When students watch this video in class, they hear voices from different groups of people, including scientists, researchers, school authorities, students, and teachers. These different opinions on the causes, consequences, and possible solutions to sleep deprivation provide students with a brief background and possible discussion threads. Coming from different backgrounds, they share different interests and beliefs; therefore, their minds are activated by a vast variety of topics. The differing opinions and various subareas not only inform them of the important issues regarding sleep deprivation but also revive memories relating to their experiences and knowledge. In addition, conversations taking place in the video can stir their memories, helping them identify what they know. The viewing of the video may awaken students’ minds, and they eventually understand that what they know about the subject. The familiarity, even when vague, connects students to the writing assignments, inspiring them and helping them synthesize knowledge in new ways.

The instructor, as the person who chooses and shows this video to students, can encourage dialogue among students. When students view the video, they dialogue with themselves and the video. While they work in groups to brainstorm, they can share the internal dialogues they have with themselves and with the video. By communicating these dialogues to peers, they become more aware of the knowledge that they have regarding the topic of sleep. During the process of conversing with peers, students will be delighted to see how their peers’ knowledge adds to what they know, and the interaction among them helps them generate ideas, brainstorm topics, and build their confidence as writers.

LeFevre (1987) argues that “people become partners in the process of creating ideas” (p. 12). The partnership among these students strengthens their ties, encouraging them to see each other as collaborators, rather than competitors. Introducing prewriting activities in the writing class is a technique to expose students to collaborative learning, which allows students to explore various social facets because writing is a social construction activity. Bruffee (2003) states that, “to study and teach English is to study and teach the social origin, nature, reference, and function of symbolic structures” (p. 432). Trimbur (2003) emphasizes that “collaborative learning is a process of re-acculturation, of learning to participate in the ongoing discussions of new communities” (p. 465). In this collaboration process, students work in groups, participate in the ongoing discussions, and understand the social ramifications of various issues.

YouTube, thus, promotes the social aspects of prewriting mainly by engaging participants in collaborative dialogues. When student writers exchange thoughts with peers, they will unavoidably address social issues, and these social factors may induce both similar and conflicting understandings. It is easy enough for people to recognize how similar opinions make agreements easier, hence positively imparting the friendly collaborative classroom environment. Paradoxically, conflicting perspectives equally contribute to positive learning.

Nash (2009) has recognized that “interaction among students can lead to opportunities for disagreement between partners in a discussion or other collaborative activities” (p. 10). These disagreements, if viewed in a healthy and positive way, can improve students’ writing as effectively as agreements. Immersed in different thoughts prompted by the video, students are challenged to step out of their comfort zone to understand and eventually appreciate the existence of differences. Take the possible reactions that students may have towards the proposed solutions to handle sleep deprivation as an example. In the video, a student proposes to push back the start of classes to ensure sufficient sleep among young students; however, this solution can sound ridiculous to people who blame students for being lazy and irresponsible. They may blame schools for encouraging children to stay up late wasting time on video games or endless phone calls. In the YouTube video, research, however, suggests that children are biologically prone to go to sleep late at night and wake up late in the morning. In addition, this solution causes new concerns for working parents, who need to observe their work schedules and prefer to have their children at school earlier.

When the complexities concerning this solution are unfolded to participants in the writing class, they take positions based on their own experiences with school schedules, cultural values, parents’ schedules, and so on. When different positions are shared in group discussions, participants hear the reasons behind those positions, which helps them understand the reasonable and sensible side of each position. If some participants question the plausibility of certain positions, they can raise questions which urge the whole group to rethink their positions and employ suitable rhetorical strategies to persuade others. This process of articulating positions, questioning differences, and acknowledging oppositions creates a space for dialogues, strengthens the tie among these students, and sharpens their skills as critical thinkers and rhetors.

LeFevre (1987) particularly addresses the close connection between conversation and composition. In “Invention as a Social Act,” Lefevre argues that “the development of writing ability is made possible by a transformation from a socially interactive to an autonomous process, a movement ‘from conversation to composition’” (p. 58). The conversations taking place after viewing the YouTube video enable the sharing of knowledge, experience, values, and attitudes among participants. This sharing helps students to collaborate and connect. Lefevre (1987) says, “[c]ollaboration can also stimulate creative thinking” (p. 740). Through internal and external dialogues inspired by the YouTube video, student writers gain better understanding of various parties and opinions involved, and they approach the writing assignment with a better-informed mind, which helps them feel better prepared to write.

Daiute (1985) notes that a writing classroom which does not encourage interaction among students and sharing of work leads to writings that either do not speak or speak with a dead voice (p. 4). She concludes that the voice of writing “dies when writing has lost its relation to speaking” (p. 4). In a writing classroom that integrates YouTube, students are exposed to different voices, interacting with people from different backgrounds and presenting positions to different audiences, which, in turn, provides them with prompt oral feedback. If such interactions occur in written communication, students may have the opportunity to clarify their thoughts, but they may have to wait for peers’ responses. Such a lapse of time may let the opportune moment pass, which eventually results in the loss of ideas or inspiration; since such a loss does not happen very frequently among conversation partners, the conversations prompted by the YouTube video are conducive to the students’ learning experience.

The integration of YouTube in the prewriting stage, by encouraging dialogues among participants in small groups, encourages heterogeneous learning. Though the instructor chooses what to teach and how to teach, the prewriting activity predominately centers on students, treating students as the source of knowledge, which promotes their agency to connect, collaborate, and create.

Stimulating Mind,
Motivating Reading.