English 200W
Unit 1
Spring 2023
Overview and goals
We’ve studied what affects our writing and literacy, whether personal or political, individual, or structural. The last project will focus on what our writing does out in the world, specifically a community that you are part of.
The project
You’ll identify a community that you belong to. These communities can be disciplinary, professional, linguistic, cultural, political, etc. Choose to do one of the following:
- Analyze the literacy artifacts of the community using the theories we’ve studied in class this semester. Examples of literacy artifacts could be papers, websites, brochures, signage, newsletters, discussion board exchanges, tweets and other social media accounts, and infographics. More private literacy artifacts like letters and emails are possible but might not be the best for this assignment, which asks you to look at more of the public writing of this community.
- Translate or repurpose a community’s materials into something new: an infographic or set of infographics, a presentation, a brochure, or some other kind of document
- Create a document or set of documents that would communicate something needed to this community
Then, you’ll write a 3-page reflective paper that describes your process and your choices for writing the paper—how you came to understand the community and audience, the purpose of the literacy artifact(s) that you either studied or created, their circulation and distribution and how they achieved their goals. If you choose option 1, some of this reflection will likely be part of the analysis and will be shorter than 3 pages. If you choose 2 or 3, you are invited to circulate the new materials you create and discuss the reception in your reflection.
What this could be:
- An analysis of orientation materials for QC freshmen or transfer students
- A guide to the community of people who put together dances on TikTok
- An infographic about how to be a good student in virtual spaces
- Resource website for transfer students
- A brochure that communicates necessary information to your community
- A guide to your neighborhood for visitors or new residents
- An infographic about that communicates resources you’ve collected for a community concerned about a particular issue like where food insecure folks in your neighborhood might find what they need
How to get started
Identify the communities that you’re part of and think about how writing operates within them. What do they communicate and for what purpose? From there, decide which of the options work best for you–the analysis of materials, repurposing of existing materials, or creation of new materials.
Requirements
Length: 1200-1500 words (equivalent of 5-6 pages without images). You are also welcome to do the equivalent with slides, video, audio or any other medium of your choosing, although I ask that you don’t use a medium that you’ve used for an assignment before (alphabetic text essays are the only medium that can be repeated).
Draft workshops: 3/3 for all groups
First draft: 3/6
Final: 3/17
