Living through a pandemic has placed an enormous mental-health burden on students. Stress and isolation have increased anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts among young people.

Even though students are slowly returning to in-person classes, the mental toll of the past year will likely linger for a long time, influencing learning and behavior. How, then, can you best support your students’ social and emotional well-being while also caring for your own?

To start, it is important to recognize what stress does to the brain. With that understanding, you can plan and respond in healthy ways.

How does stress impact a young person’s brain?

Stress triggers a number of brain processes that impact learning and behavior. When students feel scared or threatened, much of their processing and energy drops from the cortex, where thinking and decision-making take place, down to the limbic system, where emotions are produced.

March marks the beginning of Women’s History Month. While women deserve recognition every day, this time of year presents a perfect opportunity to pay homage to women of the past and present.

The five writing activities below prompt middle and high school students to explore women’s achievements while also honoring the ongoing fight for progress and equality.

Writing a Historical Dialogue

This prompt introduces students to 16 women who have contributed greatly to history, arts, activism, and science. Students choose one of the contributors, complete additional research, and write a dialogue between themselves and the person.

• Download the Prompt
• Copy the Google Doc

Goals for Gender Equality

After learning about a gender discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. women’s national soccer team, students consider contemporary examples of gender inequality in school, sports, and other group settings. Then, in an essay, students define gender equality and why it matters.

When it comes to reading, fluency is fundamental. 

Students can learn strategies to comprehend new information, predict upcoming text, and connect reading to personal experience. In the process, they improve speed, accuracy, and expression.

Improving fluency requires regular practice and support. You can give your young readers the support they need by following the steps in the Fluency Development Lesson (FDL). 

Sometimes writers must cut their favorite sentences because they don’t support the focus. Stephen King calls this process, “Killing your darlings.” It is one of the most effective revising strategies—and one of the most painful.

Asking students to cut their writing can lead to quizzical stares. They often believe more writing is better writing. And for students who put a great deal of effort into expressing an idea, having to delete or reimagine that idea can feel demoralizing.