In 2020, the world kept most of us apart in order to avoid COVID-19 infection. Even families needed 14 days quarantine before hugging each other like me, who waited for the daughter near Tokyo Airport for 2 weeks.
Universities in Japan where I work at, students stayed at home, facing the PC screen most of the time. Fear for the virus itself, anxiety, and discriminations against patients were pointed out by Japan Red Cross (2020).
YouTube was used when I started posting a weekly activity to involve students to feel that they are not alone. For 10 weeks, I gave them brief instructions on Free writing with topics on current issues.
Free-writing is a popular way to enhance writing fluency as well as brainstorming, but it needs a strong will to continue 10 minutes every week if we are alone at home.
My idea was to shoot myself writing for 10 minutes on YouTube, so that students can watch me writing and hopefully they write together, not alone. I sometimes asked my daughter to join writing with me on screen. When her high school started in-person classes, I had my dog watch me writing.
Topic choice plays an important role whether the writing activity is motivational or not. In the first few week, topics were from familiar events and happy memories. Gradually, social issues were introduced such as;
1. opening the stadiums for audience watching a sports match
2. government's travel promotion campaign called "GO TO TRAVEL"
3. BLACK LIVES MATTER: BLM
Encouraging enough, some students loved writing about BLM. Hard talk is not always shunned.
Hence, I posted my topic and myself writing for 10 minutes every week, and students accessed YouTube to find the topic, wrote for a certain interval, and reported me the number of words they earned. I promised that I would not collect their writing product to offer them freedom and privacy in expressing any thoughts in this activity.
Please take a look at the videos from week 1 to week 10 on Free Writing activity for students in Quarantine 2020.
Reference
Japan Red Cross Society (April, 16. 2020)Three faces of COVID-19 we must be alert to-A guide to breaking the negative spiral. retrieved from
http://www.jrc.or.jp/activity/saigai/news/200326_006124.html (Japanese)
http://www.jrc.or.jp/english/jrc_news/200416_006156.html (English)
Universities in Japan where I work at, students stayed at home, facing the PC screen most of the time. Fear for the virus itself, anxiety, and discriminations against patients were pointed out by Japan Red Cross (2020).
YouTube was used when I started posting a weekly activity to involve students to feel that they are not alone. For 10 weeks, I gave them brief instructions on Free writing with topics on current issues.
Free-writing is a popular way to enhance writing fluency as well as brainstorming, but it needs a strong will to continue 10 minutes every week if we are alone at home.
My idea was to shoot myself writing for 10 minutes on YouTube, so that students can watch me writing and hopefully they write together, not alone. I sometimes asked my daughter to join writing with me on screen. When her high school started in-person classes, I had my dog watch me writing.
Topic choice plays an important role whether the writing activity is motivational or not. In the first few week, topics were from familiar events and happy memories. Gradually, social issues were introduced such as;
1. opening the stadiums for audience watching a sports match
2. government's travel promotion campaign called "GO TO TRAVEL"
3. BLACK LIVES MATTER: BLM
Encouraging enough, some students loved writing about BLM. Hard talk is not always shunned.
Hence, I posted my topic and myself writing for 10 minutes every week, and students accessed YouTube to find the topic, wrote for a certain interval, and reported me the number of words they earned. I promised that I would not collect their writing product to offer them freedom and privacy in expressing any thoughts in this activity.
Please take a look at the videos from week 1 to week 10 on Free Writing activity for students in Quarantine 2020.
Reference
Japan Red Cross Society (April, 16. 2020)Three faces of COVID-19 we must be alert to-A guide to breaking the negative spiral. retrieved from
http://www.jrc.or.jp/activity/saigai/news/200326_006124.html (Japanese)
http://www.jrc.or.jp/english/jrc_news/200416_006156.html (English)