New 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘵 Special Issue Highlights Real-World Writing at U of A

A new special issue of Prompt: A Journal of Academic Writing Assignments features University of Arizona faculty and their writing assignments: connecting course learning with students’ lives, communities, and future professions.

The issue, “Writing To | With the Real World in the Southwest,” was co-edited by WAC Director Aimee Mapes and Assistant Director Emily Jo Schwaller. The editors situate this work within the University of Arizona’s land-grant and Hispanic-Serving Institution contexts while recognizing the faculty collaboration that has helped sustain meaningful and inclusive writing instruction across disciplines.

Former WAC Faculty Fellows featured in the issue 

Three former WAC Faculty Fellows contributed examples from their teaching:

• Laura Gronewold, a 2021–2022 Fellow, co-authored an article with undergraduate teaching assistants Alyssa Norris and Sylvia Persin. Their reflective writing assignment, discipline-focused on Public Health, emphasizes student choice and positionality, helping students connect their lived knowledge with disciplinary learning.
• Theresa Crimmins, a 2023–2024 Fellow, collaborated with Kathleen Prudic on an assignment in which students use generative AI to create infographics about sustainable living concepts.
• Lateefah Collingwood, also a 2023–2024 Fellow, co-authored an article with Aimee Mapes about redesigning the nursing literature review. Their approach uses reflection and multimodal writing to help students understand the genre while connecting community knowledge with culturally congruent care.

The issue also includes Leona Davis’s counterstory assignment in environmental education and Ryan Straight’s artifact-based collaborative project in cybersecurity ethics. Across the collection, students draw on lived experience, examine real-world genres, compose in multiple modes, collaborate, and practice the kinds of writing used within their disciplines and professions.

Read and Reflect

Read the special issue in Prompt and consider how one of these examples might inform an assignment in your own course. What changes could help your students connect writing with their experiences, communities, or future work, and make that writing more meaningful at the University of Arizona?