Teaching effective policy memo writing and infographics in a policy programme
Department
School of Government and International Affairs
Additional Department
School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-1-2022
Abstract
The Scholarship on education and practice has recently encouraged the inclusion of writing assignments in the classroom. Writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) programmes have been implemented across universities and colleges, promoting structured writing assignments outside of language-based programmes and courses. The collective knowledge on the subject highlights the effectiveness of frequent short assignments as being better for achieving learning goals, in comparison with more traditional, longer term papers often assigned in upper-division and graduate political science courses. This paper outlines our efforts to revise the curriculum in two of the courses in our policy-focused master’s program. In particular, we focus on two types of policy writing, policy memos and infographics. In this paper, we discuss the background of the program and courses, our choices of assignments, and their design and implementation. Further, we present evidence of how these assignments contributed to student learning in the courses.
Journal Title
European Political Science
Journal ISSN
16804333
Volume
21
Issue
1
First Page
165
Last Page
181
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1057/s41304-021-00330-0