Defining Public Writing-a first attempt

Hmm. What is public writing? Since being assigned to teach this course, I've been thinking a lot about this question. Like many simple questions, it seems that it ought to be easy to answer, but it gets harder the more I think about it.

Now, reading other teachers' syllabi, browsing potential textbooks, thinking about other courses I have taught, I am gradually moving toward my own definition of what this course is about: Here's a first attempt:

Public writing is writing by private citizens about public issues in the public sphere.

Okay, so far so good. But now I have a new set of questions: What constitutes a public issue? What counts as the public sphere?

Well... I’ll start by trying to define what I mean by an "issue": I'll follow the rhetoric scholar L. Bitzer here. When he talks about issues, he uses the word "exigence", which he defines this way: a problem or imperfection of some urgency that needs a solution. A public issue might be further defined as an exigence that is of concern to an entire community of people and that MIGHT find a solution--or at least be nudged toward a solution-- if these people can find a way to share information and work together.

This definition seems like a good one, because it excludes some things: Problems out of our control--acts of God or nature that we can do nothing about? Those are not public issues. Problems you can solve all by yourself, just by changing your own attitude or modifying your own behavior or exerting some effort on your own? Those are not public issues. Problems that concern yours truly, but don't affect me or anyone else in your community? Not public issues unless you can convince me that I should care. But this definition does make room for a whole range of issues that can be addressed if and only if people can be moved to work in a concerted way toward a solution. Bet you can list a bunch! If not, just look around you! You'll find lots of grist for the public-writing mill.

Once you've settled on a definition for public writing, it's easier to see who your audience might be. The potential audience for public writing includes ALL THOSE PEOPLE who are concerned about the issue you are addressing or who might be convinced to care about it and even work together to solve it, if you can move them to see things the way you do and to act in a concerted way. So here's another stab at a definition:

Public writing means using language in an intentional way
to move other members of your community to adopt new ways of seeing, understanding, feeling and ultimately acting on the exigencies that concern you all.

We might consider the public writer a little like a boatswain calling the strokes for a rowing team as they power down a river, or an orchestra conductor drawing a symphony out of a room full of musicians with the wave of her baton or a tour-guide shepherding a group of people through unfamiliar territory, calling out the sights along the way, directing their gaze to the left or the right, putting things in perspective.

The most important thing I need to remember as I plan this course: Public writing not only SAYS things, but DOES things--it MOVES people in ways that impact our culture and society--even our physical landscape.

It is important for my students to understand the power that public writers exert on us (as readers) and also for them to test and develop their own powers as producers of public texts--and thereby learn what it feels like to be able to make real changes in the public spaces where we live our lives.