Tool Tuesday: Gratitude is a Little Story (With Typable Lesson Material!)

I almost dislike writing about gratitude at Thanksgiving time, as it is a practice that is self-regulating all year round. It is well documented that regularly steering our thinking toward gratitude helps override our brain’s negativity bias and train ourselves to notice positive elements of life, with influence on our mood, and therefore, our executive functioning.

Recent discourse around gratitude has created the term “glimmers,” serving as the opposite of “triggers.” Glimmers are small observations that help calm our nervous systems.

Some months ago, I ran across a post from the comedian Gary Gulman, who has written frequently about recovering from depression. In the post, he showed how he uses his Notes app on iPhone to create a simple gratitude journal, stemming from simple, but valuable observations about each day. I started this as a habit myself! ⇨

Whatever our role in supporting learners, to some extent we also own the support of their self-regulation. So how can we foster gratitude as a tool? Thanksgiving is a good starting point, but I also like to revisit this practice throughout the year, because, as noted, it’s the regular training of our brains in this habit that makes a difference.

I was thinking about gratitude in the context of Story Grammar Marker® and recognized that a moment of gratitude is “a little” story, in the sense that it might be connected to any of the key story elements. We might be grateful for a person (Character), a place we have visited or inhabit (Setting), a unique event (Kick-Off) or everyday event (Action). We might be grateful for a memory or way of thinking (Mental State), the way a problem or situation concluded (Tie-Up), or just how we have been feeling lately (Internal Response–Feeling).

Using these icons, I created a share-able, typable lesson resource:

You can obtain this lesson by visiting this link. Please do not request edit access, as this will not allow you to make the lesson your own. While signed into a Google account, from the File menu, select Make a Copy, and it’s yours!

This is a great template to use with a group, such that you can teach the connections to the pictured story elements and have everyone contribute a gratitude. Duplicate the slide if you have more than 4 students. Similarly, this can be used with individual students working 1-1, or as a template to share with them in Google Classroom. Consider changing the background color of the slide to work on gratitudes at other times of year.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!