Describes an assignment in which students write employee handbooks, outlining employee rights and responsibilities. Notes that this assignment integrates many concepts taught in a technical writing course, including informative writing, graphics, and readability. (MM)

Describes a technical writing course that meets the needs of students in English and the sciences. (RB)

Extends a previous article which describes an assignment (integrating many concepts taught in a technical writing course) in which students write an employee handbook. Describes the employment-at-will doctrine and discusses some recent legal cases surrounding employee handbooks. Offers exercises on defining audience, classifying and partitioning,…

Describes five writing activities for college writing courses: (1) a documented opinion paper exercise; (2) breaking writing rules; (3) trip reports from absentees; (4) case studies to promote writing for particular audiences for pragmatic purposes; and (5) an organizing strategy for studying, using a chart format. (SR)

A collaborative project in a college freshman technical writing class produced multiple benefits to those involved. The project, designed to be an experiential and investigatory writing assignment rather than a perfunctory one, challenged students to identify a campus problem regarding enrollment procedures and to work through the problem-solving…

Describes a writing assignment for business writing courses in which the class investigates a problem that affects them not as students but as members of a larger community. The assignment is a feasibility study for developing Athens, Ohio, as an arts and entertainment center. (HTH)

Technical communication teachers need to recognize the increasing diversity of their classroom populations and become more flexible in planning curricula without "watering down" students' expectations to leave the courses more skilled than they were upon entering. Teachers should discuss with students some of their writing barriers and the…

This anthology contains 21 articles on teaching methods and assignments in technical writing. The anthology is divided into three major sections. The first section, "Courses," presents plans for alternative approaches to the teaching of technical writing. The second section, "Components," offers a variety of activities for major segments within a…

Proposes rejection of the traditional complex classification of correspondence (letter of inquiry, claim letter, adjustment letter) and the adoption of a simplified system of classification (direct versus indirect communication), addressing the genuine complexity of a specific rhetorical situations. Offers teaching suggestions involving…

Many communication majors expect to do little written communication, since skill in oral communication is more developed if not preferred. Before a student writes or becomes engaged in the rational and logical process of evaluating writing, he or she is in the stage of clearing the mind for action. A non-rationalistic approach to writing seeks to…

Developed by classroom teachers during the development phase of Minnesota's Graduation Standards, this performance package is made up of locally designed assignments that, taken together, show whether a student has learned and can apply the knowledge and skills related to reading and applying technical information from a variety of English…

Describes how technical writing teachers, by using a system of peer critiques, self evaluation, and portfolio grading, can use process activities (student literacy autobiographies, interviews with professional writers, and writing peer groups) to extend the range of activities in technical writing courses. (MM)