Writing For Public Audiences

4 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course focuses on writing for a variety of public audiences in order to implement social change. We will learn not only how to define and investigate complex social problems relevant to our lives and the lives of others, but to engage with wide and varied audiences by writing about those problems persuasively and accessibly. What does it mean to reach different reading publics and to create change through writing? How might we mobilize research and use different forms of writing to target specific audiences or to reach a variety of different stakeholders? How do writers bring the complexities of academic research, personal experience and social organizing to the page to communicate with and compel their readers to action? We will examine the conventions of different forms of publicly engaged writing, exploring how a wide variety of writers identify and analyze social problems and propose and argue for solutions. To this end, we will encounter texts ranging from op-eds to policy white papers to audio podcasts. Students will produce persuasive public writing in the course, and will collaborate on group writing projects.