Cutting Through the Clamor: Writing for Change

Description

As writers, we search for opportunities to create the space needed to nurture our creativity and create forms of expression. We also insert our creations into a noisy world crowded with blaring messages competing for our attention. How do we craft our creative work effectively to cut through the clamor?

In this program, students will select a theme they are passionate about and explore that theme through multiple genres including journalism, personal essay, oral history, readers theater, and poetry. Examples of themes might include food sovereignty, workers rights, immigration, identity, religion/spirituality, community organizing for a specific cause, or a specific environmental/sustainability movement.

We will also explore how being awash in the information age affects us in body, mind, and spirit. Absorbing and producing vast quantities of information doesn't necessarily make us smarter or more engaging, effective writers. By examining fields such as media theory, brain development, and health, we will gain an understanding of how we move through this information-saturated world and of techniques for uncovering our creativity and intuition that can lead to effective writing for change.

Students enrolled for 12 credits in the fall will engage in additional work to study theories and practices of community journalism. Students will choose and write for specific community publications about issues within their chosen themes. We will also engage in readings about the history of journalism and the metamorphosis of alternative presses while considering the repercussions to community and oversight of government.

In winter, the additional work for 12-credit students will focus on advocacy writing for college, agency, and nonprofit publications. We will profile the unspoken heroes, problems, and potential of the communities in which we live. Our readings will focus on helping to create movements and organizational change through writing for these groups.