Earlier this year, Danielle Jones led a hands-on workshop to demonstrate how to use—and even inexpensively create—a journal that meets your own unique needs. Danielle, who has a background in marketing and public relations, is a parent in Hixson, Tenn., who enjoys arts and crafts.
This DIY workshop, offered online via Zoom, was the perfect opportunity for teens to learn more about the benefits of journaling. Examples include organizing your thoughts, tracking progress toward a specific goal, becoming more knowledgeable about yourself, working through questions or problems, establishing a writing practice, or finding a private and portable creative outlet.
Contrary to popular belief, journaling does not have to be a daily thing. You can be as consistent or inconsistent with journaling as you want, and it is still a good outlet for self-expression.
We also discussed the different ways you can journal and how to make journaling your own. For example, Danielle showed us some of her personal journals and how different they were. She explained that if you don’t already have a booklet made for journaling, you can easily adapt a notebook, a piece of copy paper, or even a sticky note—anything you can write on. Using her ideas, it’s surprisingly simple to make journaling an easy and accessible hobby for people of all income levels.
Overall, this workshop demonstrated how journaling can be a beneficial tool in students’ daily lives to relieve stress, make themselves feel better, or even just keep track of their thoughts.
The last portion of this workshop was the hands-on craft of making a journal. All it requires is a piece of paper and something to write with. Danielle had students fold the sheet of paper into eight squares and tear a small slit down the middle to allow the paper to be folded into the journal shape. This was an extremely inexpensive craft that gave students the opportunity to test out the journaling skills they learned.
if you were not able to attend this wonderful workshop, an image below shows how to make the fun journal craft.
