Department of English

Writing and Politics (AFRC/ENGL 3306) is a creative writing workshop that connects you to this year’s election. You will receive structured choice in writing assignments while you wrestle with Big Questions and with issues crucial to new voters, such as climate change, gun violence, Black Lives Matter, school funding, and reproductive rights. Write and publish compact and engaging prose. Create social media posts to go viral. Work on and off campus with partners at schools, universities, and organizations. You’ll practice these and other real-world skills without which even excellent writers may founder: project management, public reading preparation, and a meditative habit of observing—as if the same old, impossible world were born fresh every day. Which it is. If we do the job right, we will amplify the voice of young voters, which older media tends to ignore. If we make it fun to read, look at, and listen to, then we’ll be on our way to creating community—and stealth culture change.

This course acts as an editorial group with #VoteThatJawn, a successful digital and social initiative that since 2018 has been responsible for increasing Philadelphia’s youth vote. It is cross-listed with Africana Studies 3306 and is an Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) course designed to help students become active, creative, contributing citizens of a democratic society.