What Gets Read First? Visual Hierarchy for Tech Comm
September 8, 2026
This visual page for my Technical Writing classes explains and demonstrates how to use document design to build a visual hierarchy in technical documents.
Teaching Redundant Writing OR Digital Accessibility Example: You Decide!
September 6, 2026
The writing tips below are mostly reasonable. I’m contesting the advice that turning means the same thing as turning around. I loved helping students with application essays come to understand that they didn’t need “I think.” The whole essay was supposed to show their thinking.
Unfortunately the color contrast here is awful—yellow text on a red background! EEK! Further, the alt text is computer generated (so full of fluff). For instance, here’s the alt attribute for the first image: May be an image of text that says 'rebecca.watson.writes 20h Suggested Suggestedforyou for you Follow Open your manuscript and DELETE these redundant phrases @rebecca.watson.writes'. Right. So these could also be used to talk about digital accessibility.
What Writing Stage Are You Working On?
September 5, 2026
This is a cool idea. Would be fun in faculty writing retreats as well.
If you could be sure writers consistently and accurately changed the markers, it would be an interesting way to study writing workflows.
Here is a close up post that shows the writing on the signs more clearly.
First sign: I am currently Brainstorming.
Second sign: I am currently Writing.
Third sign: I am currently self-editing.
And below that: When you are done editing, stand this upright and look around. Find someone else whose sign is standing up and partner with them to peer review.
Tengrrl’s Do’s and Don’t for Workplace Writing
September 1, 2026
I’m busy making fancy resources for my Technical Writing course this term—but I haven’t gotten them posted and we’re already on Week 2!
So here’s a list of Do’s and Don’ts for Workplace Writing. Or more accurately perhaps, a list of things students do that drive me bonkers.
The image is below for showing off and decorative purposes. Go to the HTML version of the Do’s and Don’ts for working links and readable text.
Academic Writing vs. Technical Communication Infographic
August 22, 2026
I’ve created an infographic to accompany the course objectives idea in my previous post. The goal is to help students understand the differences between academic writing and the writing they will do in the workplace.
The working copy is coded in HTML/CSS and is clean in terms of its accessibility score. I’ve added a preview image below.
Academic v. Technical Writing Activity
August 14, 2026
If you’ve taught technical writing, you know that students are endlessly confused by the differences between academic writing expectations and technical writing expectations. It’s not especially surprising. Teachers pound margins and labeling and long paragraphs and essay standards into their brains for years, and then all of a sudden, none of that is the priority. They are supposed to write in completely new (and uncomfortable, as a result) ways.
I plan to create a visual infographic to help with the differences, but I already have an activity in mind that I want to try. Whenever I look at the official course objectives for technical writing, my heart sinks. They are the height of academic writing. They feel completely wrong for a course that asks students NOT to write in jargon-filled, long sentences of prosey prose.
Here are the current objectives for Virginia Tech’s Technical Writing service course:
Having successfully completed this course, students will be able to perform the technical writing tasks defined by the learning objectives for the course:
- Analyze the rhetorical situation and determine the appropriate audience or users of written communication, considering the needs of global audiences and people with disabilities.
- Conduct research appropriate to workplace problem solving, such as literature review, evaluation of online resources, interview, and site inspection.
- Interpret research findings with understanding of ethical and human implications.
- Use conventions of various workplace genres, such as proposals, instructions, correspondence, reports, and slide decks, with understanding of how the genre conventions can be used as heuristics and as principles of arrangement.
- Collaborate with classmates in planning, researching, writing, revising, and presenting information.
- Apply principles of effective visual design for print and electronic presentation, including hierarchical, chronological, and spatial arrangements.
- Identify and apply the principles of effective style in the composing of usable, reader-centered written communications.
The activity is plain and simple: translate that mess into plain language that are clear and concise. I want to open the course with this idea. It feels like a great way to (1) introduce the academic v. technical writing differences, and (2) examine what this course focuses on in more depth and detail than just reading that list will ever do.
Rethinking Technical Writing Discussions in Online Asynchronous Classes
July 17, 2026
Made with Midjourney
Today, I’m gathering thoughts on discussion posts. I am unendingly done with the whole “post your thoughts and then reply to two classmates.” They never work to create conversations. At best, students may make good observations, but the required interaction is just busy work. They aren’t interacting in thoughtful give-and-take.
SUNY Albany’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching, Learning, and Online Education has a great article on “Engaging students in structured discussions in an asynchronous course.” The first idea that spoke to me focused on structuring discussion questions for the asynchronous online environment:
Online instructors often express frustration when class discussions quickly devolve into “I agree” or “Good post.” This happens most frequently when we use prompts that are loosely structured (e.g., “What did you feel was the most interesting part of the reading?”) or that ask students to explain course concepts to each other (e.g., “Describe Durkheim’s notion of anomie in your own words and give an example from your own experience”).
In an in-person class, the instructor could use these prompts to move toward more meaningful interaction by asking clarifying questions, comparing students’ responses, or making connections across ideas. [Emphasis mine] Asynchronous online discussions are different because we aren’t there to orchestrate the conversation, and it unfolds over a much longer period of time. Using broad, loosely-structured prompts in that setting typically leads to superficial discussions that flag quickly and don’t have much genuine interaction.
Yes! Yes! Yes! The emphasized passage is absolutely on target. The work we do in a campus classroom doesn’t work in an asynchronous online course. Even if we read and respond to every student post, we can’t interact in the same way that we can in a campus classroom. Instead, we need to guide and build the interactions among students in a structured way.
Applying ideas in a discussion makes a better focus for student conversations. The SUNY Albany article explains:
Instead of asking students to show us what they know about the course content, we need to have them use the course content to take a position, make a decision, solve a problem, analyze a situation, etc. Short cases, scenarios describing real-world situations, or conceptual problems can work very well here because you can ask students to use what they are learning in the course.
In a writing-intensive course, asking students to apply writing strategies they are reading about switches from writing to prove you read the textbook to writing to learn and practice the ideas.
I’ll stop there for now. Next I’ll write about how I hope to make that writing to learn and practice happen.
Returning to the Blog!
July 13, 2026
From FamCare Rapid Case Management. Used under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.
It’s hard to get back to a long-fallow project like this. I keep thinking that my first post back needd to be something big—carefully argued, thoroughly useful, and polished within an inch of its life.
But you know what? It doesn’t. It just needs to exist. So this is me, returning to pedablogical and lists of ten in a small way.
I’ve missed having a place to think in public about teaching, writing, reading, and all the tools and questions that gather around those things. I’ve also missed the habit of noticing what I’m learning well enough to write it down.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about sustainable work: how to make room for teaching and writing without demanding perfection from either one. I’m still interested in classroom practices, digital tools, AI, writing pedagogy, and the ordinary problem of how to do meaningful work in humane ways. I’m also still reading, still tinkering, still making notes to myself that sometimes deserve to become posts.
So rather than waiting until I have a grand plan, I’m starting here with a plan to post small things: teaching ideas, resources, what I’m reading, what I’m trying, and the occasional reflection on whatever is helping me make sense of the work.
If you’re still here, thank you! If you’re a new reader, welcome!
I’m glad to be back. Now let’s get on with the teaching and learning.
In Search of a Custom AI Chatbot
July 31, 2024
I’ve been playing with some AI tools that let you build a custom chatbot. Matthew Vollmer, a colleague in the Department of English, mentioned back in May that he had created a custom bot that was loaded with his course documents.
I was immediately envious. Sure, students could just do a search of the course documents, but they frequently don’t. The idea of loading up a bot with my course policies manual, short guide to the course, and the group guide sounded wonderful. Students could ask the bot questions, and they’d get answers right from the course documents.
This evening, I played first with making my own GPT with ChatGPT (which requires a paid subscription). I wasn’t very successful so I looked for something that might be simpler. I landed on ChatBotKit, and I love it. I only fed it my group guide to test it. Free accounts are severely limited.
I set up my bot as a widget and tossed it up on a webpage to test. You can take a look for now. I’m already getting warning about exceeding the limits for the free account, so I’ll have to take it down in the next day. Here’s a screenshot showing part of a conversation I had with it, asking questions students asked at the beginning of the Fall and Spring Semesters:
The answers shown in the screenshot come directly from my group guide. I’m almost giddy about the possibilities. Students could ask direct questions and get immediate answers. Admittedly, I would rephrase things a bit, but overall, it’s using the text that I had in the guide. I think the changes are primarily where I’ve used first-person pronouns in the group guide. The bot isn’t the “I” from that guide, so it’s rephrasing.
There’s a problem however. Probably two, if I count Virginia Tech’s restrictions. We are only allowed to use approved software, and the only AI that’s approved is Copilot. The bigger issue for me personally is that the free version is not nearly enough. Pricing costs $25/month for the Basic package. The Pro subscription, which offers a privacy option that strips any personal data all messages, is $65/month. There’s a Team subscription that costs $365/month as well.
While ChatBotKit does exactly what I want quite easily, there’s no way I can pay $65/month to invoke the privacy option. I’m not even able to sign up for $25/month right now. So back to more searching for me. Why can’t I win the lottery?
It’s Okay to Use AI
July 27, 2024
I was just thinking about the “Run the dishwasher twice” advice this early morning. I take it to also mean “It’s okay to run the dishwasher twice” when you just don’t have the energy to unload the 1/2 pile of dishes in there. It’s okay to add what’s on the counter and run it again.
I apply this general concept to EVERYTHING (or at least I try to). The general idea to me is that it’s okay to take shortcuts, even if they may not be the ideal, best choice for you, your family, or the universe. I spent a few minutes this morning making myself some “Run the dishwasher twice” mini-posters to hang up and remind myself that it’s okay to do what you need to do, even if it’s not the most perfect choice in the universe. Believing that there’s only that ONE allowable way to do things is just perfectionism, and we all know perfectionism is the enemy of getting things done.
While in this “Run the dishwasher twice” headspace, I next picked up my to-do list of AI-related ethical scenarios that I’ve been working on. I’ve been using chatGPT to help me write these scenarios. Don’t get me wrong: They are my ideas and I edit the heck out of them. That said, I let AI brainstorm options, clean things up, and even do the HTML coding for me. It’s not that I can’t do all this myself. I’m simply using AI to speed up my productivity.
Of course, there’s a problem with all this. Those negative voices immediately showed up in my head. I frequently—VERY frequently—feel as if I’m cheating when I use AI. The kerfuffle over students using AI to cheat the system and plagiarize their way to graduation doesn’t help. I know that’s a ridiculous claim, but it’s still in my head. So when I go about using AI, I have this belief that I’m cheating the system. “Real” writers would never use such artificial shortcuts. “Real” writers would never use AI to create the images for their text. They would search for Creative Commons images. “Real” teachers would never, never use AI.
As I was sitting here in my self-loathing, telling myself that I could and should do better, my eyes glanced back over the “Run the dishwasher twice” mini-posters that I just made, that I haven’t even hung up yet. My remarkable voices shifted completely: “Stop it!” they said. “You’re just running the dishwasher twice. There’s nothing wrong with using AI to get things done.’ Sometimes my voices are super-freaking amazing.
So in case you’re in the “using AI is cheating” headspace, let me say this loud and clear:
It’s NOT cheating to use artificial intelligence to get things done. You’re using the tools you have at hand to get things done. Use it! Do your best work! Be your best you!
In fact, if you’re like me, a NTT teacher, you already have fewer resources and more to do than many colleagues for whom writing and research are required and supported. If you’re a person of color, a person with disabilities, a woman, or LBGTQ+, you historically have fewer resources and more demands on you. So take advantage of the tools you have available. What if you could write that code yourself or brainstorm a list of sample topics for your class? Let AI do that work so that you have time to mentor a student or colleague, pick up your child, or just take a deep breath. Run the dishwasher twice.