“Despite adults’ tendency to dismiss them as a distraction, these messages written on 8 ½ x 11-inch notebook paper, an old Spanish assignment, a math worksheet, or a history note card are binding missives that chronicle some of an adolescent girl’s most meaningful thoughts, feelings, and relationships in the context of the school day.” (Collins, 2008, 98)

As an avid note writer myself during middle and high school, currently experiencing issues as an educator with note writing in class, I related on many levels to Collins’s article, “ ‘Getting the message across’: Adolescent Girls and Note Writing.” As an educator, Collins’s conclusions shed new light: I never thought of note-writing as a space for girls to navigate their daily issues, a technique that actually helps them deal with their thoughts, in order to get back to work. Despite technology’s evolution, girls are STILL passing notes in class, and witnessed this phenomenon yesterday. My 5th grade French class is a mixture of students who are not all in the same homeroom, so a majority of them have French in a classroom that is otherwise not their own. One student has recently been playing with the glue that belongs to the girl who sits at that desk for homeroom, but who is not in our class. Yesterday, I noticed that she left a note for my student, requesting that she “please follow the enclosed instructions.” She bluntly asked the student, politely and by name, to please stop making a mess, with supplies that do not belong to her, at a desk where she does not sit most of the day. Instead of confiscating the note, I watched as the student discretely opened it and responded. She did not touch it the rest of class, and did not play with the glue that day. It seems that, an explicit, yet courteous, note from a fellow 5th grader was more effective than my behavior management as an adult. If this is the case, what else can we learn and achieve through adolescent girl note-passing?