This page offers some information on the Community Writing and Education Station (CWEST), a project designed to provide opportunities for adult basic education.

Overview

The CWEST (pronounced "quest") was a sustainable, collaborative civic engagement literacy project that took place from 2007 to 2010. Literacy materials were developed in close cooperation between the Purdue OWL, the Lafayette Adult Resource Academy (LARA), a local adult basic education program, and the WorkOne Express office located at LARA. WorkOne is a state-run employment program in Indiana. Currently, the CWEST contains the following material focused on adult basic education and working class employment documents:

• Résumé, job application, and job search letter writing resources
• Resources for multilingual instructors and students

The CWEST project was an important step in civic engagement for the Purdue OWL because of its sustainable and participatory nature. To encourage sustainability, CWEST work has been integrated into the Purdue OWL mission. To foster participatory design, CWEST work was developed with LARA/WorkOne, and this work integrated empirical research. Some primary research questions for CWEST are: 1) How can the Purdue OWL form a sustained, participatory relationship with LARA/WorkOne? 2) What are the outcomes of this partnership?

Purpose and Goals

The purpose of the CWEST project was to integrate sustained cooperation between the Purdue OWL and greater Lafayette as an integral part of the Purdue OWL’s mission to foster literacy. Our major goals were as follows:

• Integrate local civic engagement as part of the Purdue OWL’s mission
• Investigate local civic engagement, public discourse, and English studies
• Communicate with LARA/WorkOne to understand their needs and work collaboratively to address those needs, as well as measure outcomes using empirical methods
• Develop resources that will benefit local literacy as well as the Purdue OWL’s global audience.

Benefits

Adult literacy users benefit from the CWEST because LARA/WorkOne learners and teachers develop educational materials collaboratively with Purdue literacy scholars. These resources help adult literacy users become more active members of a critical democracy through processes of engagement and empowerment: GED qualification, multilingual mastery, workplace and job search document literacy. Adult literacy users worldwide may also benefit from CWEST materials through the Purdue OWL's global reach.

Purdue benefits from the CWEST because the project strengthens educational relationships between the land grant state university and the local population. Because the CWEST works in collaboration with greater Lafayette, the resources developed may form a more equal relationship between users and Purdue. Specific benefits to the English Department include work across a number of disciplines—rhetoric-composition, professional writing, public rhetorics, multilingualism, literature, etc.

Support

To date, we have received generous research and engagement funding from Purdue University. The project has received support from the following organizations:

• Purdue OWL
• Purdue Liberal Arts Community Engagement (PLACE)
• Purdue Student Engagement Grant (Office of Engagement)

The CWEST project has also been awarded a 2009-2010 Purdue Research Foundation Grant for dissertation work.

Timeline

The CWEST developed over a three and a half year time span (2007 – 2010), separated into three stages: 1) GED preparation material; 2) multilingual skills material; 3) Workplace and job search document material. It does not appear that the GED material was ever archived on this website.

How is CWEST Different from Traditional Service Learning and Outreach? Theory + Research + Practice = Praxis.

Theory

We expanded our theoretical base to include more discursive rhetorics (Isocrates, Dewey, Asen). This theoretical shift is important because we posit that limitations associated with traditional service learning (Herzberg, 1994; Shutz and Gere, 1998; Scott, 2004) are linked to less flexible, less discursive approaches.

Research

The CWEST research was informed by the critical, situated, and empirical methodologies outlined in Opening Spaces by Patricia Sullivan and James Porter. We integrated user feedback into the CWEST Web area and literacy resources to better tailor them through iterative design methods.

Practice

CWEST is sustainable and participatory, informed by Jeffrey Grabill, Michele Simmons, and Pelle Ehn.