Projects
Choose among the community action projects on this site to engage students in technical communication tasks. The kinds of projects and the audiences for the projects allow a range of possibilities for composition modalities, technical genres, and audiences. Further, the activities can be customized to fit courses beyond technical communication and for off-campus communities.
Kinds of Projects
The projects included here range from designing social media campaigns to building 3-D models that illustrate a story that is important to the community. The rhetorical purpose of the projects includes a variety of technical communication genres. These assignments work for any community group, allowing students to pursue community action projects that align with their interests and values.
Several of the projects can be combined into units, as they step students through connected tasks. Details on these connections are included with the project descriptions. As an example, Determining Online Identity Expectations asks students to analyze the audiences their community relies on and interacts with. After completing an exploration of the community’s expectations, students can focus on the Researching Online Identity project to examine the identity that the community has established. Finally, students can work on the Revising a Community’s Online Identity, applying the details they have xxx on the expectations for the community to the information that is communicated through the community’s digital presence.
Project Audiences
These projects provide opportunities for students to engage with authentic audiences while composing technical communication documents. Ideally, students will connect with a community group and create related documents that the group can use. Community groups and causes can always use more resources as they work toward their goals, so these projects allow opportunities for service learning. Working directly with clients on service-learning projects gives students the opportunity to address the needs of real people and to consider the consequences of what they write.
Alternately, students can complete these projects if local circumstances make it difficult for students to work directly with local community groups. The activities and writing will be similar, and students will still have an authentic audience to consider. They simply will not have direct contact with the community group. This approach can provide more flexibility as you plan your activities. Students will not ever be waiting for a contact to respond to their questions or ideas. Additionally, you will not find yourself having to identify potential groups for the projects or mediating between students and their community group clients.
Customization for Other Courses
These projects can be customized for many writing courses, including composition courses, writing and social justice courses, and community writing courses. As appropriate, you can choose specific communities that fit the course you are teaching. For example, if you are teaching a writing and social justice course, you’d identify social justice community groups that students would focus on in their projects.
The writing projects also work in writing across the curriculum courses. Every subject area will have corresponding social and community efforts that can provide focal points for these projects, such as conservation efforts, protection of endangered species and natural resources, public health and medical issues, supporting health workers and the military, and so forth.
Additionally, the projects can be used in community settings. Most of the projects can be used with community writers who want to develop additional resources that can be used by other community members and the public. The project resources may need to be modified slightly to remove references to campus or students; however, the basics of the activities are just as valid for writing with community members as they are for writing for community members.
List of Projects
| Project Name | Description | Keywords |
|---|---|---|
| Analyzing Resources through the Lens of the Community | Students consider how the community’s website design fits with the needs and ways of thinking and knowing of the community members, stakeholders, and others interested in the community’s efforts. | audience analysis, design, online content development, online presence |
| Answering Community Questions | Writers gather a list of questions that the community or the public have about the cause or about the community actions and then provide clear answers to each one. The questions and answers can be published as a frequently-asked questions (FAQ) format that is published online or in print. | FAQ, informational report, research |
| Building a Community Timeline | Writers review the accomplishments the community has reached as well as the levels of need that exist and then create a community timeline. The timeline can include past events as well as upcoming milestones. Writers can create a timeline for the web, or use a series of photos to create a Reel on Instagram. An infographic timeline can be published on the web and in print documents. | narrative, history, infographic, informational report, photo essay |
| Commenting with Tactical Meming | Tactical memes make critical comments on situations and values that matter to a community. Further they can provide advice and resources to a community (such as handwashing memes at the beginning of the COVID pandemic). Students examine relevant situations and values and then create memes that express the community’s response or commentary. | memes, persuasion, social media |
| Compiling a Community Action Toolkit | Students write a variety of materials that are combined into a resource collection for the community. Collections typically explain background on the cause and why it’s needed and then outline how to promote and participate in the cause. | collaboration, instructions, persuasion, report |
| Composing Community Handouts | Communities need to share materials beyond the Internet, so this assignment asks students to create resources that are meant to be printed out. Ideas include brochures, handbills, recruiting materials, and calls for donations. | document design, informative, persuasion |
| Creating a Community Style Guide | Students examine how a community’s ways of communicating expresses how and what members value when they talk about people and issues. Using what they learn, students create a descriptive style guide that outlines language practices for the community and those who create resources for it. | description, diction, grammar, language, style, tone |
| Defining Community Terms | After identifying words and phrases that are key to understanding the community, students compose definitions of the terms in a glossary or short dictionary. This community glossary can include abbreviations and acronyms, proper names of relevant parts of the organization or of documents that the group relies on. | definition, description, diction |
| Determining Online Identity Expectations | Students use guiding questions to gather ideas on what the community should have as part of its online presence. Their expectations can be published to others as meeting minutes or in an informal, internal report in memo format. | audience analysis, minutes, online presence, social media, report |
| Explaining Community Goals or Ideals | Every community needs to explain their goals and ideals, including information on what they are doing to reach them. This project asks students to write informational white papers to share these ideas with the public and stakeholders. | informational report, white paper |
| Mapping Community Stakeholders | Have students identify and map the stakeholders for a community to learn more about the audiences for the community resources they compose. | audience analysis |
| Planning a Social Media Campaign | Students consider how to use the community’s social media presence to organize a social media campaign, asking members and supporters to join in spreading the word. The campaign can include Tweets, Facebook posts and stories, TikTok and YouTube videos, and Instagram posts and reels. | informative, online content development, persuasion, social media, templates |
| Preparing for Public Gatherings | Writers provide step-by-step instructions on how to prepare for public gatherings, such as demonstrations, fundraising events, and informational presentations. Instructions can focus on topics such as how to be safe at a demonstration, how to design effective posters, and how to schedule member participation. | agenda, description, instructions |
| Presenting a Case Study | Have students compose a case study, integrating member and stakeholder quotations and descriptive details that show readers how the community has made a difference, demonstrates their ideals, or works toward their goals. | case study, narrative, persuasion |
| Researching Online Identity | Students assess the online identity of a community, searching for both the good and the bad and considering the community’s public reach and its engagement with and beyond the membership and stakeholders. The findings are published in a short report for the community’s organizers. | analysis, informational report, online presence, social media |
| Revising a Community’s Online Identity | After reviewing a community’s online assets and the related online identity, students write a proposal or a recommendation report that focuses on how to revise the online presence to make it more effective and engaging. | online presence, proposal, recommendation report, social media |
| Sharing Statistics | Students create a visual display of a community’s important facts and numbers by designing an infographic. The finished piece can be shared on the community’s website, through social media, and in printable documents and reports. | document design, infographic, social media |
| Spelling Out Community Facts | After gathering the key facts about a community, students compose a one-page community fact sheet intended for readers outside the community. | description, informational report, summary |
| Stating Community Policies | Every community has rules and guidelines for members to ensure that things run smoothly. Students compose policy statements for the community to share with members. | directive, informational report, instructions, policy |
| Visualizing a Community Story | Have students tell a story or capture a moment that is important to the community by designing a highly visual project to demonstrate a need relevant to the community as part of a proposal or recommendation. | description, narrative, photo essay, proposal, recommendation report |
| Writing Letters | Students write letters on behalf of a community. The correspondence can focus on a variety of purposes, such as asking a politician to support community efforts, inviting someone to speak to the community members, or expressing community ideals in a letter to the editor. | correspondence, email, informative, letter, memo, persuasion |