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

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 to them on an individual or community-wide level. It is all too easy, however, for students or instructors to lose sight of the public audiences beyond academic readerships who both inform and are impacted by the research students conduct. The Write-a-thon and Community Panel activity provides one option for connecting students to community audiences and the potentials of writing publicly for social change. This activity provides first-year students with the opportunity to think through their research topics and how to “go public” with them (Holmes; Mortensen).