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UA writing students have turned their research papers into electronically based displays of information for the First Year Writing Showcase.

By La Monica Everett-Haynes, University Communications
May 5, 2008

It’s an attempt to improve the writing skills of new University of Arizona students while also engaging them in the sort of digitally based communication that is pervasive in the professional world.

More than one dozen UA faculty members worked with about 230 students – mostly freshman, including many Honors College students – to develop projects that will be shown during the First Year Writing Showcase.

“We originally were expecting 60, but the writing faculty got really excited and the students got excited and we ended up with 230,” said Chris Minnix, who is assistant to the director of the UA's Writing Program, which is presenting the showcase. “We are very pleased.”

Visual-spatial writing is the theme of this year’s event, which involves students who are enrolled in first-year writing courses.

Students taking The Writing Program's courses were required to write an essay and transform their text into an electronic presentation. Some chose PowerPoint, other chose Web sites and some have created short films and other projects, said Minnix, also an adjunct faculty member in the UA’s English department.

The purpose is to help students “look at a world that is mediated more by digital literacy and to engage them to learn, analyze and engage text in that world,” Minnix said.

“It’s an interesting way for them to interpret their work in the digital age,” he said. “It’s helping them write for different audiences and genres to help them develop more awareness about how different types of rhetoric appeal to different types of audiences.”

The projects cover topics such as privacy protection, living on campus, the influence of media, the condition of the health care system, genocide and popular culture.

Others analyzed issues related to the U.S. government, political correctness, capitalism, the American dream and the image Disney projects.

UA freshman Royisha Young’s project analyzes the effectiveness of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Young, who volunteered in high school for an organization in California that worked toward “educational justice,” said she attempted to make an argument against the legislation.

She argues that “because No Child Left Behind is based on a rewards system, it turns out to be bad for students because not all schools are receiving equal amounts of funding,” she said. “So, the schools in need are left behind.”

For her class project, Young performed, presenting herself as U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama while speaking about No Child Left Behind. She will present a PowerPoint presentation tomorrow, exploring issues related to standardized testing, school funding and graduation rates, among other things.

“I took the pathos appeal because my target audience is parents,” said Young, a freshman who is studying political science. “These are things that are important to me.”

Jennifer Heckler, a graduate associate who teaches a first-year writing course, said she, like other faculty who worked with the students, tries to involve her students more than traditional writing courses would.

What happened is that the students not only garner critical writing skills, but the learning is also reciprocal, Heckler said.

"They can actually teach me while, at the same time, I am teaching them the convention of academic writing and analytical thinking skills,” she said. “I think it can be very valuable.”