Op-eds offer students an immediate means to communicate with a public audience, and, if published on an established platform, can offer the added benefit of editorial intervention by professional journalists.
Platforms include local newspapers, amateur digital platforms such as Medium, professional digital platforms like Quartz or OZY, or even national outlets like the HuffPost and The New York Times.
Methods
Francine Kiefer of The Christian Science Monitor has taught an interterm course on op-ed writing at Smith and has generously provided her handouts for structuring an effective op-ed, included here as the “OP-ED TOOLBOX” and the “PERSONAL ESSAY TOOLBOX.”
Examples
Ginny Hayssen’s 2017 class BIO 130: Biodiversity, Ecology, and Conservation wrote letters to the editor of their hometown paper, with any published letters receiving an automatic A grade. After working with the Jacobson Center to polish her draft, Kate Carruth ’20 published her letter in the Mountain Democrat, Placeville, CA, about the impact of climate change on Lake Tahoe:
Students from several Smith classes that explicitly center public discourse have published op-eds:
- Alex McKinley ‘21 (ENG 118: Youth Activism, New Media, and Social Change) in the Daily Hampshire Gazette
- Jacqueline Centeno ‘22 (ENG 118: Youth Activism, New Media, and Social Change) in The Sophian
Smith students have also independently published journalistic articles and op-eds, with editorial input from the Jacobson Center or Smith faculty, that serve as strong examples of the genre:
- Alexandra Golikov ‘19 in The Spokesman Review
- Emma Seymour ‘19 in the Daily Hampshire Gazette (with Carrie Baker and Andrew Zimbalist), Forbes (with Carrie Baker and Andrew Zimbalist) and Ms. magazine blog
Learning Goals
- Concise, accessible expression of information and findings.
- Consideration of audience and opportunity to reach outside the classroom.
Multimedia Expansion
Op-eds dovetail well with blogging (WORDPRESS BLOGS AND WEBSITES). Twitter posts and tweetstorms (view module here), or Instagram (view module here) can serve to encapsulate and bring public attention to the piece. More extended personal essays, which can resemble long-form op-eds, are discussed in RESEARCHED PERSONAL ESSAYS.
