Jayden, a wavy-haired senior at Joel E. Ferris High School, acknowledges he hasn’t “had the greatest childhood.”
Like a lot of kids growing up amid tumult and trauma, he’s acted out—drinking, smoking, stealing. He considered suicide.
Jayden often ditched class his sophomore and junior years at Ferris. He occasionally fell back into that habit this past school year.
But he never missed second period.
That’s when Jayden joined about 21 other students in teacher Emily Torres’ unusual creative writing class.
It was part traditional English course, part supercharged social-emotional learning, for students who have endured more anguish and upheaval before their 20th birthday than many experience in a lifetime.
Students in the class this past year read and responded in writing—poetry, essays, song lyrics—to the stories of people who emerged from agonizing circumstances: , ,
And once a week, Torres co-led the class with Sean Barrett, a licensed therapist.
The course curriculum “is really driven by the language” Barrett shares in those sessions, Torres said, with a particular focus on what Barrett calls the six big emotions: joy, anger, sadness, fear, curiosity, and shame.
Some of the students live with foster families or in homeless shelters, have had caregivers with substance use problems, lost a parent or sibling. They’ve come to terms with being transgender or nonbinary, struggled with severe depression or anxiety.
Hearing their stories has been a balm for Jayden, who graduated from Ferris this month. (Jayden, like other students interviewed for this story, is being identified only by his first name to protect his privacy.)
His own parents grappled with drug and alcohol addiction. He and his siblings were sent to live with a grandmother whose “weird rules” included strict, unpredictable limits on food and water.
A couple years ago, Jayden and his siblings moved from Florida to this city in eastern Washington state to live with an aunt and uncle. He struggled to adjust to what he described as his first-ever supportive, stable home.
At school, the creative writing class was “like a family,” Jayden said. “This class has showed me that my trauma doesn’t make me a bad person. We can be fully honest, without shame, about what we’ve seen or done.”
A unique approach to confronting trauma at school elicits kudos and caveats from experts
The class—which may be unique nationally, experts say—is part of Ferris’ effort to address a widespread challenge: Educating kids who have experienced trauma.
Nationally, about 3 in 4 students have experienced one or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), which can include abuse, neglect, parental divorce, or living with a family member using drugs, . And around 1 in 5 have faced four ACEs or more.
ACEs appear to change the structure of the brain and contribute to learning, behavioral, and social difficulties, experts say. The more ACEs a child experiences, the more likely their past trauma can manifest itself in the form of diminished comprehension, memory, and language abilities; distrust of adults at school; and an inability to self-regulate. Positive relationships with Ķvlog and positive experiences at school .
That’s where a class like Torres’ comes in.
This isn’t a course students can simply register for. They’re referred by school counselors, teachers, or Ferris High School’s leaders. Some learn about the course by word of mouth and ask to participate.
All must interview for the class. They’re told they don’t have to speak about anything they’re uncomfortable sharing during group discussions, but must keep their classmates’ experiences and feelings confidential.
Torres and her students sometimes refer to the class as “fight club”—a reference to the : “The first rule of fight club is you don’t talk about fight club.”
Parents or guardians receive written information about the structure of the course and are encouraged to bring questions to Ferris’ leaders.
“We let them know what we’re doing. We tell them there’s therapists coming in,” even though the class itself is not therapy, said John O’Dell, the school’s principal. “And you know what? There’s a lot of parents that recognize their kids are struggling and they need help.”
The arrangement is unusual, said Melissa Reeves, a past president of the National Association of School Psychologists, who has specialized in trauma.
In fact, she’s never heard of a class like Torres’ in her nearly three decades of working in school psychology. She believes the idea has promise.
“This is needed in some of our schools, because if [Ķvlog] aren’t doing this, nobody else is,” said Reeves, who based her comments on a reporter’s description of the program.
They are “teaching the skills [kids] need to survive in this complex world,” Reeves said.
It’s especially powerful for students to be around peers who can understand their experiences and struggles, she added.
Students can see that “they are not alone, that there are other kids here that have gone through difficult things, too,” she said. That can help “build the social supports that are so critically important to overcoming trauma.”
Reeves believes other schools could learn from Ferris’ work, but emphasized any teacher leading a similar course would have to be “carefully selected” and thoroughly trained.
Schools would also have to put a lot of thought into literature selections and writing assignments, with the goal of not “retraumatizing” students or presenting them with a text they can’t relate to, Reeves added.
Scott Woitaszewski, the director of the school psychology program at the University of Wisconsin–River Falls, who also focuses on trauma, agreed Ferris deserves kudos for delving deep into the kind of mental health issues many schools meet with mere lip service.
But Ferris—and any school thinking of trying something similar—must be extremely careful in how it structures the class..
“If there were one word to encapsulate my initial reaction, it would be caution,” said Woitaszewski, who also based his comments on a reporter’s description of the class.
Even many school-based mental health professionals aren’t equipped to deal with the challenges some of the kids in Torres’ class face, Woitaszewski said. They would typically be referred to a community-based mental health center for expert treatment.
And though Woitaszewski’s first consideration is what’s best for students, it’s hard to ignore the potential liability for the school, he added.
This is needed in some of our schools, because if [Ķvlog] aren't doing this, nobody else is.
While some of the practices Torres employs in the class—writing about trauma, for example—have research to back them up, there isn’t a big body of evidence behind a class like this, in part because it is rare, he added.
“This may sound good on the surface and may be effective for some kids. They may even mostly say they like it, feel heard, feel like they belong. But it only takes one kid to respond poorly, or get worse,” to undermine a class like this, Woitaszewski said.
Ferris’ leaders said many students in the class are already on the radar of the school’s mental health staff, receiving outside services, or both. The class functions as an extra support.
“I have never seen a more cost-effective way to provide massive mental health gains for a large group of kids,” O’Dell said. “There are kids that have gone into that class that I was really, really concerned about, have had really negative interactions with. … When they left, they were just in a completely different place. They would look you in the eye. They’d found a place of peace. They’d found a way to regulate.”
A teacher thought academic classes fell short on students’ other needs
Ten years ago, Torres was closing in on a decade and half in the classroom. She had honed her instructional craft.
But as she marched her students through the curriculum each year, she felt she was doing them a disservice by concentrating so heavily on academics—in particular, skills emphasized on standardized tests—at the expense of human connection.
Things happened in her classroom that were hard to put aside at the end of the day. One student used a persuasive essay to argue in favor of legalizing prostitution so his single mother could have a job she could do from home. Another confided in Torres—on testing day—that his caregiver physically abused him.
“I was really struggling as a teacher, just seeing there was so much social-emotional need,” Torres said. “I felt really inadequate. I was carrying so much home.”
She talked about those feelings with an administrator who has since left the school. The official suggested she help lead an experimental, project-based learning class for students who struggled emotionally and academically.
The class, team-taught by Torres and another teacher, was intended to allow these students to receive English, science, and history credits in an interdisciplinary, longer class period.
There were some big “glitches,” Torres recalled, namely that she and her co-teacher weren’t prepared to handle students with such pervasive mental health needs.
I used to just not speak at all, just kept quiet. Being told that your writing is meaningful and what you're doing is impactful to others really made me have that confidence that I don't think I would have had if I didn't take this class.
But there was a weekly bright spot, when a well-known local therapist, Kent Hoffman, came in. He had students write in journals and do breathing exercises. He talked them through what he called “living in a world of constant WTF,” Torres said.
“These kids who were full of turmoil and chaos would calm in his presence,” Torres recalled. They’d discuss their emotions at a “level that was so mature and so authentic. I couldn’t believe how forthcoming they were, and how, together, they would create this support system for each other.”
Ferris’ leaders soon became convinced they were onto something powerful.
“They went from not attending [school] at all, some of them, to attending every day,” said Andrew Lewis, the assistant principal who oversees the current iteration of the course. “That’s unheard of. That was like, OK, something magical is happening here. These kids are coming to school, not just because they have to come to school. They come to school because they want to be in this class.”
That theme has been consistent, even as the course has evolved, Torres said.
After one student was suspended for fighting, he pleaded with administrators to come in just for this one class period.
The school ultimately moved on from the project-based learning experiment, and Torres offered the class as an 11th grade English class with a twist: a therapist who showed up regularly.
Torres attended professional development in mental health. Ferris leaders “sent me to every trauma training I could get my hands on,” she said. She did her best to connect the 11th grade English curriculum to her students’ emotional struggles.
One student, for instance, wrote an essay linking John Proctor’s adversity in “The Crucible” to their own grief over losing younger siblings in a house fire.
But Torres still had to balance helping her students master required coursework alongside confronting deep trauma. So, for the first time, in the 2025-26 school year, Torres and Lewis offered the class as a creative writing course.
It’s a better fit, Torres said.
Other classes “hold you to a standard that can feel unattainable or vague or subjective,” she said. “What creative writing does is it takes all of that away.”
Students have the “opportunity to be successful by being just completely authentic,” Torres added. “There’s not a standard up on the board. There’s not a rubric being shoved at them.”
Students aren’t trying to compete in the ‘trauma Olympics’
On a Friday early last December, a picture of Claude Monet’s water lilies greeted students as they took their seats in Torres’ classroom.
The lights were dim. The room smelled of a citrusy aromatherapy blend. Instrumental music that would have sounded at home in a yoga class played in the background.
Torres kicked off class, as she typically does, with some guided breathing and meditation. Then she asked students to take out their journals. Her prompt for the day was to tell adults what they don’t know about being a teenager today.
Most of the time I leave this class with, like, 20 pounds off my back.
A few minutes later, students shared their answers.
“I feel like the stereotype of teenagers is that we’re ungrateful,” one said. “There are a lot of adults who don’t understand that we can be grateful, but still upset about the way things are.”
“So maybe we don’t give you enough credit for having multiple emotions at the same time?” Torres asked.
Another student said he was tired of adults comparing his struggles with his peers’. “It’s really annoying,” the student said. “Everybody goes through something.”
“Isn’t there a word for that?” Torres asked. “Like I’m gonna out-trauma you? The ‘trauma Olympics?’”
Then she posed another question, asking students to respond with just a short phrase: “I wish I could talk to my parents about...”
“Suicide,” one student said. “Battling substance abuse.” “My own opinions.” “Mental health.” “The past.” “The truth.”
A therapist comes to class but the class isn’t therapy
Next, the class moved onto a new assignment, inspired in part by the six big emotions.
They considered about a dozen different pictures. Some were replicas of famous art, such as Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” Others were more abstract: A brown and beige tree and its tangled roots. A baby drinking from a bottle it is holding with its feet.
Students were directed to pick an image, give it a title, and identify the emotion it evokes . Then they could either craft a series of sentences that connected details in the piece to their interpretation of it, or they could write a story, poem, or song lyrics to explain the image and what it meant to them.
Much of the classwork mirrors what you might see in a traditional English class—but with a big emphasis on choice, creative expression, and a connection to students’ emotions.
The course’s anchor text this past school year, Tattooed on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle, tells the story of a Los Angeles gang-intervention program. Students draw a picture representing their own hearts, adding words describing the emotional baggage or past experiences they believe they carry with them, and elaborate on those choices in writing.
Each student also has a playlist they created at the beginning of the school year at the prompting of Torres and Barrett—who played in bands before he became a therapist. They choose one song that embodies their experience with each of the big six emotions and write an explanation of their selections.
Barrett doesn’t see the discussions he leads as therapy.
“Group therapy can get to the bottom of the Mariana trench, the deepest part of the Earth,” he said. “And this class is more like a snorkel instead of a scuba. It’s more of a facilitation of a conversation about what it is to be a human.”
Barrett believes even many teens without a history of deep trauma need a course like this.
He noted that the CDC in 2024 that 40% of teens had persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness and 20% had seriously considered suicide.
Torres’ class helped one student find her voice
Spending this much time expressing feelings and talking through problems was new to Marissa, a senior. “I have always been told just to shut down, be quiet, don’t talk about it,” she said.
Marissa moved around throughout her childhood, at one point living with her parents and grandmother in a mold-infested trailer, washing herself with a rag because there was no running water. Eventually the roof caved in. When her father died, she and her mother, who has significant mental health problems, stayed in a homeless shelter.
More turmoil followed. Recently, a Ferris history teacher became Marissa’s legal guardian.
Like Jayden, Marissa has found a community in Torres’ creative writing classroom.
“Even though we don’t all talk to each other outside of that class, we all have this understanding,” she said. “We’re all going through something.”
She’s felt empowered to talk more, share her opinions, let people in.
“I think this class has really grounded [me] to have a voice,” said Marissa, who was recently awarded a full scholarship to nearby Gonzaga University. “I used to just not speak at all, just kept quiet. Being told that your writing is meaningful and what you’re doing is impactful to others really made me have that confidence that I don’t think I would have had if I didn’t take this class.”
Educators behind the class wish they could have had it as students
This is the class Torres and Lewis, the assistant principal, wish they’d had back in high school.
Lewis came from what looked like an ideal, upper middle-class home, but was the victim of abuse. Though Torres had supportive, loving parents, she described a disastrous senior year of high school.
Her father, also a high school English teacher, watched as his mother—Torres’ grandmother—was fatally struck by a teenage driver. Torres’ mother, also in the car, sustained serious injuries.
No one in the family was OK for a long time.
Torres, who had been a rule follower and diligent student, started skipping class and drinking a lot. She showed up to one class smelling of alcohol. The teacher noticed and took her aside.
But he “didn’t tell on me,” Torres recalled. Instead, he told her he cared about her and was worried.
She believes she was given grace in part because “what happened to my family was very public,” she said. “I was struggling, and I had everyone show up for me. Every single kid deserves that.”
Is this class scalable?
This past semester, Spokane schools launched a similar course at nearby Lewis and Clark High School, though in conjunction with a psychology class, not creative writing.
“It’s definitely replicable,” Torres said. “We don’t think it has to be something that’s cookie-cutter. We have a lot of trust in Ķvlog to take it and then work with their populations and see how it can meet their needs.”
But Lewis isn’t so sure.
It’s rare that a skilled, veteran teacher such as Torres says: “‘I need the toughest kids, the ones that have had a hard time connecting with anybody else. Give them to me,’” Lewis said. “It takes a person like that to have this program.”
If a school were to launch a class like this, the staff involved would need the kind of training in responding to trauma that Torres has completed, Lewis added. “You don’t step into a room with kids that are bringing their trauma and ask them to bubble it up and not know how to work with that,” he said.
Jayden, for one, thinks other kids would benefit.
“Most of the time I leave this class with, like, 20 pounds off my back,” he said.
![Teachers talk during lunch in the teacher’s lounge at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Tuesday, May 5, 2026. ] LEILA NAVIDI • leila.navidi@startribune.com](https://epe.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/adfdcac/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3537x2400+32+0/resize/840x570!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fepe-brightspot.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2F4a%2F27%2Fa71ae6c64cbe887f40d2c3e1a063%2Fus-news-minn-annunciation-teachers-year-filepic-5-ms.jpg)
