next class I will give you the OPTION to share your Story of Healing with your whole team or just one close friend. I would like you to get some feedback on your story, but if you are not comfortable sharing this story, that’s ok too.
I am quite sure that if you share your Story of Healing with your classmates, they will be very supportive and encouraging about whatever story you wrote. So don’t automatically rule your classmates out as readers. However, my primary goal is for you to feel comfortable. If you choose not to share because you just aren’t comfortable, that’s totally ok.
You can also consider sharing the story with a non-class member if you prefer. If you interviewed someone as part of your writing process, you can choose when or if to share it with them at the appropriate time. You are in control of that.
Please be sure that the final version of your story is something you can share with Dr. Pagnucci.
Step 9: Close Your Eyes and Breathe Deep
This was a big writing task. I hope it went well for you, but I also know that it was probably quite challenging to write. So, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Focus inward. Slow your breathing down. Let a sense of calm descend upon you. Give yourself a few moments to relax. Then open your eyes back up.
Even if writing the story was troubling for you, I hope this breathing can help bring you a small sense of peace. And I hope that by writing about this challenging topic, you were able to get a little peace from the writing process as well.
Step 10: Listen to This Song
Since I asked you to do a hard writing task, I want to give you something special in return. Take a few minutes to play this song. It’s a song about letting go of our mistakes and finding the people who matter to us. A reviewer once wrote, “Your life is better just because this album exists.” If you’ve never heard of David Grey, I hope you enjoy discovering his music:
Step 11: Go for a Walk
Now that you are done drafting your Story of Healing, go outside for a short walk. Nothing restores the soul more than being out in nature. Look at the colors around you. Breath in the air. Listen for the birds. Enjoy the sunshine or the rain (it won’t hurt you). Spend about 15 minutes just walking and letting go of whatever troubles you wrote about in your story. The troubles might not go for good, but you can let them go for a little while at least.
Remember, this isn’t just a class, it’s a narrative journey.