Week 14

Good work this week with the proposals, group! You talked to people in the community, studied materials, studied what your audience was looking for, and matched these in as clear and compelling a way as you could.  There was much to be impressed about.

Here is our time until Thanksgiving, in order:

  1. First, go to the new Google doc HERE and join the conversation while you still remember the proposals of what really worked, what did not. Feel free to talk across proposals to help illustrate your points–“x and y told similar moving stories at the end, but for me x’s was more persuasive–most likely because of _______.”   Indeed, it will be best if you can see the proposals again, I think, so HERE they are. I expect everyone to contribute at least two comments.  I know that it can be hard to have your work evaluated, but one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself as a writer is to separate from your writing after it’s on the page.  You are miraculous, wonderful human being; your writing is a bunch of text on a page that can always, always be made better–but it is NOT you. (Same thing for commenting–my goal with each cohort of minors is that you come to view each other as a supportive team. Your comments will help everyone to write better the next time that any one of you has the chance to ask for money for yourself or something you believe in.)
  2. Second, we need to send Marketing a press release, yes? You all read over last year’s this morning–now make it about OUR class and OUR vision (and OUR organizational winner).  The page is HERE.  You can use last year’s paragraphs as a model (think about why MPR put them in the order they did), but now you can make them better. Is this the best description of our class? The grant program? I hate my quote–write me a new one (yes really). Chelsea, as proposal winner it is your responsibility to add in the parts about MHA–what’s the grant going to support, and ideally include a quote from Jill (hers needs to be really from her!) I want to walk into class on Tuesday, pull up the document, and be able to send this off to Marketing. You are all jointly responsible for this happening. Contribute by writing or editing a part. At the very bottom say what you did (we’ll erase later.)
  3. On Monday, remember, as Katie read to us, there is a wonderful opportunity to listen to and speak your post-election thoughts. I plan to attend; I hope to see some of you there. I’d say it’s worth extra credit if that were helpful. Let me paste here the email, with thanks to Katie:

    Hello everyone! My name is Kwanda Brown, I am an student assistant in the Multicultural Affairs office here on campus. We have an event on Monday Nov 21, 2016 @11am-1pm in Hopewell #53 it is a student forum for election thoughts and concerns. Students are invited to have civil and honest conversations about their post-presidential election concerns.  In this student forum, students are encouraged to share their feelings, thoughts and fears involving the campus and community climates involving conduct, behaviors, and attitudes of other students, staff, faculty and the community.  This forum is not a debate but a session to voice concerns.  It will be moderated by one or more of our campus professionals.

    Just a warning: If you invite people to gather to share their fears & concerns, they will. Don’t expect a session of happy “yay campus” quotes. But this is precisely why we need to hear why–in the midst of talk of Muslim registries and racist and anti-Semitic cabinet appointments, and the pledge to immediately deport as many people as Obama deported in 8 years (and his numbers were an all-time high)–why something like a safe and comfortable diverse campus is important to people, on an emotional level. And–thinking some more about Jonathan’s argument that his white racist friends feel more alienated if they don’t get a chance to share their thoughts as well–I wonder if part of this goes back to American values again. Should not racists feel alienated from the American mainstream? Should they not understand that these views, which might be acceptable in their small circle, are in fact not acceptable to the rest of us?  I think about this in terms of Austin’s mom’s group, the Chamber of Commerce–if a local business leader were found to have been embezzling the bank or using slave labor, wouldn’t other business leaders want to exclude that person, want to make it clear to them that they are not upholding the values that the rest of the local community upholds? So listen to someone, and then we’ll interview each other (we’ll assume we’re the white mainstream) and then we’ll have a compelling story.

  4.  Finally on Tuesday Derek Thatcher, the Career Development Coordinator, will come in to conduct a session with us on preparing resumes and cover letters, finding jobs, other internships, etc., etc. This works best by far if you bring in a draft of a resume/cover letter and your questions regarding them. You’ll be sending both to mentors at the end of the semester, so start preparing now. SO, everyone who will be doing an internship, imagine you are writing for that organization (Jonathan, since you know St. Vincent’s I’m going to assign you to imagine yourself writing them). Obviously, instead of saying “I’m applying for a job” you can start your cover letter with “I’d like to thank you for this opportunity to serve an internship with you.” But the rest of it is the same: What skills do you already bring to the table? Why will they be glad to have you? It’s easy to think in terms of lack of experience, but think instead of what you already possess, and state it with confidence. That’s what I’ve done already to sell each of you to them, and it was easy to think of your strengths. You can do the same.  I have several readings you should look at (below) to help you learn to write excellent resumes/letters (in fact, this is a trick assignment–I will know if you read the main reading or not–see if you can guess why). The resume draft you might just bring to class, with questions; the cover letter, remember, is Post #8 on your website for now.
  5. So, readings to help you write a cover letter (repeating from last week) are these: 1)  Cover-letter-writing. 2) RESUME–The Cover Letter.

As for a resume, after looking at a lot of texts I think this one from the Business Writing Today is the very most helpful one I’ve seen, because it helps you to think about your audience even as you write about yourself–and this is key. Exactly like funding organizations, employers don’t care about what you want or how deserving you are–they care about what you can do for them. Your job in resume & cover letter is to tell them.

There is a good runner-up text, though, that you can look at from Writing that Works, and the pages are here:

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