Writing Community Change: Designing Technologies for Citizen Action

by Jeffrey T. Grabill

This is a book about how people use advanced information technologies to write for community change. The author argues that the work of citizenship is knowledge work - on the same order as that expected of workers in business and industry. The importance of this book is in the way is understands writing and technology, and the implications of these understandings for how we need to teach and learn with students.

143 pages, Paperback

First published March 30, 2007

Reviews

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grabill argues that the work of citizens is knowledge work and it is necessary to focus on the information infrastructure within which citizens work. Writing from the perspective of the field of rhetoric he pushes fellow rhetoricians to expand their notion of writing and rhetoric. He argues that “rhetoric is no longer the terrain of the individual rhetor speaking or writing to ‘the public’” (16). Rather it is collaborative and requires interaction with information infrastructures in creative ways.

I love the idea of thinking of the work of citizens as knowledge work. I picked up this book after hearing Jeff Grabill talk at the University of Illinois back in 2007, and recently re-read it. I appreciate that he gives citizens a very active role in democracy, but also recognizes that community work is hard.“Participation, collaboration and coordination are always difficult and widespread participation in a community is rare in my experience” (47).

A key issues for Grabill is that communities need the space and ability to invent their understanding of an issue and to create their own expertise on an issue. This is not to say that they do not need other experts or outside help, but that they have much to bring to the table. The inventional practices that occur include reading, contacting experts and asking questions, and mining and creating databases. The question asking is much more important than listening to an expert presentation, and therefore in public meetings there should be ample time for questions and a limited amount of time for presentations.

[Kendra · Rating 4 out of 5]

When community change happens, what is the role of writing in the change that takes place? What forms does the writing take? What role does technology play in the writing process? How do we build infrastructures to store, organize, and analyze community information that is needed for these writings? How do public meetings play into the role of infrastructure / database creation and management? How do our colleges and university support or hinder this work?

These are some pretty hefty questions that Grabill brings up in Writing Community Change. The case studies highlight real life examples of the role of what is often seen as mundane writings. It is in the mundane that progress happens--the community meetings, the memos, the reports, minutes, and spreadsheets. The ability for community members to write persuasively and use the technologies at their disposal determine to a large extent the impact they are able to make. Grabill makes a compelling case that the development of these infrastructures within governmental structures, community organizations, and college writing classes and programs will be integral to the success of citizen efforts moving forward.

This text provides a promising look at the opportunities of action research in the field of communications and writing.

[Chris Friend · Rating 3 out of 5]

While Grabill likes to "toot his own horn" a bit more than I tend to care for, he does provide a good discussion of effective information systems and effective community-based, grass-roots reform. The work builds to some pedagogical conclusions relevant to introductory composition courses in college programs; I would argue his ideas would be even more effective in upper-grade high-school courses for non-college-bound students: they should learn to be more active before entering the community.

Not a terrifically world-changing text, but it's effective in its goals. It should get people thinking. What more could an author ask?