To present a detailed and substantial analysis of how YouTube facilitates the prewriting stage, this section integrates a short segment of a first-year academic writing assignment and a YouTube video to demonstrate the potential benefits of the incorporation of YouTube technology in the writing process in college writing classrooms.

Course summary. This is ENG 1110, a first-year writing course that immerses students in academic writing. To enhance students’ reading, analytical, and writing skills, the instructor assigns scholarly articles to help students critically interpret information and write well-argued academic essays that make logical connections among different sources. Believing that writing is a social process, the instructor encourages collaborative learning through arranging group work. Students should have already understood the major elements of academic essays, but are new to research-based academic papers where they need to synthesize ideas from different authors.

Context of teaching. The instructor has already distributed the essay assignment sheets to students and briefly introduced the assignment to students in a previous class. Regarding prewriting as a valuable means to help students generate ideas, the instructor intends to introduce some prewriting activities in class. As a student centered teacher, the instructor acknowledges students’ learning styles and aims to promote collaborative learning to help students receive and provide useful feedback in the prewriting stage.

When students are given this writing assignment, they realize that their knowledge about the subject is limited. Possibly, even after they finish reading a few articles in the textbook, they remain overwhelmed because of their uncertainty about the topic, the focus, and the thesis of the paper; therefore, students can be stuck again, hoping to get help to solicit ideas for their papers.
Assignment summary. This assignment is a 4-5 page essay that requires students to read all the articles on sleep in Chapter 8 in Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum by Behrens and Rosen. After reading these articles, students do additional research to gain much knowledge on the subject of sleep. Subsequently, they will write an argumentative paper based on the reading materials to support their own central ideas. The essay should be truly argumentative and fully synthesized, not a bombardment of quotes and paraphrases from their sources.

Summary of the YouTube clip. The news announcer reports that many American teenagers are sleep deprived, and such sleep deprivation affects their grades and safety; however, many parents are not aware of this problem and teenagers do not show necessary attention to it either. In order to call attention to the problem, this video presents sleep deprivation from various aspects, combining different voices to project a clear picture of the social factors involved in this problem.

Specific content of the YouTube clip. The news announcer reports that many American teens are sleep deprived. These teens go to bed late and their grades and safety are at risk as they are nodding off at school and behind the wheel. The poll shows us that many parents do not realize the problem and it may not be the teenagers’ fault. The interviewer talked with teenagers at a high school. At 7:15 a.m., teenagers are arriving with books, lunch, and beverages such as energy drinks and coffee. Some of the students admit that they doze off in class, and some propose to change the school schedule.

Research shows that teens function best between 11am and 10pm and a child’s biological clock, specifically a teenager’s, pushes them to sleep a little bit later at night. Actually their biological clocks were telling them to do that, not because they wanted to. Meanwhile, the National Sleep Foundation poll shows why parents are being urged to make sleep a priority for their kids because more than half of all teenagers say they drive when they are drowsy, 30% say they fall asleep once a week during school, and more than 22% fall asleep doing homework. These teenagers are still growing and their brains are still maturing so we really need to see them get a lot of sleep. Dr. Breus has also said their parents should make sure their teens had a relaxing sleep environment with no TV watching.

This YouTube video, shown in class, potentially prepares students for drafting by
stimulating students’ minds,
fostering conversations, and
motivating reading. (please click the links to read)