Video Transcripts:

Writing for Social Change: How Are Writing and Social Change Connected?

Visual: Video opens to the opening title with the video series title, Faculty Voices: Walden Talks Writing, then the title, “How are writing and social change connected?”

 

Visual: The screen changes to show each speaker talking to the camera in their home offices. Each person’s name and college is listed as they speak.

Audio:

Dr. Darci Harland, College of Education and Leadership: So, although charismatic personalities often get the spotlight in regard to social change, the real social change happens in writing. Students often choose Walden because of our social change mission. However, what they don't understand is that it's not just the degree itself that will aid you in becoming that strong agent of social change, the process itself, becoming an academic, changes you. And it makes you think about the world differently. The courses and the capstone projects allow you to contribute to that view of the world. Clear, well-articulated writing is the key to positive social change.

Dr. Laurel Walsh, College of Education and Leadership: So one of the reasons why Walden is my heart's home is our mission of positive social change. There's no—it lives in every decision that we make, it lives in our curriculum, it permeates everything. But, you can't make your ideas portable, you can't make knowledge useful, you can't get your concepts out into the world if you can't write well.

Dr. Kim Critchlow, College of Management and Technology: Writing and social change, in my opinion, are very connected. When we write we're writing about something, something that exists or something that we'd like to exists, however we're writing to bring about change or to expose or to speak about something positive that we'd like to see.

Dr. Laurel Walsh, College of Education and Leadership: Ideas are not applied topically, you can't ingest them in a cup of tea, you actually have to write them out to get them into the world. But becoming really expert at having your words and ideas distilled into a very tiny package that is portable, that's the trick. That's the ultimate way of social change. Social change is ideas that have escaped an individual's cranium and gotten into the world in a way that other people can attach meaning to them and say, hey that makes a lot of sense, it's a really good solution, or that is so helpful in allowing me some peace about a diagnosis, or this, the words that this stranger who I've never met were able to articulate about grief has made it easier for me to process the loss of a family member. So I would argue that positive social change is in part writing about the things that have happened to us and the experiences that matter to us as people.

 

Visual: The video ends with the closing title with the video series title, Faculty Voices: Walden Talks Writing and the Writing Center’s e-mail address: writingsupport@mail.waldenu.edu.