Schedule

Date                

Schedule/Readings

Assignments Due

• Central Works in Technical Communication (CWTC) 1. Connors, “The Rise of Technical Writing Instruction in America”
• CWTC 2. Rutter, “History, Rhetoric, and Humanism: Toward a More Comprehensive Definition of Technical Communication”
• Miller, “What’s Practical about Technical Writing?” (Readings)
• Sullivan, “After the Great War” (Readings)

• Smith, “What Connection does Rhetorical Theory have to Technical and Professional Communication?” (Readings)
• Bitzer, “The Rhetorical Situation” (Readings)
• Kent, “Paralogic Hermeneutics and the Possibilities of Rhetoric” (Readings)
• CWTC 6. Rude, “The Report for Decision Making: Genre and Inquiry”
• CWTC 7. Johnson, “Audience Involved: Toward a Participatory Model of Writing”

• CWTC 9. Thralls & Blyler, “The Social Perspective and Professional Communication: Diversity and Directions in Research”
• CWTC 10. Lay, “Feminist Theory and the Redefinition of Technical Communication”
• CWTC 11. Slack, Miller, & Doak, “The Technical Communicator as Author: Meaning, Power, Authority”
• CWTC 12. Johnson-Eilola, “Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post-Industrial Age”

• CWTC 19. Charney, “Empiricism Is Not a Four-Letter Word”
• CWTC 20. Sullivan and Porter, “On Theory, Practice, and Method: Toward a Heuristic Research Methodology for Professional Writing”
• Koerber and McMichael, “Qualitative Sampling Methods: A Primer for Technical Communicators” (Readings)
• Slavin, “A Practical Guide to Statistics,” from Research methods in education, 2nd ed., (1992) (Readings)

• Faigley, “Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and a Proposal” (Readings)
• Flower and Hayes, “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing” (Readings)
• Hart-Davidson, Spinuzzi, and Zachry, “Visualizing Writing Activity as Knowledge Work: Challenges & Opportunities” (Readings)
• Slattery, “Undistributing Work Through Writing: How Technical Writers Manage Texts in Complex Information Environments” (Readings)

• CWTC 31. Bosley, “Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Whose Culture Is It, Anyway?”
• CWTC 32. Brasseur, “Contesting the Objectivist Paradigm: Gender Issues in the Technical and Professional Communication Curriculum”
• Wilson, “Technical Communication and Late Capitalism” (Readings)
• PWE guides for teaching ENGL 304 and 305

• CWTC 27. Tharon W. Howard, “Who ‘Owns’ Electronic Texts?”
• CWTC 28. Stephen A. Bernhardt, “The Shape of Text to Come: The Texture of Print on Screens”
• CWTC29. Selfe & Selfe “The Politics of the Interface: Power and Its Exercise in Electronic Contact Zones”
• Haas, “Race, Rhetoric, and Technology” (Readings)

• Brumberger, “Making the Strange Familiar: A Pedagogical Exploration of Visual Thinking” (Readings)
• Hocks, “Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing Environments” (Readings)
• George, “From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing” (Readings)
• Lauer and Sanchez, “Visuospatial Thinking in the Professional Writing Classroom”

• CWTC 16. Barton and Barton, “Ideology and the Map: Toward a Postmodern Visual Design Practice”
• Kumpf, “Visual Metadiscourse: Designing the Considerate Text” (Readings)
• Salvo & Rosinski, “Information Design: From Authoring Texts to Architecting Virtual Space” (Readings)
• Tufte, “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint” (Readings)

Topic: Workplace Studies.
Readings:

• CWTC 21. Jack Selzer, “The Composing Processes of an Engineer”
• CWTC 23. Dorothy A. Winsor, “Engineering Writing/Writing Engineering”
• CWTC 24. Nancy Allen, Dianne Atkinson, Meg Morgan, Teresa Moore, and Craig Snow, “What Experienced Collaborators Say about Collaborative Writing”
• CWTC 26. Barbara Mirel, “Writing and Database Technology: Extending the Definition of Writing in the Workplace”

• CWTC 14. Sullivan, “Political-Ethical Implications of Defining Technical Communication as a Practice”
• CWTC 15. Herndl, “Teaching Discourse and Reproducing Culture: A Critique of Research and Pedagogy in Professional and Non-Academic Writing”
• Gough and Price, “Developing Ethical Decision-Making Skills: How Textbooks Fail Students” (Readings)
• Dombrowski, “Can Ethics Be Technologized? Lessons from Challenger, Philosophy, and Rhetoric” (Readings)

• Dicks, “The Effects of Digital Literacy on the Nature of Technical Communication Work” (Readings)
• Blakeslee, “Addressing Audiences in a Digital Age” (Readings)
• Clark, “Shaped and Shaping Tools: The Rhetorical Nature of Technical Communication Technologies” (Readings)
• Thatcher, “Understanding Digital Literacy Across Cultures” (Readings)

• Presentations
• Research paper due