Course Title: Data Literacy and Writing
Author: Julian Heather & Angela Laflen, CSU Sacramento
Date Published: 2025
Course Level: Upper-Level Undergraduate
Course Description: Introduces data literacy skills to prepare students to analyze and compose data-based arguments in a variety of contexts. Building from a consideration of students’ personal experiences with data, the course provides students with techniques to evaluate and critique data-based texts and arguments and with criteria to evaluate the social implications of data use.
Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to:
- Assess data literacy development
- Explain the importance of data-based arguments & the social implications of data use
- Evaluate data-based texts and arguments
- Create data-based arguments
Teaching Philosophy: For college students and faculty, the rise of big data necessitates new understandings of how information is processed and environments in which writing takes place. Even if data were only used in ethical ways to facilitate good decision-making, students would need to develop data literacy skills given the prevalence of data in the texts students commonly encounter in academic, professional, and personal contexts. However, today, students must contend with a seemingly endless flow of mis- and disinformation circulating in online contexts, with data often playing a role in the spread of information that infuses confusion into public discourse with serious implications for democratic decision-making processes. This course focuses on helping students understand how reading and writing practices are changing in the era of Big Data and give them practice analyzing and composing data-based arguments.
