Offers four reasons for using the case approach in introductory technical writing courses and a sequence of six cases that can be used. (RL)

Uses a single language system--technical description--to illustrate how language systems can now be used as the basis for instruction in technical writing. Provides sample exercises in progressive teaching from simple description to complex continuity devices, showing how they can be used at all stages of the writing process. (HTH)

Suggests assigning interview reports to students in order to avoid the problem of lack of teacher expertise on a technical topic. Discusses various formats for this kind of report and ways to implement the interview report. (SRT)

Suggests assigning students a spontaneous "how-to" paper the first day of class to clarify the need for audience and purpose considerations. (HTH)

Describes typical sentence, paragraph, and discourse level sentence combining exercises using material appropriate for technical writers. (HTH)

Suggests the use of driving directions to help two-year college students understand how the rhetorical principles learned in freshman composition apply to technical writing, and to render the concept of "technical writing" less threatening to the uninitiated students. (HTH)

Describes the rhetorical markers and format characteristic of all published brochures. Discusses a rationale and specific strategy for teaching the brochure. (HTH)

Describes a teaching technique designed to help students understand how and why technical writing works. Students study journal articles by answering lists of questions focusing on unity, coherency, definitions, illustrations, and documentation, then apply principles they learned through the exercise to preparing an informative report. (SKC)

Describes a strategy whereby teachers allow students to determine the standards by which their writing will be judged, and, in doing so, convince students to share their beliefs about good writing. (ARH)

Describes an assignment for which students must respond in 20 minutes to a memo from their teacher announcing that their class projects are due a week earlier than previously announced. Argues that students learn about the real conditions of memo writing through this exercise. (SRT)

Recommends assigning students to complete a library resources investigation to help them choose a writing assignment topic. (HTH)

Discusses methods to lend more realism to the technical writing classroom: (1) role playing, in which a report is written for someone other than the teacher; (2) presenting proposals orally at a party; (3) presenting a problem for students to solve through research; and (4) creating an advertising poster on a topic students know little about to…

Recounts the rationale and design of an ongoing attempt to use sentence-combining as a basic component of an effective instructional technology and to integrate that technology into a course in technical exposition. (TJ)