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Using Writing Assignments To Learn About America

This past term in a first-year composition course at the University of Delaware, we read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America.

The students first wrote a quick, in-class essay, taking a position on whether it is possible for an adult to live on the wages paid to entry-level workers. They were invited to use their own experiences as workers to inform their arguments. As a follow-up, they had to develop their arguments using various research sources to find data and published evidence to support their positions.

There was a nice sense of rising indignity among the class members as they became more articulate about fair pay for doing a difficult job under stressful conditions.

Some started with arguments about working out of poverty or getting an education to avoid low-pay, dead-end jobs. But then others started to realize that America needs these workers, that our service economy relies on large classes of workers in low-wage, exploited positions.

The issues became more complex as the students rewrote and compared their arguments. For the first time, some of the students thought about health care benefits, rent deposits, transportation costs, and issues of health and nutrition in the low-wage workplace.

I know these students think differently now when they walk into Wal-Mart to buy everyday, low-priced goods from low-paid workers.

— Steve Bernhardt
University of Delaware

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