Abstraction → Action

The JRT Seeds of Change projects were all made possible through the Catherine Wasserman Davis Collaborative in Conflict Transformation.

As the name of the funding organization suggests, the purpose of this grant is to create meaningful change in communities facing conflicts of various kinds. The goal of the J.R. Tucker branch of this initiative is relatively straightforward: too often, the big ideas about life and the world discussed in English class remain removed from lived reality, veiled in abstraction; our work with the grant funding asked students to move beyond abstraction into action. Students were asked to scrutinize their communities and identify conflicts/issues present there. From this starting point, students brainstormed an actionable solution or balm for the problem they had identified. Students who wrote convincing proposals received a grant of up to $200 to execute their vision & document the process.

Students were challenged to answer