Author Description

Nationally, youth continue to be exposed to trauma within their homes, communities, and relationships. Data suggests 37% of youth experienced a physical assault during a 1-year period, and 15% of children and youth experienced maltreatment by a caregiver (National Survey of Children's Health). Some children may face further exposure to toxic stress from historical and ongoing traumas due to systemic racism or the impacts of poverty resulting from limited educational and economic opportunities.The impact toxic stress and trauma have on learning and academic achievement can have long term negative consequences on student's success in school. Collectively, we have the responsibility to teach our young people how to turn these challenges into opportunities and to build upon their resilience. One key lever we can use to support youth as they explore the topics of trauma and resilience is to inspire them to own, develop and reshape their personal narrative.This 8-week social emotional learning (SEL) curriculum for grades 5-10 provides common-core aligned lesson plans to curate authentic opportunities for students to engage with a text. We create a space for students to honor and recognize their own background and experiences as both readers and writer. Our standards-based program is designed to teach social and emotional learning through a literacy-based approach. We employ the activities of thinking, reading, speaking, and expressive writing in each lesson, which allows students to master and apply the content.