Students Art Lesson Expand on Ideas in Writing Prompt Statements
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12 Ideas for Writing Through the Pandemic With The New York Times
A dozen writing projects — including journals, poems, comics and more — for students to try at habitation.
The coronavirus has transformed life as we know it. Schools are closed, we're confined to our homes and the future feels very uncertain. Why write at a fourth dimension like this?
For one, nosotros are living through history. Futurity historians may look dorsum on the journals, essays and art that ordinary people are creating at present to tell the story of life during the coronavirus.
But writing can too exist deeply therapeutic. Information technology can exist a way to express our fears, hopes and joys. It tin assist us make sense of the globe and our place in it.
Plus, even though school buildings are shuttered, that doesn't hateful learning has stopped. Writing can help us reflect on what's happening in our lives and grade new ideas.
We want to assist inspire your writing about the coronavirus while you acquire from home. Below, nosotros offer 12 projects for students, all based on pieces from The New York Times, including personal narrative essays, editorials, comic strips and podcasts. Each project features a Times text and prompts to inspire your writing, too as related resource from The Learning Network to assistance you develop your craft. Some likewise offer opportunities to get your piece of work published in The Times, on The Learning Network or elsewhere.
We know this listing isn't nearly complete. If yous have ideas for other pandemic-related writing projects, please propose them in the comments.
In the meantime, happy writing!
1. Journal
Prototype
Journaling is well-known as a therapeutic practice, a tool for helping yous organize your thoughts and vent your emotions, especially in anxiety-ridden times. Just keeping a diary has an added benefit during a pandemic: It may assist educate hereafter generations.
In "The Quarantine Diaries," Amelia Nierenberg spoke to Ady, an eight-year-old in the Bay Surface area who is keeping a diary. Ms. Nierenberg writes:
As the coronavirus continues to spread and confine people largely to their homes, many are filling pages with their experiences of living through a pandemic. Their diaries are told in words and pictures: pantry inventories, window views, questions nigh the future, concerns about the nowadays.
Taken together, the pages tell the story of an anxious, claustrophobic world on break.
"You can say anything you want, no matter what, and nobody can judge you," Ady said in a telephone interview earlier this month, speaking nigh her diary. "No one says, 'scaredy-cat.'"
When future historians expect to write the story of life during coronavirus, these commencement-person accounts may prove useful.
"Diaries and correspondences are a gold standard," said Jane Kamensky, a professor of American History at Harvard Academy and the kinesthesia director of the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Found. "They're among the best evidence nosotros take of people'south inner worlds."
You can keep your ain journal, recording your thoughts, questions, concerns and experiences of living through the coronavirus pandemic.
Not sure what to write about? Read the residue of Ms. Nierenberg's article to find out what others around the world are recording. If you need more inspiration, here are a few writing prompts to get you lot started:
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How has the virus disrupted your daily life? What are y'all missing? School, sports, competitions, extracurricular activities, social plans, vacations or annihilation else?
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What effect has this crisis had on your own mental and emotional wellness?
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What changes, big or small, are you noticing in the earth around you?
For more than ideas, meet our writing prompts. We post a new one every school twenty-four hour period, many of them at present related to life during the coronavirus.
You tin can write in your journal every 24-hour interval or equally ofttimes as you like. And if writing isn't working for yous correct now, attempt a visual, audio or video diary instead.
two. Personal Narrative
As you write in your periodical, y'all'll probably find that your life during the pandemic is full of stories, whether serious or funny, angry or deplorable. If you're and so inspired, endeavor writing about one of your experiences in a personal narrative essay.
Here's how Mary Laura Philpott begins her essay, "This Togetherness Is Temporary," about being quarantined with her teenage children:
Go this: A couple of months ago, I quit my job in order to exist home more than.
Go ahead and express mirth at the timing. I know.
At the time, it was hitting me that my daughter starts high school in the fall, and my son will exist a senior. Increasingly they were spending their time away from me at school, with friends, and in the many time-intensive activities that make upwards teenage lives. I could feel the clock ticking, and I wanted to spend the minutes I could — the minutes they were willing to give me, anyhow — with them, instead of sitting in forepart of a calculator at dark and on weekends in order to juggle a task equally a bookseller, a part-time gig as a television host, and a volume borderline. I wanted more of them while they were notwithstanding living in my house.
Now here we are, all together, every day. You lot're supposed to be careful what you wish for, simply come up on. None of us saw this coming.
Personal narratives are short, powerful stories about meaningful life experiences, big or modest. Read the residual of Ms. Philpott's essay to see how she balances telling the story of a specific moment in time and reflecting on what it all means in the larger context of her life.
Video
People have long turned to creative expression in times of crisis. During the coronavirus pandemic, artists are continuing to illustrate, play music, trip the light fantastic toe, perform — and write verse.
That's what Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell, an emergency room doctor in Boston, did after a long shift treating coronavirus patients. Called "The Apocalypse," her poem begins like this:
This is the apocalypse
A daffodil has poked its caput up
from the clay and opened
sunny arms to bluer skies
nevertheless I am filled with
night and anxious dread
as theaters close as travel ends and
grocery stores display their empty rows
where toilet paper liquid bleach
and bags of flour stood in upright ranks.
Read the rest of Dr. Mitchell's poem and note the lines, images and metaphors that speak to yous. Then, tap into your artistic side by writing a poem inspired by your own experience of the pandemic.
Need inspiration? Endeavor writing a verse form in response to i of our Picture Prompts. Or, you tin can create a found poem using an commodity from The Times's coronavirus outbreak coverage. If you have access to the print paper, try making a blackout poem instead.
Related Resources:
24 Ways to Teach and Learn About Poesy With The New York Times
Reader Idea | How the Institute Poem Can Inspire Teachers and Students Akin
4. Letter of the alphabet to the Editor
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Have you been keeping upwardly with the news about the coronavirus? What is your reaction to it?
Make your voice heard by writing a letter to the editor near a recent Times article, editorial, column or Opinion essay related to the pandemic. Yous tin discover articles in The Times's free coronavirus coverage or The Learning Network'south coronavirus resource for students. And, if y'all're a high school student, your school can go yous free digital access to The New York Times from at present until July 6.
To run across examples, read the letters written by young people in response to contempo headlines in "How the Immature Deal With the Coronavirus." Here's what Addie Muller from San Jose, Calif., had to say about the Stance essay "I'm 26. Coronavirus Sent Me to the Hospital":
Equally a high school student and a part of Generation Z, I've been less concerned nigh getting Covid-nineteen and more concerned about spreading it to more than vulnerable populations. While I've been staying at abode and sheltering in place (as was ordered for the state of California), many of my friends haven't been doing the same.
I know people who continue going to restaurants and have been treating the alter in education as an extended spring interruption and excuse to spend more time with friends. I fear for my grandparents and parents, just this article showed me that we should too fear for ourselves.
I appreciated seeing this article considering many younger people seem to feel invincible. The fact that a salubrious 26-twelvemonth-sometime can be hospitalized ways that we are all capable of getting the virus ourselves and spreading it to others. I hope that Ms. Lowenstein continues spreading her story and that she makes a total recovery soon.
As you read, note some of the defining features of a letter to the editor and what made these good enough to publish. For more advice, see these tips from Thomas Feyer, the letters editor at The Times, almost how to write a compelling letter of the alphabet. They include:
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Write briefly and to the point.
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Be prepared to support your facts with evidence.
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Write nearly something off the beaten path.
Publishing Opportunity: When y'all're prepare, submit your letter to The New York Times.
5. Editorial
Epitome
Peradventure you have more to say than yous can fit in a 150-word letter to the editor. If that's the case, effort writing an editorial about something y'all have a strong opinion about related to the coronavirus. What have you seen that has made you lot upset? Proud? Beholden? Scared?
In "Surviving Coronavirus as a Broke College Student," Sydney Goins, a senior English major at the University of Georgia, writes about the limited options for students whose colleges are at present airtight. Her essay begins:
College was supposed to be my ticket to financial security. My parents were the offset ones to go to college in their family. My grandfather said to my mom, "You lot need to go to college, then y'all don't have to depend on a human for money." This aforementioned mentality was passed on to me too.
I had enough coin to terminal until May— $1,625 to exist exact — until the coronavirus ruined my finances.
My mom works in human resources. My dad is a projection manager for a mattress company. I worked part time at the university's most popular dining hall and lived in a cramped firm with three other students. I don't have a car. I either walked or biked a mile to attend class. I take student debt and started paying the accrued interest last month.
I was making it piece of work until the coronavirus shut downwardly my college town. At offset, spring intermission was extended by 2 weeks with the supposition that campus would open again in late March, just a few hours after that email, all 26 colleges in the University System of Georgia canceled in-person classes and closed integral parts of campus.
Read the rest of Ms. Goins's essay. What is her argument? How does she support it? How is it relevant to her life and the earth?
And so, choose a topic related to the pandemic that you care about and write an editorial that asserts an opinion and backs it up with solid reasoning and evidence.
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Are games, television set, music, books, art or movies providing you lot with a much-needed lark during the pandemic? What has been working for you that you would recommend to others? Or, what would you lot circumspection others to stay away from right now?
Share your opinions past writing a review of a piece of art or culture for other teenagers who are stuck at abode. You might suggest TV shows, novels, podcasts, video games, recipes or anything else. Or, try something made specially for the coronavirus era, like a virtual architecture bout, concert or safari.
Every bit a mentor text, read Laura Cappelle'southward review of French theater companies that accept rushed to put content online during the coronavirus outbreak, noting how she tailors her commentary to our current reality:
The 17th-century philosopher Blaise Pascal once wrote: "The sole cause of people'southward unhappiness is that they exercise non know how to stay quietly in their rooms." Nonetheless at a time when much of the world has been forced to hunker down, French theater-makers are fighting to fill up the void by making noise online.
She continues:
Under the circumstances, it would be churlish to mutter about artists' want to connect with audiences in some way. Theater, which depends on crowds gathering to watch performers at close quarters, is experiencing pregnant loss and upheaval, with many stagings either delayed indefinitely or canceled outright. But a sampling of stopgap offerings frequently left me underwhelmed.
To go inspired you might beginning by responding to our related Student Opinion prompt with your recommendations. And then turn 1 of them into a formal review.
Related Resource: Writing Curriculum | Unit two: Analyzing Arts, Criticizing Civilisation: Writing Reviews With The New York Times
7. How-to Guide
Paradigm
Being stuck at home with nowhere to go is the perfect time to learn a new skill. What are yous an skillful at that you tin you teach someone?
The Times has created several guides that walk readers through how to do something pace-past-pace, for case, this eight-step tutorial on how to brand a face mask. Read through the guide, noting how the author breaks downwardly each step into an hands digestible action, too equally how the illustrations back up comprehension.
Then, create your own how-to guide for something you could teach someone to do during the pandemic. Mayhap it's a recipe you've perfected, a solo sport you've been practicing, or a FaceTime tutorial for someone who'southward never video chatted before.
Whatever you choose, brand sure to write clearly so anyone anywhere could try out this new skill. As an added challenge, include an illustration, photograph, or audio or video prune with each step to support the reader'southward agreement.
Related Resources: Writing Curriculum | Unit four: Informational Writing
eight. 36 Hours Column
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For almost two decades, The Times has published a weekly 36 Hours column, giving readers suggestions for how to spend a weekend in cities all over the globe.
While traveling for fun is not an option now, the Travel section decided to create a special reader-generated column of how to spend a weekend in the midst of a global pandemic. The outcome? "36 Hours in … Wherever You Are." Here's how readers suggest spending a Sunday morning:
8 a.m. Changing routines
Make minor discoveries. To stretch my legs during the lockdown, I've been walking around the block every twenty-four hour period, and I've started to observe details that I'd never seen before. Like the faux, painted window on the building across the road, or the old candle holders that were in one case used equally role of the street lighting. When the quarantine ends, I promise we don't forget to appreciate what's been on a doorstep all forth.
— Camilla Capasso, Modena, Italian republic
10:30 a.m. Use your easily
Undertake the easiest and most fulfilling origami project of your life by folding 12 pieces of newspaper and edifice this lovely star. Modular origami has been my absolute favorite occupational therapy since I was a restless child: the process is enthralling and soothing.
— Laila Dib, Berlin, Germany
12 p.m. Be isolated, together
Cheque on neighbors on your block or floor with an email, text or phone call, or leave a card with your proper name and contact data. Are they OK? Do they need something from the shop? Help with an errand? Food? Can y'all bring them a hot dish or home-baked bread? This unproblematic human activity — washed carefully and from a safety distance — palpably reduces our sense of fear and isolation. I've seen the faces of some neighbors for the offset time. Now they wave.
— Jim Carrier, Burlington, Vt.
Read the entire article. As you read, consider: How would this exist different if information technology were written by teenagers for teenagers?
And then, create your own 36 Hours itinerary for teenagers stuck at home during the pandemic with ideas for how to spend the weekend wherever they are.
The 36 Hours editors advise thinking "within the spirit of travel, even if many of us are housebound." For example: an album or a vocal playlist; a book or movie that transports yous; a item recipe you dearest; or a clever way to virtually connect with family and friends. Meet more suggestions here.
Related Resources:
Reader Idea | 36 Hours in Your Hometown
36 Hours in Learning: Creating Travel Itineraries Across the Curriculum
9. Photo Essay
Video
Daily life looks very different at present. Unusual scenes are playing out in homes, parks, grocery stores and streets across the country.
In "New York Was Not Designed for Emptiness," New York Times photographers document what life in New York Metropolis looks like amid the pandemic. It begins:
The lights are still on in Times Foursquare. Billboards blink and storefronts shine in neon. If only there were an audience for this spectacle.
Just the thoroughfares take been abandoned. The energy that once crackled forth the concrete has eased. The throngs of tourists, the briskly striding commuters, the honking drivers have more often than not skittered away.
In their identify is a contemplative awareness that plays across all five boroughs: Expect how eerie our brilliant landscape has go. Look how it no longer bustles.
This is not the New York City anyone signed upwards for.
Read the rest of the essay and view the photos. Every bit yous read, note the photos or lines in the text that catch your attention about. Why do they stand out to you?
What does the pandemic look similar where yous live? Create your ain photograph essay, accompanied past a written slice, that illustrates your life now. In your essay, consider how y'all can communicate a particular theme or message about life during the pandemic through both your photos and words, like in the article you read.
Publishing Opportunity: The International Center of Photography is collecting a virtual archive of images related to the coronavirus pandemic. Learn how to submit yours here.
10. Comic Strip
Sometimes, words lonely just won't do. Visual mediums, similar comics, have the advantage of being able to express emotion, reveal inner monologues, and explain complex subjects in ways that words on their own seldom can.
If anything proves this point, it is the Opinion section's ongoing visual diary, "Art in Isolation." Scroll through this drove to see clever and poignant illustrations about life in these uncertain times. Read the comic "Finding Connection When Domicile Alone" by Gracey Zhang from this collection. Equally you lot read, note what stands out to you well-nigh the writing and illustrations. What lessons could they have for your own slice?
Then, create your own comic strip, modeled after the one you read, that explores some attribute of life during the pandemic. Yous can sketch and color your comic with newspaper and pen, or use an online tool like MakeBeliefsComix.com.
Need inspiration? If you're keeping a quarantine journal, as we suggested above, y'all might create a graphic story based on a week of your life, or just a small part of it — like the meals you ate, the video games you played, or the conversations you had with friends over text. For more ideas, check out our writing prompts related to the coronavirus.
Related Resource: From Superheroes to Syrian Refugees: Teaching Comics and Graphic Novels With Resources From The New York Times
11. Podcast
Mod Dear Podcast: In the Midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic, People Share Their Love Stories
How has coronavirus impacted relationships? People effectually the world reply.
Are you lot listening to any podcasts to assistance you go through the pandemic? Are they keeping you up-to-appointment on the news? Offering advice? Or just helping you escape from it all?
Paradigm
"It doesn't matter how good you recollect you are every bit a author — the beginning words you put on the folio are a first draft," Harry Guinness writes in "How to Edit Your Own Writing."
Editing your work may seem like something yous do quickly — checking for spelling mistakes merely before you turn in your essay — only Mr. Guinness argues it's a project in its own right:
The time y'all put into editing, reworking and refining turns your first draft into a second — and then into a third and, if you go along at it, eventually something bully. The biggest mistake you tin can brand as a writer is to assume that what you lot wrote the kickoff time through was practiced enough.
Read the residue of the article for a pace-by-step guide to editing your own work. Then, revise one of the pieces you lot take written, following Mr. Guinness'due south advice.
Publishing Opportunity: When you feel like your piece is "something nifty," consider submitting it to one of the publishing opportunities we've suggested above. Or, see our list of 70-plus places that publish teenage writing and art to find more than.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/learning/12-ideas-for-writing-through-the-pandemic-with-the-new-york-times.html
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