Journaling Through the Coronavirus Quarter
Ljiljana Coklin
Ljiljana Coklin is a lecturer in the Writing Program at UCSB and a director of the Raab Writing Fellows Program. She leads a year-long seminar for Raab fellows, teaches creative nonfiction and professional writing classes. She also co-directs the Civic Engagement track of the Professional Writing Minor.
March 10, 2020
This afternoon we learned that UC Santa Barbara is switching to online instruction until at least the end of April. The news is shocking, and I’m sad I won’t get to say goodbye to the students in my winter classes. As I sit glued to the evening news, I have three thoughts about the sudden switch to online instruction: a) “the end of April” sounds like wishful thinking; b) I need to redesign the entire course, not just the first four weeks; c) how do I do that?
March 11, 2020
It’s a miserable rainy morning in Santa Barbara, and the Instructional Development workshop is taking place in a tiny computer lab packed with at least thirty faculty from all over the campus. Our anxious faces make us look like grade schoolers nervously pressing wrong buttons, checking with each other that we understood the nebulous instructions, and vying for individual attention from outnumbered instructors. Just when we thought we were unlocking the secrets of the magical tools of online instruction, Zoom and Panopto, we learn there’s more. There’s also GauchoCast, and the clear writing surface, and the brand new and super hip app Nectir. At 11am, I collect my handouts and take my headache home.
March 23, 2020
My command of Zoom is shaky, but my friends and family are impressed. With six days left until the beginning of spring quarter, I have no time to angst about technology. My focus is now on the course redesign as I’m trying to figure out what to cut, what to keep, and what to add to Professional Writing for Global Careers, an upper-division writing class I have taught for years. I make two decisions that I’m at peace with: focus the class on COVID-19 and keep its non-profit framework. Next on the chopping block are two minor assignments, a group component of the final assignment, and an oral presentation. That leaves me with three major assignments: a newsletter publication, a profile of a non-profit organization, and an action plan. Something is missing. What?
March 24, 2020
I need a low-stakes assignment worth 25% that will keep the students engaged on a regular basis.
March 25, 2020
I procrastinate with the course design and instead read about the Spanish flu. The numbers are staggering, the mortality rate of the second wave boggles the mind, but I find myself most interested in the excerpts from the letters and diaries of the survivors. They document the life behind the numbers so vividly. What if….. ?
March 29, 2020
Classes start tomorrow, and my students’ Assignment 1 reads as follows:
COVID-19 JOURNALS
CONTEXT:
We are in the middle of a global pandemic that is affecting our lives on all levels. While it is important to pay attention to larger social issues and analyze developments related to health, economy, education, etc, it is also important to gather evidence about everyday human experience and create a record of personal journeys in trying times.
We will look at these journals as historical records of a life lived during the time of a global pandemic. As we continue to work together in the next ten weeks, events and circumstances during this ongoing viral infection will change. There will be new developments and new defining moments; there will be different life circumstances, and there will be different physical and emotional responses. If we are asked to continue practicing social distancing and living a life full of uncertainty and the unknown, we will be challenged in new ways.
We want to create a record of what we think about in these new circumstances, how we reflect on the events and process the news, and what kind of emotions and responses arise in these trying times. These five journals will become a record of how we change, develop, and adapt in the course of ten weeks.
ASSIGNMENT: Write 5 COVID-19 journals and submit them every other Friday.
GOAL: Create a personal history of a life during the times of the Coronavirus pandemic.
I suggest that students focus their entries on a specific public or personal event or news but otherwise keep the assignment wide open. I invite them to be authentic and honest with their emotions, and I add two links with tips for journal writing: The Write Practice and The Writing Cooperative.
April 12, 2020
Journal #1 went ok. Some students are embracing an opportunity to reflect on the challenges of online instruction or the return to their childhood homes. A few students are not sure what the assignment is about so they summarize the news or analyze the stock market. I encourage the students to explore their world and share with them an article in the Slate Magazine’s Coronavirus Diaries series that offers a student’s perspective on living on an empty campus.
April 28, 2020
The article recommendation worked. Journal #2 is getting more authentic. And just like that, whole new worlds are opening up in front of me featuring intricate casts of characters. I learn about family members affected by COVID-19, or working as essential workers, or facing unemployment. I hear of roommates, good and bad, and meet long-distance girlfriends and boyfriends. I find out that students stay with relatives or work in closets or hallways where they have the strongest wifi. I’m meeting students in a whole new way that is more detailed, more intimate, more holistic. There is a story behind each assignment, each Zoom meeting.
May 5, 2020
Journal #3 is due in three days, and already almost a quarter of the students have submitted their work. That is unusual. Some have even requested permission to write more than two pages. I sense an urgency to be heard. The students are claiming the assignment as a safe space to voice concerns, identify fears, vent frustrations, mourn the loss of rites of passage, and process grief, anger, and disillusionment. I listen. I feel connected to the students. And then I engage. I write back and validate their emotions, offer suggestions for self-care, probe their views, provide reading recommendations, and put things into a larger historical perspective. I am their writing instructor, and I’m also more than that.
May 15, 2020
I’m starting to see an emotional trajectory emerging in the students’ journals, which I’m also increasingly perceiving as a single body of writing, a generational response to a global pandemic. I share my views with the students in a weekly newsletter:
The initial shock gave way to sadness and mourning. You experienced a sense of loss over the connection with your peers, over lost jobs, internships, and career opportunities, and over the absence of a graduation ceremony. Mostly, you experienced a sense of loss over your newly attained independent life and over the minutiae of campus life that you now remember very fondly and appreciate in a new way. Then came anger directed at the protesters against the stay-at-home orders in California and across the country or at the people close to you who defied the same orders. It seems that you’re now starting to look for ways in which you can adapt to this big change.
May 29, 2020
A call for submissions for the UCSB COVID-19 Community Archives Project on the university library’s website grabs my attention. The library is building a digital archive hoping that the preservation of personal experiences would help the campus community heal. I can’t contain my enthusiasm. My students already have such personal records. I run the idea of collecting COVID-19 Journals from my class by the librarian in charge and get the green light.
June 12, 2020
Journal #4 is almost unanimously devoted to George Floyd’s death and the Black Lives Matter protests. Most students consider the protesters’ demands long overdue while some are concerned about the protesters’ health and others about looting. Journal #5 provides space to reflect on the previous entries and the process of journaling. Two strong themes emerge in the last journal. Students can’t believe how “innocent” and “naïve” they were to believe that life would go back to normal in a few weeks, and they are surprised by how much they’ve come to appreciate the COVID-19 Journals. They see journals as a “refreshing” way to process emotions and events. They believe the journals have made them pay attention to the news and, rather unexpectedly, they realize the journals have helped them stay hopeful.
June 25, 2020
I have collected fifteen voluntary submissions of COVID-19 Journals from the students in Writing 107G and submitted them to the library archives project. Each student submission includes all five journals, and together they tell a story of a college life disrupted by COVID-19. Perhaps these journals will help create a valuable historical parallel to the personal stories left after the Spanish flu?
June 29, 2020
I’m including the journal assignment in my fall classes.