“Their Lincoln” is a collaborative digital mapping project created by a first-year writing class at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a ninth grade English class at Lincoln North Star High School. Over the course of the spring 2019 semester, students in both classes shared their place-based experiences of Lincoln, Nebraska in multimodal forms, including writing, photo, video, and audio. Their work covered topics like their favorite places in the city, significant memories attached to specific spaces, important walking or driving routes, and places in Lincoln that they thought were underappreciated or misunderstood.

The goals of this project were to help students develop a deeper understanding of Lincoln, become more aware of how experiences of places are personal and context-specific, and think critically about how they interact with Lincoln. UNL and Lincoln North Star are located in very different areas of Lincoln, and students at the two schools come from a range of backgrounds. As a result, students’ perceptions of “Their Lincoln” reflect their experiences as young adults who interact with this city in unique and varied ways. You can read more about the project in the February 2020 issue of the Nebraska Educational Technology Association newsletter.

This project was developed as part of the Husker Writers program, a network of secondary teachers, college educators, and community partners who collaborate to sponsor creative and community literacies. My co-teacher, Melissa Eichinger, and I won the 2019 Husker Writers Teaching Award for our work on this project.