Abstract

Abstract Recently, scholars have suggested that reading narratives helps develop students’ phronesis (the Greek term for wise judgment and decision-making skills), which is crucial for efforts to understand today's major political, environmental, and transnational contexts. Although much of this research has centered on the usefulness of reading narratives in developing good judgment in complex and ambiguous settings, the author contends that writing narratives similarly cultivates wise judgment and decision-making skills precisely because, as the author argues here, narratives themselves are ambiguous and complex. Borrowing from Horst W. J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber's concept of wicked problems, the author terms the type of narratives that students produce in community-engaged settings as wicked stories, or wicked storywork, in that students confront uncertainty, contradiction, and failure in their attempt to tame multiple perspectives on an issue and impose their own authority. The author argues that working with wicked stories can increase students’ discernment and judgement, particularly in the writing situations that they will encounter beyond the confines of the classroom.