Teaching Technical Writing Post 1.5: Course Goals

In my upcoming efforts to teach technical and professional writing, I hope to (tentatively) address the following objectives. By the end of my class, my students should be able to:

-          Develop Strategies for planning, drafting and revising writing

-          Critically analyze samples from multiple genres of writing

-          Critically analyze and create technical documents using different modalities

-          Reflect on how digital technology can dictate or influence the shape of technical communication

-          Write for multiple audiences, including those within their disciplinary community and for laypersons

-          Make informed choices about the different means of persuasion dictated by the social, cultural, and ethical backgrounds of discipline and audience

-          Learn to work collaboratively with people from a variety of different fields and specialties for specific project goals

-          Produce their own technical writing artifacts that may be used in their career development.

-          Utilize open access digital venues for fundraising and publication. Study the persuasive techniques of newer business models.

The last two points are key. I hope to use Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding within my class to hopefully give my students the opportunity to produce an actual project to post on websites like Kickstarter.com. By being able to actually create something of potential real world value, I hope to give my students a sense of the practical applications of both the theory and the practice of technical communication.