A Case Study: Focusing on Sustainability Themes and Ecocomposition through Student Blogs in a Professional and Technical Writing Course

Abstract

Tackling environmental and sustainability issues has grown in popularity in writing courses. Yet, for teachers designing professional and technical writing classes, what are the benefits and drawbacks in asking students to interact with place-based discourses in their digital compositions, including blogs? How does implementing an ecocomposition curriculum and sustainability topics in professional and technical writing courses affect students' research, digital writing, collaborative, and critical-thinking outcomes, along with influencing their personal and larger goals? This article discusses a four-year case study at a Southwestern university of an experimental course assignment's design, and it involves 252 students, including many Native Americans. Students engaged with environmental themes and ecocomposition methods in an upper-division class. This article includes a description of the class's major assignment, a blog site and reflective essay, and the blog's assessment criteria, with raters measuring the blog's writing outcomes. Overall, employing ecocomposition practices within the blog assignment unit provided students with a relevant curriculum, assisting them in conducting research for a blog space; writing digitally and thinking critically about diverse spaces related to their backgrounds, majors, and futures; and forging ties with classmates and potential outside audiences. The study's results have implications for implementing ecocomposition design in writing classes.

Covid-19, Stress Factors of Native American and Caucasian College Students, and Implementing Classroom Dialogues

“…Significantly, during an epic crisis, such as the current pandemic, it is teachers' job not only to attend to and assist students in identifying and attaining their academic goals but also, arguably, to aid them in bridging the gap between their academic and greater health, relational, and economic needs by pointing students not only to campus services but also to the potential outside community resources they may require. Particularly in the study's region, in the past, many students, both Native and Caucasian, have faced stressors linked to continuing elements of their marginalized ethnic/racial background, rural location, and low SES as part of the area's larger ongoing history (see Hembrough, 2019). Despite the unknown aspects associated with any colossal crisis, including that of the COVID-19 pandemic, over which most media coverage has been simplistic, more faculty, especially those teaching in remote course formats, must engender a continuing dialogue with students about events of local, national, and global impact, so that students can engage in analyzing and benefiting from communicating their related ideas and experiences while also listening to peers' portrayals of their own settings and obstacles.…”

“…Overall, within the pandemic, many students participated in remote learning as an alternative curricular format for colleges necessitating a shift. Yet, according to Hindun's and colleagues' (2021) university study, most students disliked the unexpected move online, especially if the new model afforded them little involvement with teachers and classmates, as it did for many at the current study's university, including Natives valuing groupwork designs matching their learning style and cultural worldview, and being integral to their persistence patterns (see Hembrough, 2019). Certainly, within the pandemic, for some Native students, including those at the study's university, the fast and jarring evolution to online coursework engagement may have been intense.…”

“…Ostensibly, Native students' expectations of systems inviting discourse, acceptance, and unity are ones that many peripheralized students may also share, with many students' sense of isolation having only grown during the pandemic, a time when some students believe their voices have gone unheard (see Liu et al, 2020). Significantly, regional Native students who interact regularly with faculty and students, including those of their race and other races, experience a greater feeling of belonging in college (Hembrough, 2019), an outcome worthy of consideration within the pandemic as being a period when students may be or feel separated from teachers, classmates, friends, and even family, with many students left to navigate their academic and greater worlds alone, online, and remotely, with fewer opportunities for face-to-face engagement and socialization than existed before.…”