Goals, Activism and Public Writing...CHECK!

What I choose is slightly old and something that everyone at URI should know about. It was one of the first things that came to my mind when we got this assignment. The orange sticker policy of Narragansett is something that was accomplished by public writing. Because there are so many college kids living in the town of Narragansett now the residents of the town began to complain about noise and how college kids were ruining their neighborhoods and the place where they grew up. The residents began to write letters to the town about the issue and spoke in front of town hall meetings etc to try and figure out a way to resolve the issue and what they came up with was the orange sticker policy. This meant that every house that got a noise complaint or was having a party would get an orange sticker on their front door. The orange sticker means that if the cops are to be called again regarding your house and a complaint you receive a fine. Not only was this supposed to hinder URI students from having parties and interfering with families and residents who have lived in Narragansett for years. The group of residents of the town accomplished getting this policy in order and the major way they did this was through public writing in the public sphere.

After speaking with a friend of mine who has tried getting this sticker policy removed, I discovered more about how the change actually came about. This project became alive through public writing. That’s how the whole quest for the policy began. The residents of Narragansett began writing to the town asking for their help and because they wanted to make more of a presence they showed up and spoke out at town meetings. The point of this is that it all started through public writing. These individuals and participants were active in trying to get something done about the problem going on and they accomplished the means by using public writing. The residents knew that this was the only was to start and so they wrote letters and emails to try and get the help of the town. What is so great about this example is that it actually became a reality and these people accomplished their goal. Public writing doesn’t always accomplish goals in this way but this is a perfect example of how using public writing is an avenue and way to generate awareness about an issue. This individual I spoke with told me that the group had some challenges in the beginning because their emails and requests weren’t being recognized and nothing was being done about it by spreading the word through public writing and the public sphere they gained more participants and the issue became so widespread that something had to be done about it and the town took action.

From this example I learned about the many difficulties public writers face when trying to resolve an issue or problem. A fear that many public writers have or people who would like to become involved in public writing is that they won’t be heard. And for this reason public writing can deter people from taking the step to do so. These individuals participated in public writing to try and conquer their cause and they could have given up because nothing was being done but they were persistent and it paid off. Public writing is not a hard task whether it be bloging, writing on facebook, emailing or writing a letter to the editor but being heard is the hardest part. With persistence and determination there is a way to be heard through public writing and this example shows that.