Writing your Stakeholder Statement

Overview
Public statements in townhall style meetings or summits are a regular part of the decision-making process. Often this includes testimony from invited experts and/or from the public, in which the speaker reads aloud a well prepared statement of their perspective on the issue at hand. In this online class, you will speak out in a virtual townhall meeting on a controversial environmental topic. You will write a stakeholder statement and share it with the class via discussion forum. This is Part 2 of the 3-part Townhall assignment.

Please also upload your script for this assignment to the following submission page and it will be automatically submitted to Turnitin to check for originality.

Assignment
Part 2 of the Townhall Summit will take place in this discussion forum. Students have been assigned to townhall groups, each of which will conduct a “public” forum (public within your discussion group, that is) about a controversial topic via stakeholder presentations. Each student has been assigned the role of a particular stakeholder in a specific controversy, and started researching that stakeholder role in the Week 5 Lab Assignment. Each topic group has been provided a place and venue to set the scene for the summit, and a key question that all comments in their townhall summit will address. You are to research and write your stakeholder statement, then post the statement for your group members (and instructors) to read. You will also need to submit the script to a second assignment where it will be scanned by Turnitin and graded according to a rubric (just like we do with weekly discussions).

Instructions for Writing your Stakeholder Statement
Prepare a script of a position statement at least four paragraphs long (300-400 words, < 5 minutes; we will not grade on length explicitly unless it is overly short or long).  The goal is to be short, but powerful and convincing. Most people only read short comments on the internet, and in a live meeting you would probably be allotted 5 minutes or less to speak. Use the following as a guide to develop your presentation. Please recall that there is a Guide to Identifying Stakeholders and Stakeholder Positions in the LAB Background document.

Summarize the controversy at hand, including environmental (pollution, biodiversity loss, etc.) and human dimensions (health, economy, jobs, social justice, etc.). Briefly acknowledge your fellow stakeholders points of view. Use your sources to support this summary with evidence. DO NOT quote directly from sources paraphrase the material into your own words to demonstrate your mastery of the material.
State stakeholder role and your position/stance (for or against) on the issue. See the Guide to Identifying Stakeholders and Stakeholder Positions in the Background document for more guidance.
Explain several (2-5) pieces of evidence that led you to your conclusion. Demonstrate your mastery of the issue and knowledge of the facts. Again, paraphrase, do not use quotations from sources – demonstrate your mastery of the material.
Cite your sources, including author, date, title, and URL. Use the sources you evaluated in the Week 5 Lab Assignment (The CRAAP Test), assuming you found them to be credible.