Torrance Journal for Applied Creativity

Excessive Worry. Numerous
students wrote about excessive worry
as an important topic in this unit of
study. One student shared, “Sometimes
I just think about everything that could
happen. Sometimes I scare myself. But
now I know strategies I’m going to use.”
Another student wrote,
I also realized I have excessive worry
sometimes. I find myself making
up crazy scenarios that will never
happen. I worry about everyone
and everything. Sometimes I can’t
sleep at night or I find myself not
focusing in class. I have this one
really good friend that I am able to
tell everything to. He gives me really
good advice and can always take my
mind off things.
For a final product, one student created
a picture book about worry taking the
form of a monster. The following is an
excerpt from the picture book:
When Karly left school that day, she
didn’t realize someone was following
her. A tiny little blob was following
her, it was called a STRESS MON-
STER. He followed her everywhere
she went. And every time Karly
thought about everything she had
to do, she got stressed…. And the
Stress Monster got bigger.
Perfectionism. Many students
connected with the topic of perfectionism.
One student shared, “I have
struggled with perfectionism because
I would be so afraid I was going to do
something wrong, I would procrastinate
on projects and not finish them.” Another
student shared, “Sometimes I also
have issues with perfectionism. I have
never had a B or below on a mid-term
or report card.”
Another shared,
I worry about all of the projects and
a few of the assignments that I am
given. I worry about how I will complete
them and I worry about what
score I will make mainly with social
studies and language arts. I’m a bit
of a perfectionist. I want to make
all A’s.
One girl wrote the following poem about her fear of failure:
“Weeds”
There are many weeds in my garden of courage.
Weeds that seep under the ground and grow quietly,
Until one day they burst toward the sky and suck the life out of my flowers.
There are many weeds in my garden of courage.
Weeds that represent all of my fears.
Fears of clowns, heights, and bad grades,
Fears of storms, failure, and planes.
These weeds grow up and blitz me from behind.
Making me second guess myself,
I wonder why I even try,
If I’m just going to awaken new fears, and disturb fears that I have tried to forget.
Then what’s the point if it will all end the same way.
In my worst fear of all,
FAILURE.
There are many weeds in my garden of courage,
Weeds that seep under the ground grow quietly,
Until one day my once beautiful garden of courage has become an ugly place.
A place not even I want to be seen.
But if you look real close you can see, a single flower in a sea of green.
That single flower is all that’s left of me.
That single flower is all I used to be.
I lost my garden of courage to the weeds of fear.
But because I lost my garden of courage it is even more important to save yours.
To save your garden of courage from the reign of fear and protect your garden from
anything like mine.
So wake up early each morning and cleanse your garden of courage,
Until there is no more fear.
Instead you will see a garden full of everything you could ever dream.
This garden is all you have and all you are.
This garden is what will keep you safe and protect you from the terrifying world of fear.
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