10 Ideas for Reflecting at the End of the School Year - The New York Times

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Inspired by Times articles and features from across sections, these exercises can help both students and teachers think about their growth.

Last fall we began the school year with 10 ideas for building community, all of which were inspired by Times features. Now, as the academic year comes to a close, we’re making another list, one both teachers and students can use — ideally working together. Below, 10 ways to reflect on the year that was, think about what you learned, note how you grew and changed — and consider what it all means for next year.

We are also publishing a companion writing prompt to which we invite both students and teachers to respond. The prompt echoes the exercises below, and we invite you to share any part of your thinking that you’d like to make public.

Happy almost-summer, and thank you again for teaching and learning with The New York Times.

Start with a journal.

Do you ever journal? According to this Times article, scientific studies have shown a regular practice can help with both physical and mental health:

There are the obvious benefits, like a boost in mindfulness, memory and communication skills. But studies have also found that writing in a journal can lead to better sleep, a stronger immune system, more self-confidence and a higher I.Q.

Even if it’s not a regular practice for you, you might use a journal as a private space to focus on these reflections, responding to any of the prompts or exercises that resonate with you.

Here are some of the questions we’re posting in our related forum that might help you get started:

What do you want to remember about this school year? Why?
What surprised you?
What challenged you?
What successes are you most proud of?
What did you learn, whether in or out of school?
How have you grown?
How could you build on that growth next year?

When you’re finished, reread your work. Are there pieces you’d like to make public, either to others in your school community or via our related forum? What did you learn about yourself from doing this exercise? What would be helpful to share with others?

Draw a More/Less List.

Julia Rothman

Though this idea for creating a More/Less list was published in early January 2021, as the world was still grappling with pandemic isolation, you can borrow the exercise to think back on this school year — and plan ahead for the next one.

First ask yourself, what do I want more of in my life? What would I like to drop?

Here’s what to do next:

Grab a piece of paper and draw a line down the center to create your drawing area. On the left, write the word “More” at the top. On the right, write the word “Less.” Now think of the things that you enjoyed this year (you can also imagine things that would bring you joy in the future). Once you have an idea, draw a simple icon to represent it and draw it in the More column. If you want more jogging in your life, maybe draw a sneaker. Do the same for the Less side: If you want less social media, maybe draw a phone.

These drawings don’t have to be realistic or well rendered; they just have to be recognizable to you. Think of them as secret symbols that remind you of your intention. If you worry you might forget what you meant, you can label them with a few letters to remind yourself. It’s OK to make your symbols simple (a heart, a plus sign) or abstract (a scribble, an x). This is the year ahead for you!

You might then share your lists in small groups, or display them gallery-style on the classroom wall. What ideas do you see on others’ lists that belong on your own?

Build from struggle.

Eleanor Davis

The idea that struggle is vital to learning is well-established, according to Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University and an expert on constructive learning mind-sets. Her ideas and those of other experts are part of this piece, about educational strategies built on the idea that challenge is something to embrace in the classroom.

Both it and another recent Times piece, “Tear It Up and Start Again,” emphasize this point:

All of us fail to meet our goals sometimes. (If you’re not failing occasionally, the goals you’re setting are too safe and easy.) That is not a problem. What is a problem is failing and not learning from your mistakes.

To help you do just that, here are some questions inspired by both pieces:

When did you leave your comfort zone this academic year? How did you stretch yourself? What happened when you did?
What did you struggle with, or even fail at, this year? What was hard about it?
What helped when you struggled? What did you do to get yourself “out of the pit” of frustration, anxiety or confusion?
What could you build on, if you were to confront a challenge like this again?
Looking back, what did you learn from struggle or failure this year? How might that help you in the future?

Write a gratitude letter.

Jon Han

Like journaling, a regular gratitude practice in which you consciously count your blessings has been shown to make people happier and healthier. What are you grateful for this school year? Make as long a list as you can.

Then, consider taking the exercise a bit further with a “gratitude letter”:

In one study, researchers recruited 300 adults, most of them college students seeking mental health counseling. All the volunteers received counseling, but one group added a writing exercise focused on bad experiences, while another group wrote a letter of gratitude to another person each week for three weeks. A month later, those who wrote gratitude letters reported significantly better mental health. And the effect appears to last. Three months later the researchers scanned the brains of students while they completed a different gratitude exercise. The students who had written gratitude letters earlier in the study showed greater activation in a part of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex, believed to be related to both reward and higher-level cognition.

This year, the Well section ran a “happiness challenge,” and part of it involved writing this kind of letter. Whom would you choose to receive yours? Is there someone who made a real difference in your life this academic year, whether a teacher, student, coach, friend or relative?

Here is Well’s advice for getting started:

Consider what you would thank this person for if you thought you would never see them again. Take a few minutes and write down what you would tell them, with as many specific examples as possible. Don’t overthink it: It can be both dashed off and straight from the heart. Think of it as a eulogy for the living.

Then send it — by email, text, handwritten note, whatever. The medium doesn’t matter; sending it does.

Or, if you don’t want to send a letter to someone else, consider sending one to yourself. FutureMe is a website that allows you to write an email that will be delivered to you in six months, a year, three years, five years or even 10 years from now. What would you like to say to your future self? Why?

Make a playlist.

Drake raps about the hollowness of being lonely on a new track, “Search & Rescue.”Adam Riding for The New York Times

What music sums up this year for you? Make a list and explain your choices to others via short written annotations that express what’s notable or evocative about these songs, what they help you remember, and why they have been a meaningful part of your 2022-23 soundtrack.

If you’d like an example for how to do this, take a look at Playlist, a weekly tour of notable new music and videos chosen by Times critics. With sharp and engaging commentary, they analyze each of the 10 or so tracks in their roundup — breaking down lyrics, dissecting the instrumentals and discussing where the songs fit in the current music landscape. Here’s one from April featuring Drake, Kaytraminé, Blondshell, Yaeji and others.

When you’re done, share what you have. Are there songs that appear on more than one person’s list? If so, perhaps you can compile a class playlist to listen to, while you do some of these reflection exercises.

Leave recommendations for future readers.

In November, the staff of The New York Times Book Review chose the 10 best fiction and nonfiction books of 2022 and wrote a paragraph about each.

For example, here is the description for “Stay True: A Memoir,” by Hua Hsu:

In this quietly wrenching memoir, Hsu recalls starting out at Berkeley in the mid-1990s as a watchful music snob, fastidiously curating his tastes and mercilessly judging the tastes of others. Then he met Ken, a Japanese American frat boy. Their friendship was intense, but brief. Less than three years later, Ken would be killed in a carjacking. Hsu traces the course of their relationship — one that seemed improbable at first but eventually became a fixture in his life, a trellis along which both young men could stretch and grow.

What were the best books you read this year, in or outside of school? What short descriptions could you write recommending at least one of those books to future readers? Who do you think would be the audience for that book, and why would they like it? Those descriptions can then be posted as “shelf talkers” in classroom or school libraries for next year’s students. Here’s an example of how one school used shelf talkers to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.

Graph some personal data.

A selection of graphs from The New York Times featured in “What’s Going On in This Graph?”The Learning Network

Make a data visualization of some aspect of your academic or personal life this year. You might use our “What’s Going On in This Graph” feature as inspiration for both the type of data to represent and the kind of graph to best display it.

For example, what does a typical school day look like for you right now? How could you graph that to show the breakdown of time you spend going to classes, doing homework, participating in extracurriculars, relaxing or spending time with friends or family? What does your graph reveal to you? Or, as we ask students weekly in our “WGOITG?” feature: What do you notice? What do you wonder?

To figure out what you’d like to visualize, first collect some data that interests you. Your phone might be a source of things, like the number of steps you take in a day, your regular appointments, or whom you text most often. You can also start collecting new data by noticing and measuring aspects of your life that interest you, whether about your physical or mental health, your habits, relationships, hobbies, goals, consumption of social media, or anything else, big or small.

Next, consider how to display it. This collection of over 60 graphs from The New York Times will show you maps and pie charts, scatter plots and bar graphs. You can also invent your own way to show what you’ve collected by experimenting with the expressive possibilities of shape, color and line. The Dear Data project, in which two information designers collected and hand-drew their personal data for a year, can offer inspiration.

Recommend something overlooked or unappreciated.

Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.Karine Laval for The New York Times

The weekly Times Magazine “Letter of Recommendation” essay celebrates “the overlooked and unappreciated.” Over the years, writers have extolled the virtues of dog tricks, dishwashing, superstitions, gum, memewear, eavesdropping and “the eerie poetry of gravestones.”

What are the overlooked and unappreciated things in your school community that you might miss now that the year is over? A class or club or sport? A place you like to hang out? A particular food in the cafeteria? A tradition or ritual?

You might work with others to brainstorm a list, then each choose one item and write a vivid paragraph, or shoot a short, compelling video, that celebrates it. That work might then be published in your school newspaper or on your school’s website as recommendations for others.

Teach a new skill.

Change your mind.

Learning often means changing your mind. As you deepen your understanding of a topic, your thinking becomes more nuanced. Was there an important topic or issue about which you changed your mind this year? How did that happen?

At the end of 2022, The Times’s Opinion section reflected on “The 22 Debates That Made Us Rage, Roll Our Eyes, and Change Our Minds in 2022.” Here is how they framed it:

Debating is what we do here at Times Opinion. Good-faith back-and-forth is at the core of our mission and our daily work. We give you arguments, you decide what to think. And so when we review the major events of the past year — which included a land war in Europe, the collapse of crypto and, yes, The Slap — it’s only natural for us to reflect on the debates: What can the United States do to try to end that war? Is crypto a reasonable thing to invest in? When is it appropriate to hit someone in the face for making a joke about your wife?

As 2022 nears its end, we are presenting 22 of the debates that defined the year, revisiting the ones you might remember (and reminding you of the ones you might have tried to forget) and asking the most important question of all: Did you change your mind?

The Times article is interactive, so it’s easy for you to record how you felt about the issues listed, then see how other readers voted. Do you remember discussing any of these topics in school?

Finally, think about what you learned from revising an opinion, whether it was about something in the news, an academic subject or an issue in your personal life. How could the process of rethinking your opinion help you in the future?