Using writing to motivate change: the social responsibility of the writer, the student and the educator

This paper explores the experiences of the students who opted to take this module as part of their combined English Language/Media/Literature/Linguistics degree in the School of Humanities. Details of the findings from a research project are interspersed with a narrative from one of the guest speaker sessions. The actor, Paul Moriarty came in to talk about the history of political theatre and led a workshop where students pitched an idea for a play with a social theme. The rationale behind presenting the paper in this way is to give readers a three dimensional account of the module and provide an example of a teaching and learning method that was successful in this scenario. Paul’s talk is indented and in italics to distinguish his voice from the voice of the author.