Resilience and Urban Sustainability in Public Writing Partnerships

UW-Seattle’s Expository Writing Program (EWP) helps prepare over 5000 students each year with critical literacy, research, writing, and communication capacities that are essential for successful participation across the academy and in public life. Our program seeks to help students engage in writing as a means of social action; develop ethical communication practices; and understand and be responsible for the consequences of language use for diverse communities. Building on our program’s longstanding history of engaging undergraduate students in public and community-based writing courses, we will develop and pilot courses that engage the City of Seattle’s Race & Social Justice and Equity & Environment Initiatives. These public writing courses will ground conversations on urban equity and environmental sustainability within collaborative writing and research projects, some of which will be co-designed with local organizations working to address various interrelated issues, such as housing affordability, environmental justice, education, food security, and transportation in Seattle. Developing the creative and critical problem-solving capacities required to respond to such public problems calls for tremendous resilience and emotional strength, as well as interdisciplinary academic knowledges and other wisdoms. Our pilot coursework will be designed to help support such capacities. Our team also plans to offer a workshop for the UW teaching community on our collaboration.