Mindfulness in the ELA Classroom: 5 Ways to Add SEL, Mindset, and Mindfulness to the Classroom

One of the best ways classroom teachers can help build and establish a positive classroom community with their students is by incorporating SEL, mindset, and mindfulness activities throughout the school year.

And SEL isn’t just the new education buzzword either. Recent educational studies by the Learning Policy Institute show that incorporating SEL, mindset, and mindfulness positively impacts students, their engagement in learning, and facilitating positive behaviors and relationships with others.

While the start of a new school year is an opportune time to introduce SEL into the classroom, it's important to note that teachers can incorporate these activities at any point in the school year. The flexibility of this approach ensures that no student misses out on the benefits of SEL.

Here are five ways teachers can add SEL, mindset, and mindfulness to the ELA classroom

1. Daily Attendance Questions

Introducing daily attendance questions is a fun and engaging way to get to know your students and encourage classroom discussion. This low-stakes opportunity for students to share aloud in class not only makes attendance more enjoyable but also helps every student feel more welcome in the classroom.

One of my favorite daily attendance questions is a fun and engaging 'Would You Rather' question! Instead of the usual 'here', students get to answer a thought-provoking question, sparking their interest and setting a positive tone for the day.

This Would You Rather slide deck includes 50 engaging and exciting Would You Rather questions available in both a Google Slides and Canva format. Each question comes on its own slide that is easy to read and includes eye-catching pictures! You can ask your students questions like would you rather go skydiving or shark diving!

Plus, the Canva version also includes pre-made templates to customize this activity for your students.

2. Team-Building Tuesdays

Another way to include SEL practices in your classroom is by incorporating Team-Building Tuesdays into your classroom routine. These activities can happen as often as every week, or they can happen once a month.

Some of my favorite team-building activities for middle and high school students include the stacking cup challenge and “I Say, You Draw.” These activities encourage and facilitate communication, teamwork, and higher-level thinking skills. Plus, they are a great way to foster a positive classroom community! You can read more about my Team-Building Tuesdays activities in this blog post!

This Growth Mindset Escape Room is another great way activity for a Team-Building Tuesday!

Growth Mindset Escape Room

3. SEL and Mindset Activities

In addition to daily attendance questions, incorporating activities focusing on social and emotional learning and mindset is another way to help add SEL, mindset, and mindfulness in the classroom.

Growth Mindset and SEL Activities

I recently updated my Growth Mindset Activities resource to include several new SEL-focused activities! These mindset and SEL activities include a gratitude jar, an emotion wheel, and information about SEL, growth mindset, and more!

Another great SEL activity for middle and high school students is this FREE Goal Jar activity! While I used this at the start of the school year, this goal jar works as a fantastic SEL activity at any point in the year!

Students fill the jar with their goals and then write about their goals and why these goals are important to them! You can access this free download by signing up here!

4. Mindful transitions

A great way to practice mindfulness is by having mindful transitions in the classroom to help students incorporate more mindfulness in their days. Between activities, at the start of the class period, or at the end of the class period, facilitate some breathing exercises or desk stretches with your students.

YouTube is filled with many breathing videos that you can project for your students that will help them with deep breathing exercises. I like this one by the Calm app because it provides animation that helps students visualize what deep breathing is supposed to look like.

In addition to breathing exercises, adding in a couple of desk stretches can also help students refocus and center their energy and focus on mindfulness.

This video from Duke University introduces students to quick and easy, yet effective, desk stretches that students can do from the comfort of their own seat.

5. Analyze literature through a psychological lens

Finally, a way to tie in SEL, mindfulness, and mindset into the curriculum is to have students analyze literature through a psychological lens. As you are reading a short story or class novel, ask your students mindset and emotion-related questions like the ones below to get the students analyzing the literature on a deeper level and thinking about their own emotions as well.

What emotion is the main character feeling? What clues let you know this? Reflect on a time when you felt that same emotion.
What emotions led a character to make a decision they did? How did the emotions affect that decision? Reflect on a time when you acted on or made a decision purely based on emotions.
After overcoming an obstacle, what emotions did the character experience? What clues let you know this? Reflect on a time when you overcame an obstacle or accomplished a goal.

In addition to analyzing literature through a psychological lens, you can also look at a character’s growth mindset. This Growth Mindset Character Analysis resource includes 12 different activities and four different writing prompts to help your students analyze literature through a growth mindset lens.

Growth Mindset Character Analysis Activities

These five ways to incorporate SEL, mindfulness, and mindset in your classroom will not only help you build classroom community, but they will also help your students focus on their own emotions and mindset as well as think about various characters’ emotions and mindsets as well.