When Ryan reflected, in his learning journal, on what did and did not help him during his personal experience of grief, he showed that he could describe how his own and others' feelings, beliefs, and actions contributed to his personal sense of self-worth during that time of loss.
Transcript of student work
Focus Question: What did you find helpful during your own experience of grief?
It was helpful when people spent time with me.
It was easy when my friends let me cry and talk to them.
It was good when people visited me at my home.
It was good when they just left me alone.
It was easy when they made me get it out of me.
It was really good when my friends listened to me.
I liked it when my friends made me laugh.
None of my friends made me a card or letter but some of my family [did].
I got angry at my friends but they didn't get angry back.
All my family and friends acknowledged what I had going on.
In a later journal entry, Ryan noted:
...it is also good that I can get some feelings out. Sometimes it is hard, but I get through it. We did the blob tree about feelings and we did our cards. That card I did is like what happened to me, but I feel good to talk and write about it to get it out of me.
Ryan's entries in his learning journal
Progress Indicators
Personal identity and self-worth
Describes how other people's feelings, beliefs, and actions impact on their sense of self-worth
Ryan's entry in his learning journal documents his response to the question 'What did you find helpful during your own experience of grief?' To identify the actions he found personally helpful at the time, he is able to make valid connections between his own loss experiences and helpful and unhelpful comments and behaviours discussed in previous lessons. His responses all indicate that the actions of others contributed to his positive sense of self-worth.
Ryan's later personal reflection in his journal reinforces the fact that he understands the purpose and value of the learning and how the actions of others contributed to his personal sense of self-worth during a time of loss.