Reflection and Journaling in a Climbing Program

Rock climbing not only develops physical skills, it also helps to develop important social-emotional skills. One way to enhance this social-emotional development is through reflection and journaling. Purposeful reflection through writing can enhance learning and allow participants to grow in their understanding of, and relationship with, themselves and others. By asking growth-promoting questions before, during and after climbing activities, instructors can enhance participants’ awareness of their growth.

Adding a journaling component to your climbing program is also a way to merge English Language Arts and Physical Education. If your climbing wall is in a school, this is a great way to reinforce the reading and writing skills taught in the classroom.

Whether your climbing wall is in a school, camp, recreation center, church or sports academy here are the steps to adding journaling to your climbing program:

1. Ask participants to bring a dedicated notebook to use as a journal. It should be labeled “Climbing Journal” and should have the participant’s name on it and class day/time/section number, if applicable.
2. Create a dedicated space for storing journals. Labeled bins or shelves work well.
3. Determine when participants will journal. They can journal for a few minutes before each climbing activity or at the end of the activity. If time does not permit journaling immediately before or after climbing, journaling could be assigned as take-home work. This would require journals to travel back and forth.
4. If you are in a school, coordinating journaling with classroom educators could facilitate its addition to your program.
5. Instructors should read and thoughtfully respond to journal entries.
6. Provide periodic opportunities for whole group discussions about journal responses. Since responses are personal, sharing of journal entries should be voluntary and not required.

Below are some suggestions for journal prompts:

Pre-Activity Journal Prompts:

• Something I would like to try today is…
• I’m prepared for today’s climbing activity because…
• Something I’m looking forward to doing in today’s activity is…
• A challenge I’m having today is…
• I will help a peer today by…
• I’ll challenge myself today by…
• I know I am doing my best when I…

Post-Activity Journal Prompts:

• My favorite part of the climbing activity was…because….
• My least favorite part of the climbing activity was…because…
• Something that was hard for me in today’s climbing activity was…
• Something that I did well in today’s climbing activity was…
• In today’s activity, I learned…
• Something I would like to try next time is…
• Climbing on the wall is a lot like everyday life because…
• What role did communication play in climbing today?
• I would like to climb again because….
• Something I learned about myself today is…
• What skills and traits does a good rock climber have?
• If we repeated today’s climbing activity, how could we make it better?