The main assignments for this class all build to one highly-polished op-ed critiquing how an organization or group of organizations is addressing or failing to address climate change.
These assignments are motivated by the observation that politics is fundamentally an organized activity. Thus, the critiques we develop in this class will target organizations. In your opinion, are they choosing the right battles? Are they taking the right positions? Are they framing the issues in the most effective way? Is their theory of change (or resistance to change) realistic?
Critiquing those we severely disagree with is easy, but they are also the least likely to listen to you. Thus, the critiques you develop in this class will be aimed at the organizations you see as having the best chance of making a positive difference in the world—specifically, the organizations for whom you hope to work. You may not know what your future career looks like; that is fine. Perhaps you will find an organization or cause that inspires you in this class. Or perhaps you have a very clear idea of your future career. In that case, this class will challenge you to think about how organizations in your intended field of work engage in politics and policymaking—and how they might do so differently. It is not a requirement that the organizations you address are activist organizations. Indeed, activist organizations may be the most difficult to critique because they already have a well-developed approach to politics and policy. You may even see yourself working for an organization that is currently strongly opposed to most proposed climate policies; that is fine. For example, if you aim to work at Exxon-Mobil, you might look to Business School scholarship to formulate a critique like this one.
In the first third of the class, you will develop five op-ed ideas and attempt to write an introduction for each. Along the way, you will identify organizations that you might want to work for (i.e., potential targets for your critique), develop ten possible lines of critique in the form of headlines, and then begin to flesh out five of them by writing the first 200 words of a potential op-ed.
Include a word count between the title and the essay. Getting in under the word limit should thus be a major challenge with this assignment. I am expecting the kind of writing where every word you must cut to hit the target is painful. Thus, I expect the word count to be nearly exactly (perhaps a few words shorter) the word limit.
Bibliography means that it cites factual claims that are not common knowledge, including the title, author, year, and a hyperlink to the source wherever possible. References do not count toward the word limit and should be single-spaced. References must be hyperlinked wherever possible. Please try to link to stable public URLs. For journal articles, DOI URLs are best (e.g., https://doi.org/10.1177/1086026619858874), then some other stable repository like JSTOR or the publisher’s web page (e.g., https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7t5st or https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1086026619858874) if you can’t find the DOI URL. I will be checking to ensure that the source is appropriate for an op-ed (i.e., likely to be perceived as legitimate by your audience) and that it supports the claim made in the essay’s text. Fabricated sources are unacceptable, and the relationship between claim and evidence is critical.
Annotated means that it may include any additional context to help your reader understand why this source is important or why it supports the claim. If these are obvious, there is no need to annotate. Annotation is optional. It allows you to elaborate in ways you cannot in the tight word limit of the main essay.
I recommend using footnotes or end notes for annotated bibliographies to make it easier for your peer reviewers, myself, and future editors to connect what you say in the essay to the citation. If your op-ed is published, citations will likely take the form of hyperlinks, perhaps with end notes or margin notes for some online publications.
In the middle third of the semester, you will narrow your focus to three ideas and then two ideas and write the first half of each through multiple rounds of revision.
I expect the annotated bibliographies to grow significantly as you respond to critiques, bolster your argument, and respond to possible counter-arguments.
As above, include a word count between the title and the essay.
When you submit your revised essays in week 6 and every revision after, you must include a Google sheet detailing your thoughtful responses to comments. This spreadsheet must have a row for each suggestion and columns with the suggestion, what you think about it, and the change (if any) made to the essay. This is your opportunity to show your work in doing the revision.
This spreadsheet will grow longer as you receive more suggestions from myself and your peers.
You must share this spreadsheet with me each time your resubmit your revised essay(s). I am primarily grading on how you respond to feedback, so I will use this spreadsheet as something like rubric to assess your thoughtful engagment with my feedback and your peer reviews.
It is up to you whether you want to share this spreadsheet with your peer reviewers.
Through additional rounds of revision, you will further hone one of your critiques, improving your logic and writing (writing can always be improved).
Again, I expect your annotated bibliography to grow significantly as you respond to critiques, bolster your argument, and respond to possible counter-arguments.
Assessment is based on your thoughtful engagement with the ideas in the reading and with my feedback on your writing. Because op-eds are not formulaic—there is no closed list of ways to be persuasive—I have found it unworkable to use a rubric that assigns certain points for doing certain things. Instead, you should consider the feedback you receive from me and your peer reviews to be the “rubric” for the next version. I am mostly grading on how you respond to feedback. This does not mean that you must adopt every suggested change—just that you thoughtfully engage with them. You may choose not to adopt a change or go in a direction I suggest; that is totally fine as long as you have a good reason. If you would like, you can include revision comments on the document in Canvas addressing any points where you feel context is needed for me to understand how you incorporated feedback.
Guidance for academics writing op-eds:
(Canvas)(Canvas)From Ford School Writing Center instructors:
(Canvas)(Canvas)While I concluded that rubrics that other instructors use for op-eds are unworkable as rubrics for the advanced level of writing that I expect for this class, you may still find helpful guidance in them. There are many on the internet. Here is some of the guidance that is commonly used to assess op-ed assignments:
Thesis/purpose/genre:
Organization/focus:
Sources, context, & evidence:
Analysis:
Sentence editing, flow, and citations:
The best guidance I have heard from prolific op-ed writers is to read a lot of op-eds and think about why they work or don’t work. Again, there are many ways to be persuasive, and the task here is to find your voice and workshop your writing.
Questions for Reflection:
Humanity Is Facing a Great Injustice. The World Bank Must Respond by the NYT Editorial Board via proquest
Exxon Mobil’s Pioneer Acquisition Is a Direct Threat to Democracy by Jeff Colgan via proquest
The Climate Solution That’s Horrible for the Climate via proquest
I’m a Scientist Who Spoke Up About Climate Change. My Employer Fired Me.
Rumble at the Sierra Club via proquest
The Pope’s Journey to Climate Outrage by David Wallace-Wells via proquest
Georgia’s Unique Runoff System, a Product of Institutional Racism by Shaher Zakaria
The Patent System is Failing to Promote Pharmaceutical Innovation by Christina Del Grec
The Way to Slow Climate Change Is as Close as Your City Hall or School Board
And here’s a piece by two climate activists trying to influence policy:
Will Lawmakers Sacrifice Our Health and Safety to Get a Debt Ceiling Deal? via [proquest]
While the main focus of this class is persuasive writing, there is a small related assignment to give a short (2-3-minute) presentation.
The presentation assignment gives you practice testing out your argument and presentation skills. This is an opportunity to get quick feedback from the class. I also find that I am able to arrive at more elegant ways to say things when I say them out loud. It engages different parts of the brain and is a great way to workshop ideas.
This is intended to be a low-stakes practice oral presentation. It is ungraded: I award points just for doing it.
It is also intended as an opportunity to get constructive feedback on your line of critique and how you are pitching it.
I hope you will find it valuable enough that you will want to do it again, but you are only required to do it once.
We will do up to 2 pitches per day. While you are welcome to do more than one, the first priority goes to those practicing for the first time.
Some presenters tend to offer a lot of preface and explanation before going into the heart of their pitch. I think you are better off without preface and explanation.
You want feedback on the pitch itself, including on how compelling the hook is (i.e., how you are getting people’s attention and why people should care) and the clarity of your BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front, i.e., the clarity of your thesis statement/argument).
Thus, when you get up to present, I would just launch right in and grab people’s attention (unless you are thinking about pitching it to a paper with a different audience than the NYT, in which case that is helpful context.)
My expectation for the peer review is a significant and thoughtful engagement with each op-ed’s ideas, as well as detailed notes on the writing (similar to what I gave you all in our meetings). This is an exercise in constructive critique, so there must be suggestions for improvement.
This means at least a page of written feedback (when reviewing multiple essays, this minimum is for all of them combined—though a page on each essay would be great), as well as some notes or markup of their writing. Writing can always be improved.
You can use the markup features on Canvas as you read. Your written critique should then be uploaded for the peer critique assignment and sent to your colleague. (You should be able to attach it to their essay on Canvas or share it as a link to a Google doc.)
Please let me know if you have any questions. Giving helpful critiques is a nuanced art, and I am happy to talk it through with you.
From Pedagogy in Action:
Most organizations have an email list—I suggest signing up, both for the assignments in this class and your future career.↩︎