Advocacy Portfolio: Writing for Social Change
WRT 301
J Haynes
The goal of rebellious writing is ultimately to enact social change. But change cannot be
achieved overnight, nor can it be achieved in isolation. In order to be effective, we come
together to form community groups and organizations with a common goal. These groups
work over time, sometimes taking on new issues and new audiences. They develop a variety
of materials in order to reach as many people as possible. For this assignment, you will put
together an advocacy portfolio—a collection of writing in multiple genres that you would
use in an advocacy campaign—that a group or organization could use to agitate for social
change, either in the campus or larger Syracuse community, over the course of the Spring
semester. This means that your portfolio should be SMART (specific, manageable,
attainable, realistic, and timely). Creating change takes time, so your materials will be for a
campaign that would last throughout the semester rather than simply for a single, large
event, and that work towards goals that might actually be achieved within a semester.
Requirements
This portfolio must be tied to a specific group (either one that exists or one that you are
creating) so that you can effectively articulate the rhetorical situation that you are navigating.
To demonstrate this, you should write an explication of the rhetorical situation using one
or more of the methods that we have discussed in class (Bitzer’s model, the “Issue, Target,
Opportunity, Challenge” model, a combination) and an action plan that articulates the
goals, strategies, and tactics for your campaign. You should present 5-10 pieces in your
portfolio from at least four different genres (we will negotiate these individually depending on
the amount of time required for your chosen artifacts). These pieces should draw from both
low-tech and high-tech genres.
Example
Susan Sample wants to address the issue of safety on campus, given the increase of crimes
(especially violent crimes) that have occurred on campus this semester.
1) She includes an explication of the rhetorical situation that she is writing in which includes
her exigency (increased number of crimes), the rhetor (students who fear for their safety),
the audience (division of public safety, university budget committee), the
discourse/argument (safety should be increased by university measures rather than individual
student vigilence, such as grouping night classes into one or two buildings that are located
close to bus routes), and the constraints (scheduling conflicts, partnership with the bus
service, cut budgets).
2) She includes an action plan that clearly states her long-term and short-term goals. Her
long-term goals are an increased sense of safety on campus and a decreased number of
crimes committed on campus. Her short-term goals are to get more students taking the bus
to their homes after night classes (rather than walking) by getting night classes clustered in
one or two buildings that are close to bus stops and increasing the area covered by buses
that go to that stop. She then clearly lays out the steps that she would need to take in order
to meet these goals (ie—gather evidence about where night classes are located and why
students might choose to take the bus or walk home, create a partnership with the bus
company, persuade budget committee to pay for increased bus services, educate students
about new bus services, etc.) and the types of writing that would be needed in order to
complete those steps.
3) She creates artifacts for her campaign from the genres she has listed in her action plan. In
this case, Susan decides to include a petition for changing the location of night classes, a
facebook page to gather support for her petition, a website that explains the new bus routes,
a survey to gather information on why students currently choose to use or not use the
available bus services, and two fliers and a T-shirt encouraging students to use the newly
expanded bus services.