York’s KMb Unit held its largest ever Clear Language Writing and Design workshop on May 9th. Workshop participants from a number of groups were excited to take away valuable insights they could apply in their daily work.
Le 9 mai, l’Unité de MdC de York a tenu son atelier de rédaction en langage clair, le plus important jamais tenu à ce jour. Les participants à l’atelier, provenant de divers groupes, ont été heureux d’acquérir des compétences dont ils pourront se servir au quotidien dans leur milieu de travail.
On Monday May the 9th, York’s Knowledge Mobilization Unit hosted its largest ever Clear Language Writing and Design workshop. The event brought together over 20 participants from a diverse spectrum of groups, all of whom were interested in discovering what clear language is all about and honing their writing skills. The workshop was facilitated by Matthew Shulman, an adult literacy professional with the Peel Halton Dufferin Adult Learning Network. The event wasattended by the following groups:
- Summer interns hired through the Knowledge Mobilization for Climate Change Public Outreach project.
- Summer interns working with the Ontario Literacy Coalition
- Knowledge Network for Applied Education and Research (KNAER)
- Summer students from York’s Knowledge Mobilization Unit engaged in research summary development
- Staff from the Ontario Mental Health and Addictions Knowledge Exchange Network(OMHAKEN).
The workshop consisted of 2 parts. In the first part, Matthew gave an overview of clear language principles and provided examples that demonstrated the value of “writing for the reader”. Participants in the workshop considered their different audiences related to their working research projects- stakeholders such as policy makers, adminstrators, practicioners and community members. An engaging conversation emerged as to how to make research findings more accessible and relevant to meet the needs of each potential knowledge user through clear language practice.
The second part gave participants a chance to apply their newly acquired skills in a group writing exercise. ”[The workshop] was very informative and engaging” said Samuel Towe, a graduate student with York’s Faculty of Education, “[I] really appreciated the group exercise”. [The] participation of teachers was delightfully engaging and thought provoking” said another workshop participant in their evaluation form. Continue reading ‘Clearly, another clear language summer/ Clairement un autre été en langage clair’
What makes graduate students so very different? Their post-modern view of the world? Their affinity for drinking copious amounts of European beer? (OK, different, but not unique) Not at all. Graduate students are unique human beings because they have a passion for knowledge and they want to share that knowledge for the betterment of the world around them. Is that unique you ask? Everyone carries knowledge and wants to change the world (existentialists exit here). But graduate students do it with a special thrilling insight into how knowledge can change society. And they have special knowledge.
I make no apologies for saying that, in my humble opinion, academic knowledge is the peak of the highest learning mountain. It is the supreme athlete of the learning arena. The peer-to-peer battle over ideas gives knowledge its strength. Peers beat the pulp out of knowledge for a reason; so it can stand on its own merits. And graduate students take that torch with vigour. They are interested, focused and committed. At 
Well, one thing KM offers – or, at least, one thing it has offered me – is a better understanding of the nature of collaboration. There’s a lot of chatter, in the world of research, about the need to break through the silos in which academics are often isolated, and to bring these supposed hermits blinking into the light, into contact with others. Of course, the image of the researcher in the silo has become a cliché, and clichés can grate a bit, especially when you study poetry, as I’m fortunate enough to do. (Poetry, see, often tries to avoid clichés in pursuit of some more memorable way to say what amounts to the same old thing.) But when I really think about the cliché of the silo, I can’t help but picture an academic in an actual grain silo, up to his Adam’s apple in sorghum or something. As I picture it, this poor professor (or graduate student, or researcher) is talking and talking, saying important things even though the words remain trapped in the silo, caroming around, echoing uselessly. Outside of the silo, passing pedestrians hear only muffled noises, if they hear anything at all – if they even notice the silo! The silo, I should add, isn’t necessarily the academic’s fault; it may be the result of a discipline’s insularity, or the rigidity of institutional barriers, or any number of roadblocks for which there may be good reasons.
So the silo metaphor, though a little cliché and unwieldy, is not so bad, if you really think about it (and, by doing so, rehabilitate it). And KM people, like poetry people, are always, it seems, thinking in metaphors and analogies and similes. One of the better metaphors sees knowledge brokers as agnostics: in other words, they believe in collaboration but have no firm, orthodox ideas about the form that collaboration should take. Another good one: knowledge brokers are especially imaginative matchmakers. They’re always looking to manufacture novel matches between researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners. They’re open to different, Twister®-like relationships.
It’s a strange gig, then, because (unlike other kinds of seasonal jobs) I never know quite what I’m returning to, but I know enough to expect to be pleasantly surprised; to expect that the KM Unit will be more substantial than it was the summer before. In other words, the KM Unit keeps expanding outward, keeps building capacity, keeps working to connect some of Canada’s best researchers to a larger community of researchers, practitioners, and decision-makers. It keeps mobilizing stuff. I feel privileged, as ever, to have some small part in all of this. And I’ll look forward to being pleasantly surprised again, next summer, by the next leap forward.
