It started as an assignment but then became something more.
OVS junior Clara Ferrer Ferreira can attest to this. Taking advantage of an extra credit opportunity in English 11, Clara has filled more than 40 notebook pages with journal entries, and she plans to continue to journal even beyond school.
As an exchange student from Brazil, she keeps a record of the important experiences she has had at OVS, but not only the positive ones.
“I write things when I’m sad to express myself,” Clara said. “I try to understand my feelings.”
Allyanna Westcott, a classmate of Clara’s, agreed.
“It’s a nice way to vent,” she said. “If I’m upset about something, or stressed about school or whatever, I’ll write that down and kind of explore that.”
English teacher Terry Wilson has offered journal entries as extra credit in her English 11 classes for several years now, but she never foresaw the benefit it would have on her students’ mental health. She initially created this opportunity by means for her students to practice writing.
“One of my college professors that I really respected said that the best way to become a writer is to write, and the more you write, the better you will become,” Mrs. Wilson said.
Writing exercise is especially important for foreign exchange students.
“For students from other countries that are writing in English, which is not their native language, it’s very difficult,” Mrs. Wilson stated. “A way to get them to [practice] is to just take all the pressure off.”
Journals are the only assignments that Mrs. Wilson does not mark or grade.
“Many students get so nervous when they’re writing because they know it’s going to be judged by the teacher and evaluated,” she explained. “And so, I set up the journal so that people could just write as much as they want, in any way they want, without being judged.”
She counts every entry as one point, no matter their content, and this grade boost serves as encouragement to her students.
Mrs. Wilson herself journaled in her youth, but not from the emotional perspective. At the time, she was competing in equestrian, and would record every technique she tried and how her horse responded to each. She described the journal as a sort of training manual.
Thanks to the reflection and analysis skills she employed here, Mrs. Wilson became a successful performer, and later, an equestrian teacher. Though her riding days are behind her, she continues to keep horses.
Just as a number of OVS students have Mrs. Wilson to thank for their introduction to journaling, Mrs. Wilson credits her grandfather for sparking her interest in it.
Dr. Ralph William Homer was a surgeon during the first World War and stationed in Scotland.
“He wrote detailed accounts of the different surgeries that he did,” Mrs. Wilson said. “And it was very emotional because in World War I, they didn’t have a lot of drugs and it was very hard to save injured servicemen.”
Despite the trauma Mr. Homer was witnessing, he chose not to reveal the reality of the situation to his family back home.
“All the letters that he wrote back to my grandmother, he appeared positive,” Mrs. Wilson said. “Scotland is so beautiful. I went fishing in the river, and… things like that.”
Mr. Homer resorted to journaling in order to describe and process the horrors of his experience. He filled up volumes of notebooks over the years, all of which were passed on to Mrs. Wilson upon her grandfather’s passing. She found them fascinating.
“That’s what got me into this writing in the first place,” she said.
In this manner, Mrs. Wilson has passed on her grandfather’s legacy to a handful of students at Ojai Valley School.
In doing so, she has provided them with more than an opportunity to learn about writing – she has gifted them an opportunity to learn about themselves.
“You get a lot of emotions, and many students will write at the top ‘please don’t read this’ because it’s something that is so personal,” she said. “It gives them the opportunity to let it out somehow… like an emotional outlet.”
For Clara Ferrer Ferreira, it is that and so much more.
“Journaling has become [part of] my life,” she said.