USING
THIS GUIDE
A Note from the Authors
When
we first started working on Writing
for Change, we decided our first priority
was to make this a flexible resource.
We wanted you as a user to be able
to find materials relevant to the
many issues of difference, power,
and discrimination you address in
the classes you teach, groups you
lead, or community forums you host.
The
material in this manual is not intended
solely for use by people who “teach
diversity.” We hope it will reach
people in a broad range of ages, classes,
sexual orientations, ethnicities,
religions, genders, and levels of
education.
We
had two reasons for structuring Writing
for Change with its strong focus on
language and writing: First, writing
is a familiar learning procedure to
most teachers and students, with its
emphasis on process as well as product,
and we wanted users to be able to
integrate the exercises into their
teaching environments as effortlessly
as possible.
Second,
and perhaps more importantly, we recognize
the unique and paradoxical role of
language in our lives. We use this
powerful tool to shape our thoughts
and experiences, yet patterns and
structures in the language itself
can shape us in return. In the words
of one activist, "Our words create
our world."
If
language creates reality, we decided
our best hope of shaping the reality
we would like to see is to examine
the negative and harmful underpinnings
of this powerful but often invisible
tool, and refocus them to begin creating
a language of equality and inclusion.
Many
of the exercises in the manual cover
more than one “-ism”; most
of those that address a specific social
justice topic have a variation that
suggests how to adapt it to one or
more other topics.
To
give you some choice we tried to include
exercises in various formats that
you can adapt depending on what field
you teach in, how large your groups
are, where the exercises will be completed,
and how reluctant or enthusiastic
your students are about the issue
on which you are raising awarness.
A
few of the exercises have special
requirements, such as copies of a
particular article or access to the
Internet; but to keep things simple
we designed most of them to be done
with only pen and paper or copies
of the relevant page, your guidance,
and your students’ ingenuity.
We
hope you will find this manual a useful
tool in your ongoing efforts to raise
awareness of difference, power, and
discrimination.
Janet
Lockhart, M.A.I.S.
Susan M. Shaw, Ph. D.
