COVID

ASSIGNMENT

PART I.

OVERVIEW OF ASSIGNMENT: In an effort to make this academic project also personally meaningful to you, this Assignment will explore the unique impact of the COVID-19 crisis. In particular, you will be asked to communicate your personal experience using self-reflection and reference material below.

PAPER LENGTH AND FORMAT: The Assignment will be a 2-3 page paper (plus Title Page) using APA (not MLA) formatting. Specific formatting details are in Part II. below.

INTRODUCTION. As of today, almost 2 million people globally have died from COVID-19. From stories of elders isolated from family, to first-responders bravely giving their lives to help others, the effects of COVID-19 have been tragic.

We feel sadness as we watch the death toll climb and witness the pain of others less fortunate than ourselves. However, we are also grieving our own losses. While they may not seem as serious as what New Yorkers or other countries are experiencing, many of us are having our own internal, family, and community crises.

THE NEW NORMAL. One aspect not talked about enough are the many emotions we are feeling simultaneously. We may feel shock, anger, anxiety, and deep sadness we may experienced as we adjust to the “new normal.” Our once taken-for-granted “stability stories” now may have rocky endings.

Many workers can’t work and money may be tight. Rents and mortgages may not get paid. Supplies in grocery stores are uncertain. Families are forced to live in close confinement where fighting is hard to avoid. Some parents are forced to home school their children and keep doing their jobs from home.  And College students are expected to learn 100% online or in hybrid classes with all wearing masks and sitting 6’ apart.

CANCELLATIONS. People miss travelling, partying, attending large events or just going to the movies or a concert. Harder than that for many families, are cancellations of once-in-a-lifetime events.

This year there were no face-to-face proms for high schoolers, college students didn’t get to walk across the stage to graduate, and brides and grooms-to-be postponed their weddings.  The freedom to have social celebrations are declared “non-essential” activities for the safety of us all.

GOOD PEOPLE. Yet, we, as citizens of our community and the world, are being asked to sacrifice our “wants” to protect others’ lives. Like soldiers on the front lines, we want to be brave and compliant for the good of others. Really we do.

But it is still a shocking situation to us, our families and our community.  And sad. For a time, we have lost a sense of order and it’s normal to have a rollercoaster of emotions from sadness, to fear, to anger, and to anxiety. All of these feelings are natural reactions to severe disruption. And the way emotions are communicated is what we are going to explore in Assignment #1.

 

 

 

 

PART 2.

FOLLOW THESE STEPS

 

1.    READ ABOUT TYPES OF EMOTIONS: Section “A” below discusses the different types of emotions according to Plutchik and Aristotle. Section “B” below is a “Combined Emotion List” that includes both of their ideas.

 

2.    READ GRIEF ARTICLE: Section “C” below is a 2020 article by O’Neill titled: “Coronavirus Has Upended Our World. It’s OK To Grieve.”

 

3.    BRAINSTORM ABOUT YOUR THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS: In Part 4 below is a list of “Self-Reflection Questions” for you to answer. Note that this form of “self-reflection” is part of “intrapersonal communication”

 

4.    WRITE YOUR PAPER:

·         SEE PART 5. FOR MORE DETAILS

 

 

 PART 3.  

Read Material Below

 

SECTION “A”

 

PLUTCHIK’S theory defines 8 basic emotions

 

1.    Fear, feeling of being afraid, frightened, scared.

2.    Anger, feeling angry. A stronger word for anger is rage

3.    Sadness, feeling sad. Other words are sorrow, grief

4.    Joy, feeling happy. Other words are happiness, gladness

5.    Disgust, feeling something is wrong or nasty. Strong disapproval.

6.    Surprise, being unprepared for something.

7.    Trust,  a positive emotion; admiration is stronger; acceptance is weaker.

8.    Anticipation, in the sense of looking forward positively to something in the future

 

 

ARISTOTLE’S theory states the 10 emotions are:

1.    Fear, opposite courage (having courage in the face of fear)

2.    Anger, opposite calmness (not feeling excited)

3.    Shame, opposite confidence (shame: how one feels about one's past bad actions or thoughts; shamelessness: one does not feel shame, but others think one should)

4.    Kindness (benevolence), opposite cruelty (kindness:  people are good to other people)

5.    Pity (when people feel sorry for other people)

6.    Indignation (feeling angry because something is not fair, such as undeserved bad fortune)

7.    Envy, jealous (pain when people have something that one wishes for oneself)

8.    Friendship, is where people have a bond of joy and will come together and have fun

9.    Love, a strong emotion of attachment one feels for someone else. Ranges to family, pets, friends, significant others or fictional characters

 

SECTION “B”

 

COMBINED EMOTIONS LIST: The emotions of “Fear” and “Anger” are on both Plutchik’s and Aristotle’s lists above, so in the end, there are 15 total EMOTIONS we will use as a reference.

 

1.    Fear

2.    Anger

3.    Sadness

4.    Joy

5.    Disgust

6.    Surprise

7.    Trust

8.    Anticipation

9.      Shame

10.    Kindness

11.    Pity

12.    Indignation

13.    Envy

14.    Friendship

15.    Love

 

SECTION “C”

 

GRIEF ARTICLE

 

NOTE: This article is not for you to quote from necessarily, just a good springboard to get your brainstorming active.

“Coronavirus Has Upended Our World. It’s OK To Grieve”

An excerpt from Kaiser Health News /By Stephanie O'Neill MARCH 27, 2020

https://khn.org/news/coronavirus-has-upended-our-world-its-ok-to-grieve/

 

… “It feels like a free fall,” said Francis Weller, a Santa Rosa, California, psychotherapist. “What we once held as solid is no longer something we can rely upon.”

 

The coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe has not only left many anxious about life-and-death issues, but it also has left people struggling with a host of less obvious, existential losses as they heed stay-home warnings and wonder how bad all this will get.

 

Bottom of Form

To weather these uncertain times, it’s important to acknowledge and grieve lost routines, social connections, family structures and our sense of security — and then create new ways to move forward — said interfaith chaplain and trauma counselor Terri Daniel

“We need to recognize that mixed in with all the feelings we’re having of anger, disappointment, perhaps rage, blame and powerlessness is grief,” said Daniel, who works with the dying and bereaved.

Left unrecognized and unattended, grief can negatively affect “every aspect of our being — physically, cognitively, emotionally, spiritually,” said Sonya Lott, a Philadelphia psychologist specializing in grief counseling.

Yet with our national focus on the daily turn of events as the new coronavirus spreads and with the chaos it has brought, these underlying or secondary losses may escape us.

People who are physically well may not feel entitled to their emotional upset over the disruption of normal life. Yet, Lott argued, it’s important to honor our own losses even if those losses seem small compared with others.

“We can’t heal what we don’t have an awareness of,” said Lott.

RECOGNIZE OUR LOSSES

Whether we’ve named them or not, these are some of the communitywide losses many of us are grieving. Consider how you feel when you think of these.

Social connections. Perhaps the most impactful of the immediate losses as we hunker down at home is the separation from close friends and family. “Children aren’t able to play together. There’s no in-person social engagement, no hugging, no touching — which is disruptive to our emotional well-being,” said Daniel.

Separation from our [classmates, teachers], colleagues and office mates also creates a significant loss. Said Lott: “Our [school and] work environment is like a second family. Even if we don’t love all the people…we still depend on each other.”

Habits and habitat. With the world outside our homes no longer safe to inhabit the way we once did, Daniel said, we’ve lost our “habits and habitats.” We can no longer engage in our usual routines and rituals. And no matter how mundane they may have seemed — whether grabbing a morning coffee at the local cafe, driving to work [or school] …routines help define your sense of self in the world. Losing them, Daniel said, “shocks your system.

Assumptions and security. We go to sleep assuming that we’ll wake up the next morning, “that the sun will be there and your friends will all be alive and you’ll be healthy,” Weller said. But the spread of the coronavirus has shaken nearly every assumption we once counted on. “And so we’re losing our sense of safety in the world and our assumptions about ourselves,” he said.

Trust in our systems. When government leaders, government agencies, medical systems, religious bodies, the stock market and corporations fail to meet public expectations, citizens can feel betrayed and emotionally unmoored. “We are all grieving this loss,” Daniel said.

Sympathy for others’ losses. Even if you’re not directly affected by a particular loss, you may feel the grief of others, including that of displaced workers, of health care workers on the front lines, of people barred from visiting older relatives in nursing homes, of those who have already lost friends and family to the virus, and of those who will.

PART 4.

BRAINSTORM ABOUT YOUR THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS:  Below is a list of “Self-Reflection Questions” for you to answer. Note that this form of “self-reflection” is part of “intrapersonal communication” studying in UNIT 1

 

 SELF-REFLECTION / BRAINSTORMING (INTRAPERSONAL) QUESTIONS:

1.    On January 1st 2020, what were your hopes/goals for the new year?

2.    When did you first realize that COVID-19 was going to personally impact you and/or loved ones? 

3.    What were your very first concerns when the “stay-at-home” order was put into effect mid-March 2020?

4.    How have your concerns changed since March 2020?

5.    What types of activities do you miss the most that you can’t do because of the impact of COVID-19?

6.    What types of coping activities do you use to deal with the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak?

7.    When the world gets back to normal, what lessons do you think you will have learned from this dramatic experience?

8.    Do you see any good that has come of it?  

PART 5.

Ø  Next you will actually write your paper!

Ø  Using your responses to the questions above, see what has affected you the most emotionally about COVID.  

Ø  Then create a narrative of your experience (this means an essay, not just listing the answers to your questions) that incorporates into your paper 5-7 emotion terms from the list above in Part 3. C. Using “I’ is fine and expected.

Ø  Be sure to bold the emotion terms so I can find them easily when reading your paper.

Ø  Make sure you use APA formatting style to create your paper (no Abstract needed).  

ADDITIONAL PAPER  REQUIRMENTS

PAPER LENGTH: The Assignment will be a 2-3 page paper (plus Title Page) using APA (not MLA) formatting. Specific formatting details are below.

PAPER FORMAT: All papers are expected to be presented in an organized academic format.  To that end, save back plenty time to ensure that your ideas are packaged in the proper way.

 

ü  Use APA (not MLA) style for formatting although no Abstract is needed. Points will be deducted for not following format.

 

ü  A sample APA paper is also uploaded in Blackboard under Lessons. Significant points will be deducted for improper formatting!

 

ü  Papers should be written with 1inch margins, double-spaced (with no extra spaces between paragraphs)

ü  Use 12 point Times New Roman or 11 point Arial font, and include page numbers. The page number font should match the font size and font of the text.

 PLAGIARISM NOTE: All papers will be submitted to multiple plagiarism checkers.  Any paper that is plagiarized will receive a “0.