Introduction

COVID-19 has been a disruptor and awakening of epic proportions that in a few short weeks changed the academic experience for our screen students and educators in a multitude of ways. Although we have largely avoided community transmission in Western Australia, the virus has remained all around us since the beginning of the year despite not literally having invaded the air we breathe.

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This visual essay aims to examine the impact of the pandemic on a particular unit of study, Introduction to Screenwriting. Our desire to produce this work is inspired in part by our need to document the experience for ourselves, and in part by our screenwriting students as demonstrated in their own works and personal reflections. The essay consists of two primary areas of scrutiny, the first being our abrupt move to online teaching and its consequences on content delivery, participation. communication and mental health. The second is the subsequent effect of the pandemic on the creative works submitted by the students, many of which specifically featured concepts of contagion and isolation.

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Classroom Pedagogy

We began the semester assuming it would run like any other; but one month into the semester the university campus became quieter and emptier. We found ourselves refreshing news websites on repeat. With the seriousness of the pandemic becoming clear the university scrambled to adjust to the disruption. Students were forced to simultaneously deal with multiple upheavals/traumas at once: adapting to a new method of online learning, the unpredictable global health crisis, losing employment and income, and needing to assist struggling family and friends. Students participating in exchange programs were forced to pack and up leave the country at very short notice, and had to adapt to remote learning with the added challenge of navigating the time difference.

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After only a week’s break to organise new teaching methods, the classroom space was replaced by Blackboard Collaborate, a Zoom-like online forum that enables video and text discussion, file sharing and ‘breakout groups’ whereby participants are organised into small private groups. As educators, we questioned how we would maintain students’ trust and keep them engaged. We wondered how we could adapt a curriculum designed to enable high levels of student interactivity developed on a pedagogy of kinaesthetic F2F (face to face) strategies and learning principles (Drago, Wagner 2004, Kemp, Grieve 2014, Dhawan 2020, Roell 2020).

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Lengthy online interaction brings with it a hefty level of exhaustion; the absence of non-verbal cues and sustained eye contact feels tiring and unstimulating (Sander, Bauman, 2020). Three hour seminar workshops became one hour online Collaborate sessions, with the option of a longer (90 minute) workshop if students wanted one. All theory content (delivered as slides and films screened in class) was redesigned as single online weekly modules that students could work through in their own time.

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Upon reaching out to students throughout the semester in regards to seminar attendance and journal entry submission, several cited their mental health (in particular, anxiety) as a significant impediment to remaining engaged in the unit. Our observations were consistent with mental health experts’ findings on the impact of COVID-19 on young people (Bartone, Hickie, McGorry 2020, Teesson, 2020). In the students’ self-assessments, submitted at the end of semester, many acknowledged that they struggled to maintain focus. Several students argued that F2F learning cannot be replaced and its absence was felt in regards to motivation, communication and creativity:

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“I like going into classes because there is a sense of accountability. When everything is online, it is a lot easier to not do all the work set and with no immediate consequences, it remained difficult.”

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“I very much hope classes go back to the way they were. I think that will make it a lot easier to talk about ideas. Sharing ideas can be quite personal and it is nice to gage another person’s physical reaction to what you are saying.”

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Students predominantly chose to remain anonymous and turned off their cameras, this was mostly driven by not wanting to be seen but also to limit bandwidth usage. Many students preferred to type responses rather than to speak through a microphone, which resulted in conversations lagging and a loss of immediacy. We remained connected to all of our students, yet the images of their faces faded in our memories and we became only able to identify them by their names on the screen.

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However, a few students cited an upside to the online format, explaining that they felt more comfortable contributing answers and ideas via the text chat (as opposed to speaking up in class), and that the randomised ‘breakout group’ function in Collaborate allowed them to interact with students they otherwise wouldn’t have:

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“Ever since going online, I did feel more comfortable in participating and contributing to the discussion due to anonymity and not having to talk, just type.”

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“While my hand might not have shot up at every asking in our original ‘physical’ classes, I have always appreciated small group discussions and getting to hear other people’s specific ideas and opinions in a less intimidating forum.”

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Dhawan (2020) cites many examples of studies that indicate students experience and engagement with online learning is affected by technical problems, their ability to co-ordinate learning and study tasks with family, social and employment responsibilities, level of e-learning skills and overall academic competencies (p8-9). Accessibility was directly linked to participation and willingness to adapt. Collaborate was vulnerable to constant drop outs, and if the student had a stable home environment with good internet they appeared to fare better than their peers who didn’t. It revealed very quickly students’ individual circumstances. Many had no desk or laptops, or the computers were shared between household members. Surprisingly many were relying solely on their phones. Despite being constantly available to the students online we felt as though we still didn’t know what personal circumstances many were dealing with or which factors left them unable to complete the semester’s work to the best of their abilities.

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Creative Works & Findings

Our teaching weeks for the impacted semester ran from late February to early June. The semester ended up being roughly one quarter face-to face classroom teaching and three quarters remote teaching. Almost all assessments (bar a few in-class presentations) were completed and delivered online. What this means is that our students’ two narrative and ‘creative’ assessments – a digital storyboard and a first draft screenplay – were constructed during the most uncertain COVID-19 lockdown period here in Western Australia (March – June 2020).

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This context and the content produced within it should not be overlooked – here we were asking our students to conceive visual stories during the most significant global pandemic of their lives. We vowed not to encourage it as a potential ‘subject’ for story content, but rather, as always in our teaching approach, foster individual stories to see what emerges from the students’ own imaginings and presentations. Despite this, it remained no surprise that a number of works submitted across all five classes (119 students) were thematically and narratively tied to COVID-19. They did not simply touch on vaguer concepts of loneliness or isolation, but within the works themselves characters were depicted dealing specifically with COVID-19 and its mandated lockdowns. Overall, the works demonstrate the desire to share and communicate their understandings and thoughts to an audience; they became vehicles in the students’ learning process as they adapted to the new social world they found themselves in.

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The storyboard task gave students the opportunity to respond to a selected title provocation (for example: ‘Sweet Dreams’, ‘The Room’ and ‘If Only’ – conceived in January, prior to COVID-19). Students are free to interpret the titles, the focus being to communicate a coherent narrative through images only. Upon viewing the completed works, we realised we had not seen so many narrative references to a real life event so consistently across the screenwriting cohort. We showed some of the works to youth mental health service provider, Youth Focus CEO, Arthur Papakotsias. What can we make of this? Are these students ok? He reassured us that creative tasks were providing “A great opportunity for students to express how they really feel.” He confirmed this might be the only outlet they have where they can do this safely and in a structured and creative way.