Place-based Writing

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 […]

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Safety & Accessibility Problem Statement

Accessibility, Assignments, Community-engaged writing, Place-based Writing, Public Writing, writing across the curriculum /

Kelly Scarff Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description The Problem Statement is a collaborative assignment that helps students approach writing as a problem-solving tool, incorporate discipline-specific language in their writing, and identify safety or accessibility issues in their community. In teams of three, students identify a safety or accessibility problem on campus or in the

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“I Didn’t Know I Could Research That”: Using Objects for Research Topic Invention

Activities, Community-engaged writing, Place-based Writing, prewriting and invention, research /

Mario A. D’Agostino Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Objects matter. As material rhetoricians (Barnett & Boyle; Gries & Brooke), cultural materialists (Bennett), and compositionists (Rule) have recently noted, objects play an important role in our lives and composing processes. An excellent example of the cultural significance of objects and what they mean to their

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Environmental Justice: Writing Urban Spaces

Community-engaged writing, Place-based Writing, Public Writing, Volume 5 /

Mattius Rischard Volume 5 Chapter Description Our sense of place not only affects our perspective, but also the way in which we represent our home to others. It is vital that students learn to write about spaces that civically engage them on a personal level. The structural elements of the built environment that contribute to

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Emotionally Aware Ethnography

Assignments, Community-engaged writing, critical thought and analysis, genre and discourse community, narrative and storytelling, Place-based Writing, primary source research /

Sarah Bramblett Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description I’ve encountered several jarring writing submissions: an essay describing a student’s family member’s tragic death, an essay detailing a student’s battle with an eating disorder, an essay telling of a student’s loneliness in their first semester of college, and an essay recounting a student’s suicidal thoughts. These

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Using Recipe Archives for Place-Based Research and Writing

Archival Research, Assignments, Place-based Writing /

Ashley M. Beardsley Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Cookbooks “allude to meals and events, people and places, success and failures, joys and sorrows, lives and deaths” representing “the life worlds—past and present—of their creators” (Theophano 83). Through archival research, students explore how cookbooks and recipes are more than instructions that teach people how to

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Exploring Community and Personal Connection as Idea Generation for Argumentative Writing

Activities, Community-engaged writing, Place-based Writing, prewriting and invention /

Amanda Rachelle Warren Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description The argumentative essay is a relied upon element of the composition classroom. These essay assignments help students develop thoughtful, well-considered arguments on debatable topics. As many teachers know, those “debatable topics” tend towards predictable subject matter that is often too broad for an essay-length argument, is

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Avoiding the Savior Complex in Community-Engaged Writing

Assignments, Community-engaged writing, genre and discourse community, Place-based Writing, rhetorical situation /

Charisse S. Iglesias Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description “Avoiding the Savior Complex in Community-Engaged Writing” is a three-day activity to prepare students for community-engaged writing partnerships. Community-engaged writing is a common undertaking in composition courses (Schutz and Gere). While community-engaged writing encourages civic responsibility, exposure to different communities, and engaged pedagogies, the practice does

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Public Writing for Social Change

Place-based Writing, Public Writing, visual/multimodal rhetorics, writing technologies /

Ashley J. Holmes Volume 4 Chapter Description This essay challenges students to use public writing to embrace their role as an “academic citizen” (i.e., someone who takes the writing and research we do in college and puts it to practical and civic use in our communities in the hopes of contributing toward positive social change).

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At Work in the Archives: Place-Based Research and Writing

Archival Research, drafting and revising, Place-based Writing, primary source research, rhetorical appeals and argument /

Lynée Lewis Gaillet & Jessica Rose Volume 4 Chapter Description This chapter outlines a plan for incorporating primary and archival research into first year writing course designs. Correlating directly with recent college initiatives and composition best practices, archival research asks students to see themselves as experts, engage in rhetorical activism, and take on college-to-career projects.

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