Image: Chatterina / ChatGPT.

In about 700 words, write a letter about a social, political, or communal issue you care about.

Examples

Here are some examples that other students have done for their change making letters:

• Emailing the head of the campus cafeteria asking for more vegan options.
• Writing to elders at their place of worship asking for dancing policy changes.
• Writing to their parent’s doctor asking to stop prescribing painkillers for the parent.
• Writing to their former high school principal suggesting equitable dress code policy.

Here’s What I Want You to Do

I recommend downloading a copy of the Change Making Letter Template, which should help you get started on this.

After that, make sure that your change making letter has the following structure:

• Begin by addressing the letter to a specific person who can do something about the problem you are addressing.
• Make it very clear in your first paragraph what it is you are asking them to do. This should be a realistic step the person you are writing to can actually take to address a problem.
• Explain what problem you are addressing.
• Explain your (realistic and doable) solution.
• Support your solution with powerful arguments and reliable evidence. (Reliable evidence can be hard to obtain, so pick it carefully!)
• Imagine that the person you are writing to objects to or criticizes your arguments and evidence. In a separate paragraph, bring up possible criticism and your solutions or ideas related to it. You want to explain why what you are asking is reasonable and why your ideas are plausible in response to that possible criticism.
• Conclude with an effective call to action that echoes your first paragraph.

Once you have completed your initial draft (for peer review, see below), submit it to UB Learns.

Similarly, when you have later completed your final letter, also submit it to UB Learns.

Here’s Why I Want You to Do It

I am having you write this change making letter because this activity has you…

• Develop your skills for persuasive argumentation.
• Apply normative analysis to issues in your own life.
• Reflect on actions that may lead to positive social, political, or communal change.

In doing so, your change making letter will help you achieve these learning outcomes for the course:

Here’s How to Do It

• Strive for clear, well-organized, and straightforward writing. This is preferable when you are dealing with complex and controversial topics.
• Help make your letter very clear and well organized by ensuring that each paragraph is clearly focused on one and only one idea. It’s good to state this idea clearly in the beginning (or maybe at the end) of your paragraph and then organize your paragraph in such a way that it provides clarity and support for this idea.
• Make sure your tone is respectful and constructive. After all, you are writing to someone in power who may disagree with your position.
• Remember that the person to whom you are writing probably knows a lot about your issue; they might disagree with you, but they also might have thought about this issue for a very long time.
• You should double- and triple-check your spelling and grammar before handing in your letter. There should be no mistakes whatsoever. You should also read your letter aloud and you can also make Word read the letter aloud to you; this seems like a silly idea but reading your letter slowly and loudly will help you identify awkward and unclear sentences. You should also give your paper to a couple of friends to read and ask them for detailed and honest feedback. Ask them what they think about your tone, your writing style, and of course, your arguments.
• If writing this letter is hard for you—GET HELP—FREE from the Center for Excellence in Writing (CEW).
  Location: Norton Hall 17
  Email: writing@buffalo.edu
  Website: https://www.buffalo.edu/writing.html
  Schedule your appointment on Navigate: https://buffalo.navigate.eab.com/
• I am also here to help! Let me know if you have any questions.

Important Steps!

In order to help you write a strong letter, you will complete this experiment across multiple steps:

• You will write a change making letter draft that I will share with some of your classmates for peer review.
• You will participate in change making letter peer review, where you receive feedback on your letter while also giving feedback to the letters of your classmates.
• You will submit your final change making letter to me.
• Your change making letter is mailed, either as a signed letter that I will put in an envelop and mail, or as an email that you BCC me on.
• Finally, you will engage in a short reflection activity about this experiment in philosophy.

See the course schedule for when each of these specific steps is due.

Here’s How You’ll Earn Philosophy Experience Points

This experiment in philosophy is worth a total of 1,700 philosophy experience points, which is broken down as follows:

• Draft: 400 points.
• Peer review: 250 points.
• Final letter: 800 points.
• Mailing the letter: 100 points.
• Short reflection: 150 points.

Your final change making letter will be assessed according to the following criteria:

• Appropriate topic and specific letter recipient (see the “very important” guidelines above).
• Persuasive arguments, counterarguments, and responses.
• Follows the structure/format for a formal letter that is specified here: https://7esl.com/formal-letter-format/
• Extremely polished (no grammatical mistakes, no typos) and college-level writing.
• Crystal clear organization.
• Word count. (Letters that are either shorter than 600 words or longer than 750 words will incur a large penalty.)
• Being a complete letter that is ready to be sent to its recipient.

Using Philosopher’s Stones

You may exchange 1 philosopher’s stone for a 24-hour extension for completing this experiment in philosophy. Please note that this extension begins immediately after its original due date/time. Additional stones may be used for even longer extensions. Email me if this is something you would like to do.

However, please note that philosopher’s stones may only be used for your draft and/or your final letter. Stones may not be used for the other steps of this experiment in philosophy (i.e., for peer review, mailing, and short reflection) since those other steps occur during class time.

Collaboration & Academic Integrity

Since the change making letter has you identify and address an issue that personally affects you, I expect you to write your letter on your own without resorting to artificial intelligence (AI) tools to write it for you. (Perhaps not too surprisingly, AI tools do a pretty bad job in completing these sorts of letters.) After all, I am primarily interested in how you are thinking about the social, political, and communal issues that affect you!

However, I actually encourage you to talk with your classmates about your letters. (I am having you all do official peer review, after all!) You might also talk about your letter with friends and family. Just be sure that you write out the results of those conversations on your own and in your own words when putting together your letter.

In short, I expect you to write your own change making letter. It is not a group activity. Let me know if you are struggling and I’ll gladly help!

Above all else, please be honest if you do receive any outside assistance or use the ideas of others. This includes using AI tools. In any of those cases, be sure to let me know what assistance you received, and I will let you know how to properly acknowledge that assistance in accordance with standards of academic integrity.

Image: Chatterina / ChatGPT.

Acknowledgment

This “Experiment in Philosophy” is based upon a similar “Experiment in Ethics” from Ramona Ilea and Monica Janzen. I highly encourage you to visit their website on Engaged Philosophy for much more!