Omar, Ahmed, Aissata, Sophia T.

Collaborative or collective writing is created when people are silenced, ignored, or intentionally left at a disadvantage. Shared goals and a variety of perspectives contribute to changing that.

CCNY students demanded five things that would help Black and Puerto Rican students on campus. It instead resulted in violence. The protest flyer expands on this, with Black and Latino students reaching for another beaten by a policeman during their protest—police who took over CCNY because the college administration could not handle it.

In Patricia Gilbert’s poem “Saturday Night,” the word supper connotes the last supper. That imagery signifies a communal gathering where everyone comes together despite their struggles. It is a reflection of what collaborative writing can do, especially when students’ work makes a political statement and tries to write change within institutions that do not want it.