In the spring of 2010, Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark’s ENG 311 Publishing course partnered with the Conservators’ Center, intending to raise awareness of the nonprofit organization that preserves threatened species. After developing concepts and collecting information, students collaboratively wrote, designed, and published one children’s book (and wrote the scripts for two future books) along with a coffee-table book. As the project centered on service, the students were aware of service-learning concepts and made rhetorical decisions accordingly.
Project Overview
Arthur Tiger Meets Kira Lion, the first work within the children’s book series, follows interactions between two real-life Conservators’ Center animals as they meet and move past their differences, all while walking the young readers through conservation concepts. The coffee-table book symbiosis explores the real-life relationships between animals and humans at the Conservators’ Center. It is a tribute to human-animal interactions, highlighting coexistence.
Rhetorical Decisions
Through the project, students faced the challenge of adapting to multiple audiences. Within the partnership, the class addressed the organization’s needs and wants, considering how the Conservators’ Center should be represented in the final products. Additionally, students discovered appropriate and efficient ways to communicate with the Center itself. Outside of the partnership, the class was concerned with the actual audiences for the books: people familiar with Conservators’ Center, people who had never heard of the Conservators’ Center, and Conservators’ Center workers and volunteers. After a series of proposals and collaboration sessions as well as extensive feedback from the director of the Center, students successfully created a fitting tone that met all the requirements.
CUPID Connections
Students partnering with the Conservators’ Center learned the importance of adaptation when they considered the multi-leveled audience. Collaboration was also vital part of the class. Students worked together in order to compose every element of the products—the images, the layout and the content were not the results of one person, but the work of many students. The class, then, was able to understand writing as a social action. The partnership allowed the class to look at service learning as a rhetorical relationship benefiting both parties—the Center gained books, and the students developed the rhetorical tools they need to be successful in their future careers while helping a fascinating local community organization in the process.