How to Teach a Journaling Workshop

Teaching a journal workshop is easier than you might think. There are hundreds of different ways to facilitate journal workshops; below is just one of them. I have had great success with this type of journaling workshop.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Journal themes and topics
• Sense of humor
• Kindness and understanding
• Participants

1. Find a place to hold your workshop. Some convenient places to hold a workshop are bookstores, libraries, public or private schools, churches, community centers and even your own home. You can also rent a room at a local restaurant.
2. Determine the number of participants you would be comfortable working with in a workshop. Ten is an ideal number; twenty is pushing the comfort zone.
3. Decide if you want to charge participants a fee to attend the journaling workshop. Sometimes I charge a fee; sometimes I just ask for donations. It depends on the economic status of your participants.
4. Provide participants with a direction. Choose a theme for each class and gently keep them on that path. I generally choose themes that beginning writers are comfortable with such as: making lists of favorites and firsts, freewriting, writing about dreams and using writing prompts.
5. Use examples from famous diarists like Anaïs Nin or Walt Whitman. Discuss the theme at the beginning of the workshop and then assign an in-class writing assignment.
6. Have participants share what they have written in their journal if they want. Not everyone will be comfortable sharing, but one or two always will and you can lead the remaining discussion from there.

Tips & Warnings

• Advertise your workshop on Craigslist and in your local newspaper.
• Offer venues a chance to attend the journaling workshop for free if they allow you to host the class with their organization.
• Never force participants to share what they have written.
• Never show anyone out of the class what a participant has written.