“Hey, You There!”: Theorizing the Open Letter as Methodology in Academic Writing - A Journal of Educational Research and Practice 2024 Vol. 33 (1) 10-26

Oct 15, 2026

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Examining the open letter as a method of academic authorship, this article traces how letters recur at critical historical moments, from James Baldwin’s 1962 “A Letter to My Nephew” to Chanelle Miller’s victim impact statement and the vocabulary it helped advance for #MeToo. Although the open letter’s contextual importance is used across fields, its structural role in academic writing remains undertheorized. The study asks why marginalized writers use it, what rhetorical effects addressed enclosure produces, and how it shapes authors’ positionality and subjectivity.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

The open letter in historical and scholarly contexts

Research questions on marginalized authorship and rhetorical effects

The open letter as methodology and legitimate scholarship

Addressing “Academia/School” through the letter

“Hey, You There!”: Theorizing the Open Letter as Methodology in Academic Writing A journal of educational research and practice 2024 Vol. 33 (1) 10−26 [https://journals.library.brocku.ca/brocked](https://journals.library.brocku.ca/brocked) Nicholas Rickards* Faculty of Education, Brock University Abstract From James Baldwin's (1962) “A Letter to My Nephew ,” which laid bare the brutalities of being black in 1960s America, to Chanelle Miller’s published victim impact statement addressed to her assailant, which provided vocabulary and was kindle for \#MeToo, examples abound demonstrating the ways in which the open letter continuously surfaces during pivotal historical junctures. Although the contextual significance of this format of authorship is widely used in scholarly disciplines ranging from education to history, the structural significance of the open letter as a methodologic approach to academic writing has yet to be theorized, leaving questions that merit attention: Why is the open letter so often used by marginalized groups? What are the literary and rhetorical effects of the enclosed addressed between sender and receiver? Finally, how does this format of writing create and affect the positionality and subjectivity of authors? By writing a letter addressed to Academia/School, this essay makes the case for the open letter as something to be studied but also a methodology and study in and of itself. By drawing on literary theory, cultural studies, and research on writing in academia, this essay suggests that the open letter is an important form of authorship and argues for revisiting the open letter as a legitimate form of scholarship as well as an authentic form of academic writing in education. Keywords: academic writing, cultural studies, communication , social justice * [nicholas.g. rickards@gmail.com](nicholas.g. rickards@gmail.com) Dear Academia, To adequately follow the quandary of academic writing, or “simply put, writing done for academic purposes” (Fang, 2021 , para. 1), I would like to make clear the address of this letter. You, Academia, who we might generally refer to as School, is a modality, a verb and a noun, a word that has multiple meanings. You are a physical space that instructs and houses our youth; you are an edifice of enlightenment, a postsecondary institution where we grow as intellectuals; you are a school of thought, a discipline with which I have developed a love affair; you are a lens by which I see the world; you are a job for some; for me, you are the means by which I make a living. You are my everything. You have a long history of being many things , too. Don’t forget where you come from. You are a school, and any writing we do for or with you is of the genre academic. You are academic, from the Latin acadēmicus, from the Greek akadḗ meia, the name of a park just outside of ancient Athens, the park where the philosopher Plato taught his students. Academic writing is and always has been for you. Last spring, midway through the first year of coursework for my Ph. D. program in Educational Studies, I came across a call for essays on the changing landscapes of academic writing. As an apprentice scholar still developing my craftmanship and a fledgling teacher with only singledigit years of experience under my belt, by your metrics, I am just a novice, an entropic arrangement of uncertainty and randomness. Yet, while I pondered the boundaries of the call and my (~~ in~~)abilities to speak to the matter, I couldn’t help but think about you. You are Academia, School, and I think you are to be confronted and addressed, directly addressed, in order to negotiate the preponderance of academic writing and the development of authorship. After all, you, Academia, are a suffix to the call for essays of academic writing, a call that in essence is about your rigidity and formality. After all, there is in fact a priori to academic writing, and that a priori is you. The same processes th

FAQs

What is the core purpose of the article’s open-letter approach to academic writing?

It argues that the open letter is not only a topic to study but also a methodology and an object of study in academic writing itself.

Why does the article focus on the open letter’s structural significance rather than only its historical context?

The article notes that, while contextual significance is widely recognized, the structural significance of the open letter as a methodologic approach has not been fully theorized.

How does the article explain the open letter’s effects on authors’ identity and perspective?

By addressing “Academia/School” directly, it examines how this format creates and affects authors’ positionality and subjectivity, shaping who can write and how writing is authorized.

Oct 15, 2026

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