"Remixing Community Cartographies: Mapping Community Engagement, New Media, And The Co . . ." by Christopher W. Susak

Access Type

Open Access Dissertation

Date of Award

January 2024

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

English

First Advisor

Jeff Pruchnic

Abstract

Community Writing has emerged as a relatively new subdiscipline that spans elements of larger fields such as Rhetoric and Writing Studies, Technical and Professional Communication, and Composition Pedagogy. Despite this recent emergence, teacher-scholars are still grappling with three major problematics traditionally associated with Community Engaged Learning (CEL) writ large: (1) this work frequently fails to address the real needs and basic material realities of community partners in favor of (2) a repetitive cycle of short-lived educational “experiences” for students, often without tangible and/or sustainable results, which is further exacerbated by (3) a shortage of useful data-driven assessment conducted on curriculum, pedagogy, and other community-oriented work within the discipline. To address these problematics, this dissertation proposes a methodological approach to teaching and assessing CEL courses based in assembly, remix, space, place, story, and practices from the Detroit Geographical Expedition and Institute. A pedagogical heuristic is described and then tested in an experimental course against a control. Student outcomes are assessed using mixed methods and discussed in relation to the heuristic's efficacy and future directions for research.

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