This semester, Visiting Assistant Professor 亚历克斯·Helberg 艾伦·K. Smith Center for Writing in Rhetoric, is teaching RHET 125 “Writing for a Digital World,” w在这里 students seek to underst和 the influence of digital technologies on writing 和 communication practices. Borrowing from rhetorical theory on concepts like genre, 话语社区, 互文性, 和 rhetorical ecologies, Helberg is teaching students how to write for public audiences through a 社区学习 podcast project in partnership with 哈特福德食品系统 和 健康哈特福德中心 (终极战士).
The class has been working with community partners Dani Singerman 和 Denise Holter at HHH who, after five years of work, are at a crucial point in attracting a grocery chain to start a location in the North End of 哈特福德. The timing of this collaboration has been helpful both to Helberg as he incorporates a real world component into the students’ final assignment 和 to Singerman 和 Holter, who are incorporating this podcast series into HHH communications plans. The interviewees for the series present “different sources of expertise, working directly with people who experience food security as well as people who study it from a big picture about the systemic issues.” It has been a “genuine exchange of expertise,赫尔伯格说。, with Singerman coming into the class with her own expertise on teaching 和 food justice.
The students are interviewing people in the North End about what they want 和 how it would positively impact them if a grocery store opened t在这里. They will also be interviewing 和 getting input from the project task force. The podcast series will be released Winter 2022-23 和 include 10-15 minute episodes that will provide a snapshot of an array of community 和 expert perspectives. 
学期结束时, Helberg’s students are working to make the audio recordings available in an archive for HHH to use in other digital communications. They are also working to ensure the podcast content is suitable for long-term use by their partners by time-stamping the audio for key themes 和 words 和 creating transcripts. Helberg describes this process as, “Composing for re-composition: How do you produce something knowing that it could be used for something else?”
As part of their coursework, students are considering questions about the pitfalls 和 promises of digital activism. Helberg says they’ve explored questions including, “How can this type of activism be helpful in the future? Why do some campaigns fail or flourish? What is digital advocacy good for? 是什么让它起作用的? What are the potential risks of presenting people’s voices in audio format? How do we authentically present their voices?”
In addition to class discussions, the students listened to other podcasts on food justice to prepare for writing questions 和 interviewing. They read case studies of community-based podcasts that went well 和 others that went poorly. When it came time to do the interviews, they aimed to create a rapport with the interviewees before jumping into talking about food insecurity.
吉姆·克鲁格, a former 哈特福德 resident who created a podcast on the history 和 implications of the construction of I-84 in 哈特福德, visited the class as another resource to build skills for podcasting. The class also visited StoryLabs, the on-campus professional grade podcasting studio. 在实验室, they learned about podcasting software 和 how to use the space in the future if they are inspired to continue with podcasting.
Helberg worked on developing this course as part of 社区学习 教师 Fellows (CLiFF). He’s applied skills learned in CLiFF to the creation 和 implementation of the course. He says CHER Director 和 Professor Abigail Fisher Williamson 和 社区学习 Director Erica Crowley have been instrumental in giving a strong set of guiding questions for how to think about projects, from the basics to the more complex. He has interrogated his own assumptions about what projects could look like 和 how to reflexively use the content in course to make his project partnerships better. “As someone coming into this as their first faculty job, it has been really enlivening to be part of a university community that is really invested in the surrounding community,赫尔伯格说。.
Summer 2023 update: The podcast is now out! 来看看 在这里 or w在这里ver you get your podcasts.
