Editor's Note
Our group primarily met online and messaged each other through Canvas and the discussion board. Meeting in person at least once was extremely helpful to merge our expectations of the magazine. We all chipped in and helped each other with respective roles, which worked great in creating a website that was personal to all of us. **Please click here or on the button above to view a short bio of each author and their respective individual reflections on this magazine and course.
We chose to name our magazine Advocates for Justice. We chose this name because we felt that some of the most important information about our social justice issues, came from our profiles of the advocates for them. We were inspired by the actions of those advocates and what they did to help change society. Whether it was a Humanitarian for Poverty and Homelessness, a Child's Rights Activist, a Drunk Driving - Life Saving group, or an American Military Member fighting for veterans with PTSD; all of our advocates fight for a better world.
Similarities and Connected-ness
When we were assigned to our group we were worried that none of our social justice issues had any similarities. After meeting in person and posting our best work online we were able to find certain passages or topics that connected one piece to another. The easiest way to put it is to start and end with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Every other social justice issue links to PTSD in at least two ways. For poverty: a huge percentage of military veterans with PTSD end up homeless and in poverty, older veterans are often seen panhandling on the side of the road and along with that - being in poverty can expose people, especially children, to more traumatic events. For drunk driving: being a victim to a drunk driver can be an extremely traumatic event that could easily result in PTSD. Drunk driving effects everyone - driver, victim, children or homeless people who may be in the streets. For child's rights: a dumbfounding number of children are exposed to traumatic events while growing up, causing stress to enter their lives at a young age through media, parenting, and factors beyond their control.
Specific papers were selected over others
As mentioned above, a prevalent concern during our first meeting was, “What on earth do PTSD, Drunk Driving, Poverty and Child’s Rights all have in common?” What we decided on after brainstorming, was to connect our issues by using our profiles as the principal pieces of our magazine. It made sense, in the beginning we couldn’t see many similarities between our issues but we recognized one thing they all had in common; someone who was fighting against, or for, the issue. Although the advocates didn’t fight the same issue, they each fought for the same reason; to better mankind. That is what really brought our magazine together. From then on, we simply built on that foundation, Samuel and Coralie both added their reports, while Alex and Sonia both added their flash memoirs to the magazine. We wanted to appeal to ethos by adding reports and to pathos by adding flash memoirs. One reason we didn’t choose to add our proposals and/or evaluations is because we preferred adding depth to each issue. We also wanted to inspire the reader to get involved rather than presenting the magic solution to each issue. It’s not that simple because if that were the case our advocates probably would have solved the issues by now.
Revision Choices
Since our profiles on our advocates for justice were the most important and linking papers we all chose to revise them first. With our profile revisions we wanted to add more information about what our advocates have done and plan to do for the respective social justice issue. This would create credibility among our advocates. Along with that, we wanted to find ways that our profiles linked together to the other topics and looked for opportunities to show similarities. Like mentioned above, we wanted to add our reports to create Logos in our issues and Flash Memoirs to create Pathos. Revising these assignments this way was very effective and our group was able to appeal to all three modes of persuasion heavily.
Translation and Adaptation choices
The pieces our group decided to translate and adapt were chosen because they are the ones that fit best with the message we are trying to convey. Alexandre decided to adapt one of the notebook assignments we did, by combining it with a discussion post. The combination of this adaptation allowed there to be a change in the tone of his writing style which now targets a broader audience. By adapting his piece, the audience gets a more in-depth view at the issue of PTSD. Coralie translated on of her notebook assignments as well. By adding more background and structure to her original flash fiction story, it provided a broader sense to the audience about the topic and inspire a call to action. Sonia has adapted her report to provide more background information and target a broader audience. Samuel chose to adapt his flash memoir in order to provide more relate-able information to the audience by appealing to pathos. We all chose different pieces, but they all come together to provide more depth to each issue. Perhaps all these adaptations will provide the reader with more knowledge about the different issues that we experience throughout the world.
Some papers and projects were excluded from the magazine
Our group collectively decided to exclude proposals, position arguments, and evaluations. These assignments seemed like we were trying to solve an issue all by ourselves, or that we had the answers. Our profiles already exemplified our advocates struggles of helping those effected by our chosen social justice issues, and we wanted those advocates, along with our facts from reports and stories from memoirs, to inspire readers to come up with their own well-informed solutions, that work for them.
Advice to future classes
Everyone in our group can agree that peer feedback was extremely helpful. We collaborated at every opportunity and listened to others suggestions. It was really about creating a team and over coming personal obstacles in our work. We discovered that we appreciated feed back after each revision to get input on where the big picture fit in. We learned that writing processes share similar structures, despite genre. We were always looking to pursued our audience using a respective genre and always looking for structural and spelling errors. We advise that group members meet in person at least once, and stay in contact with each other regularly to discuss new ideas. Groups should also be willing to work outside of their assigned role. We all had access to the magazine website to make proposed changes as they came up. Another helpful tip would to give constructive criticism and to ask for constructive criticism. The magazine is all about teamwork.
Evaluation
The main objective of our magazine was to pool our profiles together to create "Advocates for Justice". We effectively designed the site to place all of the advocates on the main page, followed by a page "Issues" which gives more background and facts for our Advocates, then a "Stories" page that creates a strong call to action with personal memoirs. Our Citations page is organized well and shows the extensive research we put into our profiles and reports. The research supports itself throughout the different stories. Our most difficult task was linking our assignments together. You can find some links to our peer's work scattered throughout the main pieces to show the disconnectedness of the issues, but it was sometimes difficult to plug those topics.
Our group primarily met online and messaged each other through Canvas and the discussion board. Meeting in person at least once was extremely helpful to merge our expectations of the magazine. We all chipped in and helped each other with respective roles, which worked great in creating a website that was personal to all of us. **Please click here or on the button above to view a short bio of each author and their respective individual reflections on this magazine and course.
We chose to name our magazine Advocates for Justice. We chose this name because we felt that some of the most important information about our social justice issues, came from our profiles of the advocates for them. We were inspired by the actions of those advocates and what they did to help change society. Whether it was a Humanitarian for Poverty and Homelessness, a Child's Rights Activist, a Drunk Driving - Life Saving group, or an American Military Member fighting for veterans with PTSD; all of our advocates fight for a better world.
Similarities and Connected-ness
When we were assigned to our group we were worried that none of our social justice issues had any similarities. After meeting in person and posting our best work online we were able to find certain passages or topics that connected one piece to another. The easiest way to put it is to start and end with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Every other social justice issue links to PTSD in at least two ways. For poverty: a huge percentage of military veterans with PTSD end up homeless and in poverty, older veterans are often seen panhandling on the side of the road and along with that - being in poverty can expose people, especially children, to more traumatic events. For drunk driving: being a victim to a drunk driver can be an extremely traumatic event that could easily result in PTSD. Drunk driving effects everyone - driver, victim, children or homeless people who may be in the streets. For child's rights: a dumbfounding number of children are exposed to traumatic events while growing up, causing stress to enter their lives at a young age through media, parenting, and factors beyond their control.
Specific papers were selected over others
As mentioned above, a prevalent concern during our first meeting was, “What on earth do PTSD, Drunk Driving, Poverty and Child’s Rights all have in common?” What we decided on after brainstorming, was to connect our issues by using our profiles as the principal pieces of our magazine. It made sense, in the beginning we couldn’t see many similarities between our issues but we recognized one thing they all had in common; someone who was fighting against, or for, the issue. Although the advocates didn’t fight the same issue, they each fought for the same reason; to better mankind. That is what really brought our magazine together. From then on, we simply built on that foundation, Samuel and Coralie both added their reports, while Alex and Sonia both added their flash memoirs to the magazine. We wanted to appeal to ethos by adding reports and to pathos by adding flash memoirs. One reason we didn’t choose to add our proposals and/or evaluations is because we preferred adding depth to each issue. We also wanted to inspire the reader to get involved rather than presenting the magic solution to each issue. It’s not that simple because if that were the case our advocates probably would have solved the issues by now.
Revision Choices
Since our profiles on our advocates for justice were the most important and linking papers we all chose to revise them first. With our profile revisions we wanted to add more information about what our advocates have done and plan to do for the respective social justice issue. This would create credibility among our advocates. Along with that, we wanted to find ways that our profiles linked together to the other topics and looked for opportunities to show similarities. Like mentioned above, we wanted to add our reports to create Logos in our issues and Flash Memoirs to create Pathos. Revising these assignments this way was very effective and our group was able to appeal to all three modes of persuasion heavily.
Translation and Adaptation choices
The pieces our group decided to translate and adapt were chosen because they are the ones that fit best with the message we are trying to convey. Alexandre decided to adapt one of the notebook assignments we did, by combining it with a discussion post. The combination of this adaptation allowed there to be a change in the tone of his writing style which now targets a broader audience. By adapting his piece, the audience gets a more in-depth view at the issue of PTSD. Coralie translated on of her notebook assignments as well. By adding more background and structure to her original flash fiction story, it provided a broader sense to the audience about the topic and inspire a call to action. Sonia has adapted her report to provide more background information and target a broader audience. Samuel chose to adapt his flash memoir in order to provide more relate-able information to the audience by appealing to pathos. We all chose different pieces, but they all come together to provide more depth to each issue. Perhaps all these adaptations will provide the reader with more knowledge about the different issues that we experience throughout the world.
Some papers and projects were excluded from the magazine
Our group collectively decided to exclude proposals, position arguments, and evaluations. These assignments seemed like we were trying to solve an issue all by ourselves, or that we had the answers. Our profiles already exemplified our advocates struggles of helping those effected by our chosen social justice issues, and we wanted those advocates, along with our facts from reports and stories from memoirs, to inspire readers to come up with their own well-informed solutions, that work for them.
Advice to future classes
Everyone in our group can agree that peer feedback was extremely helpful. We collaborated at every opportunity and listened to others suggestions. It was really about creating a team and over coming personal obstacles in our work. We discovered that we appreciated feed back after each revision to get input on where the big picture fit in. We learned that writing processes share similar structures, despite genre. We were always looking to pursued our audience using a respective genre and always looking for structural and spelling errors. We advise that group members meet in person at least once, and stay in contact with each other regularly to discuss new ideas. Groups should also be willing to work outside of their assigned role. We all had access to the magazine website to make proposed changes as they came up. Another helpful tip would to give constructive criticism and to ask for constructive criticism. The magazine is all about teamwork.
Evaluation
The main objective of our magazine was to pool our profiles together to create "Advocates for Justice". We effectively designed the site to place all of the advocates on the main page, followed by a page "Issues" which gives more background and facts for our Advocates, then a "Stories" page that creates a strong call to action with personal memoirs. Our Citations page is organized well and shows the extensive research we put into our profiles and reports. The research supports itself throughout the different stories. Our most difficult task was linking our assignments together. You can find some links to our peer's work scattered throughout the main pieces to show the disconnectedness of the issues, but it was sometimes difficult to plug those topics.