last updated in September 2024 as part of the Outstanding University Teacher portfolio
I teach a range of courses in Technical Writing and Rhetorics, but the multifaceted philosophy with which I approach them centers on a few key strategies: teaching students social justice and user-centered approaches, designing meaningful and relevant courses, and developing a supportive classroom climate and culture.
I teach a range of courses in Technical Writing and Rhetorics, but the multifaceted philosophy with which I approach them centers on a few key strategies: teaching students social justice and user-centered approaches, designing meaningful and relevant courses, and developing a supportive classroom climate and culture.
Teaching Social Justice and User-Centered Approaches
Historically, Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) as a field was focused on pragmatism; that is, it saw technical communicators as mere translators of technical information for lay audiences, and blame for any errors in uptake was placed on users, not on the communicators. However, since the 21st century’s social justice turn (Walton, Moore, & Jones, 2019), which builds on the humanistic and cultural turns that came before, the field has shifted focus toward recognizing the role of the technical communicator as an agent who has power to cause harm to or empower users, or to do anything else in between. As such, teaching students how to recognize and use their power as technical communicators so that they can develop socially just documents is crucial.
One way that I do this is through course readings and other assigned media, where I make conscious efforts to include marginalized and multiply marginalized and underrepresented (MMU) scholars in all courses. Indigenous TPC scholar Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq maintains a frequently updated public list of works by MMU technical communication researchers, and I often use this as my first resource for finding current and relevant readings, which ensures that students have access to a range of voices, perspectives, and expertises. This is important because students need to understand that master narratives about the “ideal user” or the “ideal audience” are often grounded in Western ideals of whiteness, maleness, cisheteronormativity, financial wealth, and able-bodiedness, and also that such ideations are frequently partial or outright false. Take for instance a case I frequently bring to students: Black and fat (the preferred term in Fat Studies) users often report issues with Apple Watch not working correctly, which reveals that they are not considered in the development and testing of the product.
As such, it is important for students to learn how to produce not only usable texts and artifacts, but useful ones as well. Usability refers to the ability to use a text or artifact; usefulness refers to the ability for a text or artifact to be meaningful and add value—just because something is usable does not mean it is useful. In most courses I teach, students interrogate what it means to design something that is “user-centered,” questioning the notion of “ideal” users or audiences. Because there is no such thing as a truly “universal” document or artifact, I teach students research methods—such as interviews and content analysis—that allow them to understand their audience and how to optimize for local users.
One way that I do this is through course readings and other assigned media, where I make conscious efforts to include marginalized and multiply marginalized and underrepresented (MMU) scholars in all courses. Indigenous TPC scholar Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq maintains a frequently updated public list of works by MMU technical communication researchers, and I often use this as my first resource for finding current and relevant readings, which ensures that students have access to a range of voices, perspectives, and expertises. This is important because students need to understand that master narratives about the “ideal user” or the “ideal audience” are often grounded in Western ideals of whiteness, maleness, cisheteronormativity, financial wealth, and able-bodiedness, and also that such ideations are frequently partial or outright false. Take for instance a case I frequently bring to students: Black and fat (the preferred term in Fat Studies) users often report issues with Apple Watch not working correctly, which reveals that they are not considered in the development and testing of the product.
As such, it is important for students to learn how to produce not only usable texts and artifacts, but useful ones as well. Usability refers to the ability to use a text or artifact; usefulness refers to the ability for a text or artifact to be meaningful and add value—just because something is usable does not mean it is useful. In most courses I teach, students interrogate what it means to design something that is “user-centered,” questioning the notion of “ideal” users or audiences. Because there is no such thing as a truly “universal” document or artifact, I teach students research methods—such as interviews and content analysis—that allow them to understand their audience and how to optimize for local users.
Designing Meaningful and Relevant Courses
While learning social justice and user-centered approaches, students must also consider real contexts and develop appropriate courses of action. As such, I develop projects that help them put these concepts into action while gaining necessary skills and connecting meaningfully to their coursework beyond the grade they want to earn. Here are some ways I do this:
- ENG 249 (Technical Communication I) is an intro level tech comm course I often teach multiple sections of yearly. The final project—the recommendation report—asks students to find a problem in one of their communities, research solutions, and write a report to a real-life decision maker. This approach enables students to understand what can be at stake in this kind of context.
- ENG 351 (Digital Rhetorics) is an advanced undergraduate/graduate course I teach every Spring. The overarching goal of this course is for students to develop critical tools and approaches through a design justice framework (Costanza-Chock, 2018; 2020) to digital technologies that shape our identities and embodiments. Students learn to code inclusively and accessibly in HTML and CSS, common basic programming languages technical communicators are encouraged to know, and they dive deep into various technologies that impact our world. Through readings and other media, students learn about modern problems in technology (mis/disinformation on social media, exclusive and inaccessible design, and privacy/security issues, to name a few), and then through discussions they unpack ways technical communicators can address them right now, given the tools already at our disposal. Projects ask them to find real-world inequities in tech and report on ways to undo them and make tech more inclusive and accessible. My approach to teaching this course not only alerts them to real issues, but it also gives them the tools and hope necessary to fix them, including even making small adjustments to their own engagements with digital technologies (i.e., becoming critical users who do not unintentionally cause harm in their everyday engagements with social media).
- ENG 451 is a graduate level topics course I taught in Spring 2020 as Tech Comm in the Zombie Apocalypse, which focused on health, risk, and crisis communication. The course used a fictional zombie virus outbreak as a pathway to examine how to communicate complex medical information during a time of heightened risk, crisis, and emergency. As an actual pandemic unfolded, the course shifted into a Tech Comm in COVID course where students were able to analyze and revise public health documents in real time and develop communication strategies for their local communities. The students and I published an article in Technical Communication’s top journal (Technical Communication Quarterly) about the work we did in the course, which was nominated as Best Article in Technical Communication at the Conference for College Composition and Communication.
Developing a Supportive Classroom Climate and Culture
Finally, my pedagogy is influenced by intersectional feminist work on teaching and mentoring, which means that I recognize students as whole humans who are more than brains to which I must transfer knowledge. They are also bodies, and sometimes those bodies fall ill, sometimes they are differently abled, and sometimes they are just plain tired. Students also have multiple identities: in one moment they may be a student in my classroom, and in the next they may be an employee at their job, a parent to a sick child, or a part-time caretaker to a younger sibling. I recognize that sometimes my class is not and cannot be a priority for them and that sometimes their lives are more important than meeting my arbitrarily-set, semester-constrained deadlines (indeed, upon prior arrangement, the only real deadline in my classes is the day before grades are due, and even that is flexible for students who show themselves capable of finishing an Incomplete).
My classroom is an inclusive and flexible space. This means checking in with students on a regular basis and/or adjusting the workload or due dates as needed (always with 2/3 majority agreement). Sometimes it means working with students individually to allow them extra time to deal with family or health issues outside of school. It always means addressing issues of diversity, inclusivity, and equity within the classroom, not just in the audiences with whom students communicate, but also in their interactions with me and each other. Because of these tactics, students understand my classroom as a brave space where their health, wellness, and identities are priorities alongside my learning outcomes. My class becomes a space where all of us are working together to create a collaborative learning community.
However, this does not mean I am a pushover or that I do not have high expectations for my students; nor does it mean that my classroom is a space where students can get comfortable and complacent. I work with them to meet them where they are, challenging them to deconstruct their intellectual boundaries so that they can learn from each other and their audiences. Students consistently rise to these expectations, and I think it’s in no small part because I give them the time, space, tools, and community to do so.
My classroom is an inclusive and flexible space. This means checking in with students on a regular basis and/or adjusting the workload or due dates as needed (always with 2/3 majority agreement). Sometimes it means working with students individually to allow them extra time to deal with family or health issues outside of school. It always means addressing issues of diversity, inclusivity, and equity within the classroom, not just in the audiences with whom students communicate, but also in their interactions with me and each other. Because of these tactics, students understand my classroom as a brave space where their health, wellness, and identities are priorities alongside my learning outcomes. My class becomes a space where all of us are working together to create a collaborative learning community.
However, this does not mean I am a pushover or that I do not have high expectations for my students; nor does it mean that my classroom is a space where students can get comfortable and complacent. I work with them to meet them where they are, challenging them to deconstruct their intellectual boundaries so that they can learn from each other and their audiences. Students consistently rise to these expectations, and I think it’s in no small part because I give them the time, space, tools, and community to do so.