The Benefits of Nature Journaling in English Class

When we bring the environment into the classroom, we tend to focus on the sciences: Life science with animals, engaging with climate change, and biology storytelling are common ways we connect to the natural world. When I helped Edutopia create a video about the power of nature journaling, the examples we shared focused on its benefits for science class learning outcomes.

As an English teacher, I was curious about how nature journaling would impact student literacy, language, and writing skills. Nature, of course, has inspired beautiful literature; works by Lucille Clifton, Ada Limón, and Wendell Berry show how impactful connecting to the earth is for a writer. I was happy, though not shocked, to discover that nature journaling can improve vocabulary and language skills, enhance close reading and reading comprehension, and help students develop a stronger sense of place in their work.

One of the benefits of nature journaling is that it helps make writing feel less abstract and more tangible for my students. Most important, getting outside provides a significant shift in perspective for my students. The following five exercises get kids outdoors and ask them to use their brains in a way that’s less conventional than they might associate with school. One of the things I love about them is that you can shift and customize them as needed.

1. Same Spot, Different Story

Takes about 25 minutes: For this exercise, students go outdoors and spend five minutes writing down as many details as they can: colors, textures, sounds, movement, whatever catches their attention. I tell them to focus on the minutiae and be as detailed as possible.

Then, I have them use their notes to write about the spot as if they love it. After that, I swing the pendulum the other way and tell them to write about the spot as if they hate it. When they’re done writing, students annotate their work with a partner, circling words that reveal tone. “Peaceful” versus “empty.” The tree they initially described as “reaching toward the sky” changes to be “looming overhead.” They identify the piece’s tone, noting one line from their partner’s work that helps to convey it.

We then push the discussion further: What would happen if a reader with no connection to our community only encountered one of these pieces? Students start making connections to reliability, bias, and perspective: In the “love” version, an author might focus on flowering plants. In the “hate” version, those plants are replaced by observations about cracked pavement. Both descriptions might be accurate but are shaped by the writer’s perspective. Doing this leads them to ask important questions as readers: Whose perspective are we getting? What might be left out?

2. Mood Swap

Takes about 30 minutes: This activity builds on similar principles but adds a collaborative element. I divide students into small groups and assign each group a different mood: creepy, hopeful, emo, excited, etc. Each group goes to the exact campus location and writes a group story about that spot, using their assigned mood. The twist is that they are the only people who know what mood they are writing in.

After writing, groups swap their narratives and try to guess the authors’ intended mood using quotes from the piece, explaining how diction and description create that atmosphere. This exercise not only provides practice in figurative language and writing skills but also allows students to grow as critical thinkers and literary analysts.

3. High-Middle-Low

Takes about 20 minutes: Students always enjoy this exercise because it gets them moving and allows for a bit of silliness, depending on the situation.

We go outside to a space with room for movement and exploration. Students choose a spot and write about it three times: First, they go as high as they can above the spot and take notes about it from a bird’s-eye-view perspective. What do they observe about the spot in context with its surroundings? After documenting observations for five minutes, I give them another five to write about the spot from their usual standing or sitting perspective. Finally, they go low—either underneath the spot or ground level with it—and see what shifts when they have a unique perspective that is much lower than their usual one.

In this exercise, I love that students learn to make observations from different physical perspectives and consider how shifts in physical perspective change emotional connections to a place. Does the big-picture view create a bit of distance? What is it like to be on the ground and feel smaller or look up more than usual?

4. The Secret Lives of Trees

Takes about 10 minutes: This example pushes students to use literary devices thoughtfully and intentionally. They choose some particular element of nature in their chosen spot (a tree, a rock, a flower, etc.) and personify it. They don’t just describe it—they use their notes to build a backstory, motivations, and desires (not unlike an actor’s character sketch).

One key component of the exercise is that students must use physical details from their observations to ground their personifications and identify them. So, the tree’s scars become a story of its survival. A particularly large bougainvillea bush is ambitious and dominating. Students ground their analysis and creation in evidence while learning how to draw on the natural world to inspire them.

5. If This Rock Could Talk

Takes about 15 minutes: “Rock Talk” (as I sometimes call it) is possibly one of my favorite exercises, in part because it often ends in fits of giggles. Much as with “The Secret Lives of Trees,” students pair up and focus on a natural element. Then, they create (either in writing or through improvisation) a conversation between it and themselves or another natural element. What would that mossy rock say to us if it could talk? What would those two flowers on the bush have to say if they were gossiping about the bee that came by?

This is very fun for students and provides them with an opportunity to consider the evidence that grounds their characterization of the natural elements. Why did they assume the flowers would gossip? These kinds of questions help them reflect on their own ideas and reactions to nature.

These activities are academically practical and highly enjoyable. Everyone benefits from spending more time outdoors. Today, a staggering number of students spend much less time outdoors than in previous generations. Regularly enjoying the outdoors, moving our bodies, and having a change in scenery provide necessary brain breaks for students and teachers. Critical skills—paying attention to details, making clear observations, using precise language, and finding evidence to support ideas—are valuable across content areas, not only in science class. They’re essential for writing, regardless of topic or genre. Nature journaling provides a way for students to engage in these skills in refreshing and unexpected ways.