Engage

~15 minute

One of the first emotional intelligence competencies addresses enhancing your emotional literacy. This means the ability to identify and name one’s emotions. While there are many emotions we can experience, most individuals are not great at being able to articulate their experience of more than a handful. The following resources provide some ideas and suggestions for this work.

Watch the following video produced by Disney-Pixar for the Inside Out movie:

Emotional Health | Pixar’s Inside Out (2.33 minutes)

At the “heart” of social-emotional learning is an insight into feelings.  That takes “emotional literacy” — the ability to name and understand feelings.

What are feelings?  How can we become more aware and intentional in our use of emotion —

and help our students do the same?

Watch two of the following videos with some in depth (or not) thoughts about emotions. 

 Are Perceptions More Real Than Reality? | Six Seconds (1.23 minutes) 

Our emotions are based on our perceptions of the world — and we respond accordingly. Josh Freedman shares insight into the neuroscience of emotions and the transformative power of recognizing how we are interpreting the world around us.

Emotional Maturity | Pixar’s Inside Out (8.22 minutes)

“Why do we feel sad? Is there a most important emotion? Inside Out, through emotions themselves, delves into these questions and provides more than a few powerful answers.” What insights does this clip provide for you?

Name That Emotion with Murray! | Sesame Street (5.22 minutes) 

“Let’s play ‘Name That Emotion’ with Murray from Sesame Street! It’s a game Murray leads where they name the emotions that participants are feeling. A great video related to emotional literacy for kids!”

What Emotional Literacy looks like: 

  • Name feelings, yours and others’, with one word.  “I am feeling ____.” Or, “I am feeling a little ___.”
  • Ask, “I wonder if you are feeling ____?” Or, “It seems like many people in the room are feeling ____.”
  • Then, ask a question about the meaning, e.g., “I wonder what this feeling is telling me/you/us?”