What to Focus on for Fall Writing Assignments
August 8, 2023
SEAL candidates participate in surf immersion during training at Naval Special Warfare by Official U.S. Navy Page on Flickr, used under a CC-By 2.0 license.
- Foundational Information, which covers
- rhetoric
- audience
- ethics
- plain language
- document design
The example assignment in the course template is an examination of kinds of writing in each student’s field (old version of that assignment that I have used).
- Usability, which covers
- document design
- plain language
- accessibility
The example assignment in the template asks students to choose a user documentation document (defined as including things such as an assignment from another course or a syllabus) and then revise it to increase usability. Students also write a reflection document that explains their choices.
- Project Management, which includes
- proposal
- progress report
- recommendation report
The example assignment proposes a recommendation report that identifies a campus-based situation and recommends improvements. For instance, the report might address how to “expand or improve study spaces or computer facilities (choose ONE) on campus.”
Additionally, the course needs to include memos, meeting minutes, and email. There are also various short or informal pieces that students complete each week (labeled as homework in the template).
What to Do???
I need to start with the Recommendation Report and work backwards. I prefer that there is some connection among the assignments so that they build on one another. It would be more difficult to start with foundational information when I’m not 100% sure what the foundation needs to support.
I gathered a list of potential report approaches. I’m not a fan of wide open assignments. They don’t include enough support to help students succeed. I like many of the options listed, and I’d love to do something similar to Cecilia Shelton’s project one day. But that day it not today. I would need to do more preparation for that kind of project than I have time for.
I have used assignments when students analyze a website and suggest improvements many times. In this new template, I like that it would build on the foundational information and the usability analysis that students would do in the first two units. I’m still very undecided on what websites students would consider however. These seem like the possible ways to go:
- Since this has to be a group project, asking them to focus on something related to their majors doesn’t really work. In some groups, they may all be in different majors.
- Students could choose a Virginia Tech website other than academic departments (similar to the Student Affairs approach I mention on the options page).
- They could look at Fortune 500 companies, but such websites tend to be highly polished. That leaves less room for students to find issues they can revise. Additionally, many Fortune 500 companies will have massive websites, far more than students could manage in the scope of this assignment.
- Students could look at local business, nonprofit, or organization websites. When I used this assignment in the past, many of the reports focused on local coffee houses, bars, and restaurants. Given that students may not have a shared career to work from, I’d probably see that focus again. I’d rather that the reports were a bit closer to students’ career interests.
- Perhaps it would work to go with larger companies (or even Fortune 500 sites) and then focus on customer support sections of the site. That would potentially engage students with technical how-tos and specific technical writing genres. It could bridge back to the Usability unit as well, where students analyze and revise a user documentation document.
If I go with that last idea, which seems maybe the easiest to adjust to groups and get away from overly polished sites (assuming I limit things properly), I need to think about these issues:
- When student analyze the sites (both for the usability and the rec report), I want to use Shelton’s questions for linguistic landscape analysis. She is having students look at a geographical space, but I think that a corner of the web can be defined as a space in a way that would work. The questions would need some adjustments, but I like that they get beyond simple aspects of document design, etc.
- The Writing Commons information on Recommendation Reports has students individually write problem-definition statements, and then use those within groups to decide on and write their recommendation reports. That is, if I follow the information in the Writing Commons site. I wish there were more details or examples there. Back to my classes though, I’m thinking that something similar could work here. Unit 2 on Usability is the individual piece, and then the groups work from those indy pieces to identify the challenges and then make recommendations.
- I still don’t know what to do with the first unit on Foundational Information. The topics are relevant, but I’m not sure about the analysis of writing in your field spreadsheet. Honestly, I’ve used that assignment so much that I’m kind of burned out on it.
- It would be cool to define customer support for the rec reports so that it includes things like tech support or advice podcasts, videos and the like. It would be quite cool if I can set things up so that it doesn’t have to be a company.
And that’s where I’m leaving things for tonight. I’m running out of time to get all this figured out, and NONE of the homework (which I’ll call Try-Its) or other assignments (big and small) are ready. I am committed to continue contract-based ungrading, so there is a lot of work I’ll need to manage to set that up. Especially with the weighting requirements in the template. Plus I’ve realized that my late policy needs a major revision to work for group projects. T -13 days…