How to Write a SUPER Check-In Question

2 minutes of writing can help build community + 7 examples

I attended my first Onondaga Community Trauma Task Force meeting in December 2017. Bill Cross, a Vietnam combat infantry officer turned Zen Buddhist psychology professor, invited me after we met at a writing workshop. He told me the task force was made up of community-minded mental health professionals interested in addressing community traumas that fell between the institutional cracks of hospitals and human service agencies. “It’s a really good group,” he assured me.

I didn’t know what to expect after I was buzzed in to the building where the OCTTF met every month. I wasn’t a mental health worker. These people sounded like do-gooders, but there was an aura of intrigue that surrounded these people who tried to help those overlooked by our mental health infrastructure.

The faces surrounding me at the boardroom table were friendly enough when I told them Bill invited me. Like me, they didn’t know what a college writing teacher was doing at the meeting.

Jeanne Elmer called the meeting to order. “Folks, let’s go around the room and say what’s the best thing we’ve eaten lately. I’ll start …” Her energy was contagious, radiating the toughness and love she cultivated throughout her career as an inner-city social worker. Around we went. I learned where to get the best Utica Greens, who likes to bake bread, and who started a diet after Thanksgiving, and who was still eating zucchini from the summer. By the time I talked about the chili I made over the weekend, I felt like less of a stranger.

Every meeting since then, the OCTTF starts the same way. I look forward to those check-ins. I’ve made friends through those questions. They anchor our emotions before getting down to the business of talking about trauma.

I’ve taken to starting my undergraduate and graduate classes with written check-ins. I find that a few moments of writing focuses the students (or at least momentarily diverts them from their screens) and brings us together in the room.

Check-ins are deceptively challenging to come up with. The first time I tried, it fell flat. So, I studied Jeanne’s method. I even came up with an acronym to help me write check-ins like her. It’s fitting that it’s SUPER.

A good check-in should be:

Short

Unexpected

Prompt a Story

Easy to Answer

Relatable

A good check-in question isn’t always positive. Sometimes we need to tackle “the crap” as Jeanne would say. I have come to use these check-ins when I go on trauma responses in the community, to. A few moments of writing can surface a good deal of emotions.

Wherever I use them, the most important part of the check-in is sharing. Write the answer, then share it aloud, come together in laughter or tears.

To get you started writing SUPER Check-Ins, here are 7 examples. Why don’t you share the ones you make up with me? I’m curious to know.

1. What’s a small win you’ve had recently?

2. When’s the last time you laughed so hard you cried? What caused it?

3. What’s a random act of kindness someone did for you recently?

4. What’s a random act of kindness you did recently?

5. What’s something you’re looking forward to in the next week?

6. What’s something small you’ve done to take care of yourself lately?

7. Who in your life has the best smile? When was the last time you saw it?