Do/Say/Write: Empowering Students to Think About Social Change

• In Event: Teaching Critical Criminology: Directly Engaging Students with Critical Themes

Abstract

This project addresses the "gloom and doom" feeling that may accompany students learning about the systemic nature of social problems. I hope to help other instructors of social inequality courses to prevent and/or improve those feelings through the use of a semi-structured final project. The "Do/Say/Write" Final Project asks students to shape their final projects around what they would "Do", "Say" or "Write" about the issues presented in the course, connecting their individual expertise and experiences to the structural shifts that would need to happen for systemic and sustainable social change to occur. I hope to give instructors a project with which they can help students to leave their introductory sociology/criminology courses feeling empowered, instead of intimidated, by structural solutions to social problems.

Author

• Meredith Conover-Williams, Humboldt State University