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Children’s stories paint a vivid

picture of disruption
Data from Oxford University Press in partnership with Storyathon, the largest story-writing competition in
Australia, reveals ‘virus’ as the Oxford Australian Children’s Word of the Year (CWOTY) 2020.

Oxford Australian
Children's Word of the Year 2020:

VIRUS

After a disrupted school year of remote learning during a global pandemic, it’s not surprising that the use
of word virus increased by 15,232% in the stories written by Australian students in Years 3–8.

Anne Bayetto, Literacy expert at Flinders University, says this year “… ‘virus’ was clearly top of mind as
students were concerned about the immediate and long-term impact.”

Young writers were inspired to write stories related to COVID-19, faction, and imaginative stories that
incorporated suspense and imagined worlds. Together these stories paint a vivid picture of life for
Australian children at such a pivotal time.

The shortlisted words included ‘friends’, ‘virus’, ‘zombies’, ‘lockdown’, ‘fun’, ‘world’, ‘shocked’, ‘school’ and
‘people’, which students voted on to determine the 2020 CWOTY.

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R E A D INS I G HTS R EP O RT

Proudly in partnership with Storyathon

The Oxford Australian Children’s Word of the Year is one of the ways Oxford University Press
engages with the ever-changing language of Australian children. This year, we've proudly partnered
with Storyathon, Australia's largest online story-writing event, to help us determine the 2020 Oxford
Australian Children’s Word of the Year.

Our experts comments on the Oxford Australian CWOTY:

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 Anne Lee Walker
Bayetto Lee is Director of
Publishing, Editorial and
Anne teaches special
Design at OUP ANZ and
education at Flinders
is also President of the
University, with a focus
Australian Publishers
on how to teach students
Association. She has
with literacy and
almost 30 years’
numeracy di culties.
experience in Australian
She has been a disability
educational publishing
support coordinator and
and is passionate about
a founding member of
digital innovation.
the Learning Di culties
Support Team (SA).

Shane Hill
Shane is founder and
creator of Mathletics,
Spellodrome, World Math
Day, Skoolbo, da Vinci
Declathlon, Storyathon
and Writing Legends.
Collectively, these
learning communities
have been used by tens
of millions of students.

Previous Words of the Year

BRAVERY CREATIVITY
2019 2018 /
 EQUALITY
2017

Explore what we learned from the

children's stories
Children from all around Australia wrote 50,000 stories and here's what we learned.

Children found a National word Given the The shortlisted

way to articulate trends reveal virus disruption to words were used
their concerns increased by schooling in 2020, in relation to
about the real 15,232% and school was the 4th COVID-19 with
world through the isolation increased most popular word many students
writing stories. in use by 10,728% used in stories concerned about
Covid-19, in 2020. increasing in use the immediate and
coronavirus, covid, by 137%. long-term effect of
corona, quarantine the virus.
and pandemic
were new
inclusions on the
trending list of
words.

The most used Some students The importance of

word we increased
in use by 95% and
the least used
word portal
increased in use by
117%.
were relishing wanting to spend
being able to stay time with friends
at home and be (204% increase in
online, there was a use) and family
5,797% increase in (162% increase in
the use of the use) was evident
word online in in many students
stories. stories.

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 Friends was There was a very Victoria the state Students wrote
popular choice signi cant jump in most likely to vote imaginative stories
from the votes by virus between for the word perhaps re ecting
students in Years 3 years 4 and 5. friends but they the therapeutic
and 4. Victorian children were also the least nature of creative
spent an additional likely to vote for writing with
three months of the word virus. zombies proving a
remote learning, popular word
compared to the choice.
rest of the nation,
and we can see
this re ected in
their votes.

A breakdown of
the data
demonstrates that
in Queensland
zombies was a
close runner up,
and received the
highest
percentage of
votes from any
other state or
territory.

The top 20 trending words of 2020

2020 Top trending Top trending words,

words, 1-10 11-20
(Change in use over time) (Change in use over time)

Change Change
No. Word Frequency from No. Word Frequency from
2019 2019

1 We 26,982 95.9% 11 World 4,547 245.9%

2 Go 13,299 79.1% 12 Fun 4,284 576.8%

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 3 Are 13,283 79.0% 13 More 4,112 91.7%

4 School 7,454 137.2% 14 Family 3,375 162.9%

5 People 7,054 217.8% 15 Shocked 3,288 612.3%

6 Lockdown 6,425 48619.4% 16 Work 3,253 147.5%

7 Our 5,271 73.5% 17 Good 3,127 70.2%

8 Friends 5,265 204.8% 18 Play 3,105 143.6%

9 New 5,201 129.7% 19 Nothing 3,062 87.2%

10 Or 4,725 71.7% 20 Virus 2,696 15232.4%

Popular words used in 2020 for the

rst time
COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS
COFF COVID
COVID19

CORONA QUARANTINE PANDEMIC SCHOOLIN

Read a selection of the children's stories

Please note spelling and grammar has been corrected in the samples presented. Citations are faithful to the original stories.

Years 3–4

Years 5–6
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Years 7–8

Entry 1

Year 3, male
When I heard that we where not going to school, I was happy I had a break that’s way longer than usual, but
if I knew it was this long I would of had a better last day. It was also good that I had more time for bike rides.
After the rst month I was getting a bit anxious that school wasn’t going back, it sucked having to stay
home. I had more time for drawing and online school isn’t 6 hours, it normally takes me about 3 or 4 hours
to get everything done. It is fun choosing what I do.

Entry 2

Year 3, female
“Why do I wake up so early? ’I moaned, as my alarm clock rang. “Time for home-schooling! "My mum yells
loudly from the light hallway.

‘‘Great’’ I mumble. I jumped quickly out of bed. I stumbled out of my room, into the kitchen. I carefully
grabbed my breakfast: milky hot chocolate. I know it sounds terribly yummy, I lazily dragged myself to the
dining table and sat down on one of the comfy chairs where my beloved laptop was staring right at me. It
turned on and I logged into Google Chrome. Yet another day of lockdown and online learning.

Entry 3

Year 4, female
Even though we can't catch up with friends of family in person right now, if we stay home, we can prevent
the spread of Covid 19. And if we do this, we can see each other quicker. We need to do the right thing, and
if we do we cannot only catch up with people we haven’t seen in ages, but we can also save lives. Right now,
the doctors and nurses have tried their hardest they can to nd a cure, and we need to support them. We
can do this, all we need to do is stay home!

Entry 4

Year 4, female
Man, it sucks being at home because of corona, there is no jelly at the shops, Boohoo!
Everyone is panic buying especially for toilet paper, like why, there are many things you could use instead of
toilet paper. Bread is nice and soft for your toosh, paper also, reduce, reuse, recycle! Not much difference
between toilet paper and paper. You could also try cabbage; it is nice and tasty too. If your desperate you
could use the hose, well it’s getting late Woolies is closing soon I need to get some toilet paper, bye… oops,
no I meant cabbage.

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Get started in 2021 with FREE access to
Storyathon
Over 50% of Australian primary schools have joined Storyathon. Storyathon is a free online event that challenges Year 3-8
Students to write a microstory that is exactly 100 words. At the start of each school term students are presented with a
unique online writing challenge to write a microstory of exactly 100 words based on a particular theme.

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