COURSE DESCRIPTION 

This course has been created to train graduate students with prior technical writing and teaching experience about advanced and current issues in the profession. It will give you a sound theoretical and pedagogical foundation should you decide to do more teaching but will also provide hands-on experience if you write or consult in the workplace. We’ll spend the first part of the semester warming up and discussing career correspondence and writing for the web. Then, we’ll concern ourselves with the what, when, who, and how of technical writing, asking “why” all along.  After discussing these theoretical concerns, we’ll focus on putting them into practice.

Our main concern will be with creating an online portfolio to be used in your job search, whether you’ll teach courses in business and technical writing or write for business, government, or non-profit agencies.  If you’re creating a site for teaching purposes, you could create something that outlines your own pedagogical approach and that includes a brief syllabus with at least one assignment. If you’re creating something for other jobs, you could create a website that includes but expands on your resume to provide samples of your writing and a more complete description—and demonstration—of your capabilities. 

REQUIREMENTS

Class Participation (20%) -- Participate regularly in our discussions. Once during the semester (preferably during one of our who, what, when, how periods), you help lead discussion. If one of the theory/reading sections doesn’t grab you, you could lead us in a demonstration of a software (Photoshop?) that you have acquired some expertise in. Provide justification in your plan of study.

Resume/Vita Set (25%) -- A resume/vita with supporting materials, depending upon your interests.

Menu (25%) -- Your choice of:

v     Newsletter Article – Contribute to Scroll, the English Department newsletter, and include a link to this article in your portfolio. Contributing might involve editing a section(s) or writing an article.  Or, research and writing for the Friends of the New River newsletter: Claytor Lake Dam Relicensing or the fly ash site in Giles.

v     Interview and Ethnographic Study –  Interview a workplace professional, preferably from a professional in a job you might want, and write a report summarizing your findings.  Also, work on getting an overall sense of the culture and vocabulary of that “place.”  Here's a sample of the undergraduate version.

v     Teaching Demonstration / PowerPoint Presentation – Your ten tips on effective technical writing or some other lesson designed by you and delivered to my class.

v     Respond to an RFP – Find an RFP or grant proposal and respond to it.  Put together a team and approach.

v     Science Writing – Research into the some scientific, technical, or complex process. What is foxfire? What's happening to the hemlocks?  Try to get this published. Would also take advocacy writing.

Online Portfolio (Website) (30%) – Create some website (four pages including a home page) for your own purposes and plan of study.  You might include links to the materials you created above. Or, you may design and write a website for a "client"; for example, Selu, or the Friends of the New River (they need theirs re-designed).  

A note on computers and Frontpage:  We may be working in the computer room regularly.  While we’ll be using computers to aid us in communication, at times you may wonder if they and their software are working against you.  Usually, there’s a way to fix the problem if you remain patient, calm, and resourceful.  Use your help features.  Do some deep breathing exercises. Consult me.  Call the help desk.  Stick with it.  Though I consider myself a writing teacher and not a computer teacher, I will help all that I can.

Thanks to Jim Dubinsky for helping to compile this.