My origin piece is an essay I wrote in winter 2021 for an education class. For the assignment, we were tasked with investigating a recent educational policy to see how democratic and equitable it was. The policy I chose was Policy 0040 that was passed in the Seattle Public School district in 2020. It was written to promote anti-racism amidst many issues of systemic racism and socioeconomic divide within the district. Since I attended school within that district, I had a special connection to the policy and saw, first hand, how necessary efforts such as this were. In the essay, I explain how the policy aims to amplify minority voices in decision making, restructure disciplinary procedures to promote anti-racism, and rework curriculum to promote minority perspectives.

I have chosen to take this informative piece and reconstruct it into a braided essay. My braids for this essay will include my own experience at a high school within the district and the incidence of racism I witnessed, the details of Policy 0040, and Seattle’s history of redlining and racism. Through each of these lenses, I can demonstrate the intersection of history, personal experience, and policy and how they all work together to paint the reality of Seattle Public Schools. For this piece, my rhetorical situation would be the students, faculty, and staff of the Seattle Public School district, citizens of Seattle, and the Seattle city government. Hopefully, pieces such as these will spark good conversation and progress from all of these audiences. 

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I believe the genre I chose will introduce humanity, story telling, and emotion into the explanation of an important policy. Rather than solely explaining the policy and its functions, the reader will better understand the culture of Seattle Public Schools and why the policy was so desperately needed. Since this piece’s purpose will be education, the braided format will allow readers to learn the history of Seattle and the current issues the school system faces in an engaging format. Additionally, the braided genre will help younger readers (such as students) stay excited about the story as it switches focus. By highlighting stories from my high school experience, younger readers from my hometown will be able to relate and easily understand the references made.