Community-engaged writing

Using Community Listening to Collaboratively Develop an Assignment with Students

Activities, collaboration and group work, Community-engaged writing, demystifying writing assignments, professional writing, writing myths and anxiety /

Gabrielle Isabel Kelenyi Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Assignments often take a few iterations to get just right so that students consistently produce the essay, project, or presentation the instructor had in mind, let alone demonstrate the assignment’s learning objectives. What would happen if instructors modeled “community listening” (Jackson & Whitehorse DeLaune; Rowan & […]

Using Community Listening to Collaboratively Develop an Assignment with Students Read More »

The Nature Journal: Observing, Naming, Knowing Kara Mae Brown

Activities, Community-engaged writing, nature writing, observation, Place-based Writing, reflection, rhetorical ecology /

Kara Mae Brown Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Writing is a powerful tool for understanding and communicating about the natural world. In turn, the places that writing happens inform, influence, and shape the writing. As Madison Percy Jones writes, “writing emerges out of the reciprocal interaction of writers and the complex rhetorical ecologies. Place

The Nature Journal: Observing, Naming, Knowing Kara Mae Brown Read More »

Genre Analysis of Project Proposals

Community-engaged writing, demystifying writing assignments, genre and discourse community, Place-based Writing, problem-solving proposal, research, rhetoric, rhetorical situation, Writing Transfer /

Sarah Swofford Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description The purpose of this assignment is to help students develop a process for learning unfamiliar genres successfully. This assignment is the first part of a two-assignment sequence (the second part is “A Proposal for Change on Campus,” also found in Writing Spaces’ Assignment and Activities Archive) in

Genre Analysis of Project Proposals Read More »

Proposal for Change on Campus

Assignments, collaboration and group work, Community-engaged writing, genre and discourse community, Place-based Writing, problem-solving proposal, professional writing /

Sarah Swofford Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description The purpose of this assignment is three-fold: 1) it helps students execute prior knowledge about genre so they are able to effectively compose unfamiliar genres of writing; 2) shows students how their writing skills are useful in professional and not only academic contexts; and 3) teaches students

Proposal for Change on Campus Read More »

Writing, Translating, and Revising Menus: An International Virtual Exchange Project

Community-engaged writing, Critical Language Awareness, genre and discourse community, linguistic difference, linguistic diversity, professional writing, Translation, translingualism, writing in global contexts, writing technologies /

Massimo Verzella Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description This assignment is informed by a pedagogical tradition that emphasizes the connections between the fields of writing and translation (Matsuda; Horner and Tetreault), a connection that becomes even more relevant in technical communication (Gnecchi et al.; Petts et al.). Just like writing, translation is process-based, iterative, and

Writing, Translating, and Revising Menus: An International Virtual Exchange Project Read More »

Discourse Communities Manual Presentation

Assignments, Community-engaged writing, genre and discourse community, Place-based Writing, research, writing technologies /

Andrew H. Yim Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description In this activity, which will take around 3-4 weeks, students are tasked to research one discourse community (e.g., college club, job, volunteer organization) that they have never joined or recently became a member of. They need to pick out the 6 elements of the organization including:

Discourse Communities Manual Presentation Read More »

The Time Capsule: A Narrative Composition for Developing Social Support Systems

Assignments, Community-engaged writing, digital literacy, visual/multimodal rhetorics /

Michele N. Zugnoni Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description The development of a social support system is one of the greatest factors in college student success. Without such a system, students experience a sense of isolation and loneliness (Tinto 4). 28.4% of college students report feeling socially isolated (“Loneliness, Resilience” 3). 64.7% of college students

The Time Capsule: A Narrative Composition for Developing Social Support Systems Read More »

Activist Archival Project

Archival Research, Assignments, Community-engaged writing /

Julie C. Bates and Sarah Warren-Riley Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description The Activist Archival Project we assign in our classes is well-suited for a composition course with an emphasis on writing for social change, community-engaged writing, and/or social justice. In this project, students work either in person or online documenting examples of social or

Activist Archival Project Read More »

Getting in Conversation about Activism: Group Podcast Assignment

Anti-Racist Pedagogy, Assignments, collaboration and group work, Community-engaged writing, critical thought and analysis, genre and discourse community, narrative and storytelling, Place-based Writing, Public Writing, visual/multimodal rhetorics /

Jeanette Lehn Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description In my class on public rhetorics, I strive to empower students to possess agency in speaking to an unbounded global public with the understanding that all rhetors are constrained and imbricated in complex systems. Cooper writes, “Rhetors—and audiences—are agents in their actions, and they are responsible for

Getting in Conversation about Activism: Group Podcast Assignment Read More »

Write-a-thons and Community Panels: Encouraging Students to “Go Public” with Their Writing

Activities, Community-engaged writing, Public Writing, rhetoric /

Megan Heise Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description First-year writing classes (can) provide a fertile ground for student exploration of meaningful topics that impact them and their broader communities both within and beyond the Ivory Tower. Research-based writing courses, in particular, can open up spaces for students to dive deep into areas that are important

Write-a-thons and Community Panels: Encouraging Students to “Go Public” with Their Writing Read More »