Letter writing for Social Change

Assignment description: Students write informed letters to corporate or elected officials, local communities, newspapers, employers, family, friends, or an open letter outlining their views on a social issue and calling for specific action.

Goal: To make a commitment to inclusivity that is anti-racist and anti-oppressive on how to promote spaces of inclusivity that is free of racism and xenophobia.

Learning Objectives
To explore and appreciate letter writing as effective advocacy tool
To provide an opportunity to critically analyze a specific issue in the course that is of interest to you.
To apply and practice research skills (identifying bias, credibility, reliability)
To practice writing as medium for effective and persuasive communication
To be able to articulate the complexity of an issue concisely.

Not sure how to begin? Use these steps to help you on your way:

Step 1: Choose a current issue or problem that you are seeing in your daily lives. Some ideas to help you brainstorm:
Workplace discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and/or culture
Unequal, racist, xenophobic government policies
Racial, ethnic bias in a mass media (newspapers, tv series)
Racial, cultural, ethnic bias in educational settings, communities
Open letter to yourself on how you can do better

Step 2: Do some research on this topic. You must have the following (minimum requirements):
At least one reading or film that is in this course(see “Learning Materials” for a full list of resources)
At least two external scholarly articles. Examples of such scholarly articles can look at:
Consequences of a particular issue
How other communities have dealt with the issue
Policies or rules that the issue has violated

*It’s very important that you look for scholarly sources. There are some platforms that offer a kind of hybrid between scholarly and non-scholarly works (e.g. The Conversation, Medium)—these are okay to use, but be mindful that it might not be complete (these tend to be shorter in length).

*You can start by looking at other websites if you’re really lost for how to start researching. Some examples are: Wikipedia, Encyclopedias, etc. But it’s important to remember that these are secondary sources (they provide information, but not first-hand experience). In addition, websites like Wikipedia are often difficult to trace who made the contribution (lack of publication dates, etc.). You should be searching for scholarly articles that make an original contribution.

If you are addressing a particular issue where has been published somewhere, make sure you include a bibliographic reference (you need proof that this issue exists). If it is something you’ve observed, make sure to provide as much a description as possible.

Step 3: Start outlining your final letter.

This requires you to read through all your research and come up with a compelling and persuasive letter for your recipient. Things to consider:
Identify who is receiving your letter
What are you persuading them to do? What is the purpose of your letter? (think of this as your “thesis” statement)
How does your research support what you’re asking in your letter? (e.g. “Evidence from XYZ suggests that…”)
Language and format of your letter. You should be writing this in your own words.
Here’s some tips from Amnesty: Letter-writing Tips (amnesty.ca)

Step 4: Finalizing your letter.
Make sure you submit the following:
The letter itself—this should approx. 800-1000 words. It’s longer than usual because there’s research that you must incorporate into your letter. Make sure to proofread your work to correct any spelling/grammar errors and to ensure a narrative flow.
References page in APA format. This lists all the sources you used to write your letter. Include your scholarly research, course reading/media, and any additional works that you cite in your letter.
Make sure that you write the letter in APA format. That means to reference ideas and contributions made by others.
The scholarly research that you completed in PDFs or links.