Motivations For Writing Open Letters
There are a number of reasons why an individual would choose the form of an open letter, including the following reasons:
- As a last resort to ask the public to judge the letter's recipient or others involved, often but not always, in a critical light
- To state the author's position on a particular issue
- As an attempt to start or end a wider dialogue around an issue
- As an attempt to focus broad attention on the letter's recipient, prompting them to some action
- For humor value
- Simply to make public a communication that must take place as a letter for reasons of formality
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Famous quotes containing the words motivations, writing, open and/or letters:
“The wider the range of possibilities we offer children, the more intense will be their motivations and the richer their experiences. We must widen the range of topics and goals, the types of situations we offer and their degree of structure, the kinds and combinations of resources and materials, and the possible interactions with things, peers, and adults.”
—Loris Malaguzzi (1920–1994)
“I am writing to resist the view that Europe and civilization are going to Hell. If I am being “crucified for an idea”Mthat is, the coherent idea around which my muddles accumulated—it is probably the idea that European culture ought to survive, that the best qualities of it ought to survive along with whatever cultures, in whatever universality. Against the propaganda of terror and the propaganda of luxury, have you a nice simple answer?”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Meanwhile Snow White held court,
rolling her china-blue doll eyes open and shut
and sometimes referring to her mirror
as women do.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet and the hospital. I sometimes discuss the application of a compress or a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of a political movement. I make gruel—not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)