✎ prompts and activities

Think of a word or phrase that you see everywhere. Consider what this term means to you, and to others. What has the term meant historically, and where does it come from? Who embraces this way of characterizing the world, and who stands to lose out if we don’t actually unpack what’s going on here in this linguistic construction? What does this term... See more

Workshop: Read newspaper and magazine stories that have anecdotal leads followed by “nut” paragraphs that explain what the story is about. Notice if the level of language moves from the concrete to the more abstract. Find some stories about bureaucracy or public policy that seem stuck in the middle of the ladder of abstraction. What kind of reporti... See more