Grant Recipients
Veronica Austen, Arts, English St. Jerome’s University
(Project timeline: September 2025 - April 2027)
Description
This project assesses the impact of writing assignments that demand students imagine an audience beyond their instructor. It tests the hypothesis that enabling students to imagine rhetorical situations outside the classroom promotes engagement which thereby fosters students’ perceived and actual growth as writers. This project theorizes that imagining an audience beyond the instructor, but not having to write for a public audience, gives students a safe space to practice their role in public discourse and thus supports them in developing agency and confidence as communicators.
By assessing student engagement with and perceptions of a term-long scaffolded assignment involving an imagined book publisher’s call for manuscripts, this study explores the benefits and risks of this assignment type. The project will forge an understanding of the potential of imagining public audiences and subsequently, identify a set of best practices that could be used by other instructors of writing-intensive courses.
Research Questions
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How does writing for an imagined public audience impact student engagement and learning?
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What are the benefits and limitations of having students imagine a public audience (rather than, for instance, having them position their writing in actual public venues)?
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How does this style of assignment allow for, promote, and prosper from the various diversities in the classroom, including the multi-disciplinary interests of the students?
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How do students perceive their experiences writing for imagined public audiences prepare them for future academic and ‘real-world’ writing situations?