Heather Lindenman’s Writing: Argument and Inquiry class developed reports, infographics, and other written materials to support the Alamance County Stepping Up Initiative.
On April 18, members of the Writing: Argument and Inquiry class taught by Heather Lindenman, associate professor of English, presented their final outcomes reports, profiles, and other written materials to the Alamance County Stepping Up Initiative Coordinators Linda Allison and Gary Ander.
Lindenman’s students collaborated with Allison and Ander to develop infographics that will best display the data and outcomes that the initiative has yielded. These reports will be posted on the county’s Stepping Up website.
Students in the class also conducted over 100 interviews in the greater Alamance-Burlington community to determine perceptions of the initiative. They delivered a comprehensive report of their findings to the county. Additionally, they wrote profiles of 13 community leaders, all instrumental in the Stepping Up leadership team.
Other teams of students contributed additional documents and materials, such as posters, promotional materials, and website content. Each student devoted about 40 hours to this project.
Students said they found the “real world” aspect of this writing project rewarding. “So often in classes I find that the work we do is a simulation of sorts, and although it could be applied to the real world, it often isn’t,” said first-year student Katie Jones. “Doing this project, it was so special to know that the work I was producing was going to be used by people in the real world.”
“I am used to writing academic papers with sources, topic sentences and a thesis, but this project made me think outside of the box and really think about who my audience would be and what they should take away from it,” said Rachel Fultonberg ’21.
Many students also reconsidered their definition of “writing” as a result of this project. “This project taught me that writing is a whole range of things and sometimes does not involve many words at all,” said Joey Fradkin ’21. “For example, in the infographic I made I had to take into account who might be reading it when deciding how much text to include and how the text should be integrated with images, symbols, and graphs.”
In past semesters, Lindenman’s writing classes have partnered with other departments in Alamance County, as well as Alamance Public Libraries and Alamance County Service League.
“This type of writing project supports Elon’s goal of writing for civic and community purposes,” said Lindenman. “When students compare and contrast writing for the community with academic writing, they gain a richer understanding of how malleable writing can be.”