Blending Place Based Education and C3WP in Rural Nebraska: A Focus on Civil Discourse—Part 3 of The Nebraska Experience

This podcast focuses on Nebraska Writing Project co-director Melissa Legate’s pedagogical work to blend a place-based study of rural population decline with the College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP) focus on writing from multiple perspectives and nuanced claims. This project is offered as an example of the place-conscious principle of creating active citizens in the local community. Legate explains a “text set” developed from local newspapers on rural decline in her area and her 9th grade students’ response to the writing from that study. She goes on to describe the class follow-up final research project to investigate multiple points of view in a local issue, focusing on one student’s project on Willow Lake Recreation Area outside of town, and the many reasons for seasonal algae blooms there. Guests Dr. Robert Brooke, Director, Nebraska Writing Project Melissa Legate, Secondary English Teacher, Pierce Public Schools; Co-Director, Nebraska Writing Project