Many of us, at some point in our academic careers, have been asked to write an English essay based on the writing prompt “What Did You Do On Your Summer Break?”
With the rise of mental health awareness and social media usage, the relevance of this question must be explored. For many students, having to rehash their summer activities may feel redundant, given that they’d already spent so much of their time curating their social media feeds to highlight just that - why write an essay when you have pictures to show instead?
For others, the summer may have been a difficult time - the loss of a loved one or having to work to help stave off financial difficulties at home - not something one would wish to recall, let alone share with a classroom full of peers. In an article published by the BBC online, a twitter thread posing just that garnered hundreds of responses ranging from positive to negative on the subject; what can be concluded from all that is this: given what we know today about the importance of respect and privacy, it is teachers’ responsibility to come up with more creative writing prompts to ensure their students aren’t put on the spot.
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.