Introduction Letter

Dear writers,

Thanks for reading Writing Elevated. This project originates from Weber State University, where, in 2025, we decided to redesign our EN2 curriculum to more explicitly incorporate skills like information literacy. Weber State’s campus, located in Ogden, Utah, sits at the foot of Mount Ogden at 4,685 feet of elevation. Writing Elevated plays on Utah’s tourism tagline, Life Elevated, which refers to both the high elevation in the state and the multiple engaging recreation activities we have out here.

However, we didn’t choose this name just to celebrate our love of hiking and ski season. We wanted to emphasize that you, the student reading this, already know how to write: in the so-called “digital age,” you practice your literacy skills every day. As we’ll discuss in Chapter 1, though, there are a lot of myths surrounding writing (particularly longer form, academic writing) that you might still believe in. You might think that you, someone who practices reading and writing every day, are not a good writer. Let’s take this semester to dispel that myth.

Alongside your writing, we want to elevate your information literacy practices–especially in an age of growing misinformation and AI-hallucinated “facts.” We want to help elevate your critical thinking skills about sources alongside how you think about connecting to audiences through communication. Your thoughts, your evaluations, and your connection to a reader are, as of yet, something that ChatGPT cannot do as well as you.

You may not be writing long, academic research papers after college. That’s okay. In the Utah summers, not everyone turns to hiking Ben Lomond (9,712 feet above sea level). Some people go for shorter hikes with less elevation. Others start mountain biking, or paddling on the reservoirs, or roadtripping to sightsee in one of the five National Parks in our state. We still encourage ethics like respecting wildlife, leaving no trace, and remembering your sunscreen. The rhetorical skills you’ll work on in this class will transfer the same way: even if you never think about discourse communities again, for example, you may have a better understanding of how language varies and adapts depending on a situation. Your communication will be better for it.

Happy writing!