Late Policy & Grace Period Options

August 11, 2023

A statue of an angel with an uplifted arm. Its wings are spread wide open. Surrounding tombstones are also visible.

Grace by Jonathan Lin on Flickr, used under a CC-BY-SA license

I seriously hate having to change my late policy. I had more than a few students thank me for it last term. Several even said that they would have had to withdraw without it. That said, I understand that members of a group cannot all work under different ideas of the due dates if they are going to create collaborative documents.

My challenge then is to search for some way to give everyone some freedom without hampering collaborative work. I thought brainstorming the options would help:

  1. Screw it. Use the old system. Let the groups have anarchy.
  2. Also screw it. No grace period. No humanity. Meet the deadline or else.
  3. Use a short grace period on everything. 3 days.
  4. Use 3 day grace periods for tasks like homework, check-ins, etc. Longer grace period for major projects (up to one week?).
  5. Use 3-day grace periods for tasks like homework. Groups set their own independent deadlines for all collaborative work. Provide “suggested” deadlines to help them pace things out.
  6. Give up. Go live under a bridge with the other trolls.

Option 6 is looking like best right now. Okay, not really. I suspect Option 5 is the best way to focus students on Project Management, which is, after all, the focus of the final unit. They are to write proposals, progress reports, and recommendation reports; but the overarching goal is learning project management in the context of composing technical writing.

In some ways, earning a Complete on the writing projects should not be the goal. Working smoothly and effectively as a group should be. I’m having flashbacks to the good old days when I taught Writing and Digital Media. Back then, students had a major project that could be anything from a video documentary to a website. I tried to be aware that the goal was learning about how to compose with digital tools, not perfect productions. I emphasized being brave and taking risks. I regularly reminded the class that if they put in the effort, took risks, and tried, they would do fine in the class.

Obviously I don’t want to set students up to have problems with the grace period, but I could emphasize that the goal is to collaborate well while meeting as many of the writing goals as possible. I’m beginning to see that the deadlines put the emphasis on the wrong things. I’m freaking out over how to have work turned in so that the group can proceed to the next task. If I control all the deadlines and have a lockstep progression that I expect the class to follow, students aren’t practicing or learning anything other than obedience—and I don’t teach courses on obedience.

I hope this still makes sense tomorrow.

Filed under Teaching Prof Comm, technical writing

The Tricky Focal Question Solved?

August 10, 2023

Wide blue garage door with a yellow sign above that reads Focus for DIY and Gardening

Focus by morebyless on Flickr, used under a CC-BY 2.0 license

Yesterday, I finally settled on the general assignments and their connections among one another. There was still one tricky issue however. I needed to figure out the specific focus sites or documents that students would use for their assignments. I left things by pointing out these three general options:

  • Students focus on their own major/field/discipline/career goals (however it’s defined).
  • Students focus more generally on their college’s area (e.g., Engineering, Science, Agriculture & Life Sciences).
  • Students focus on anything they like (which I fear is too open and could result in analysis of random and likely off-topic sites).

Because the Usability unit in the template asks students to revise User Documentation, whatever I end up with has to include some kind of instructions that students can analyze and rethink.

I was sitting here tonight not even thinking about the assignments. I was finishing up the online Kroger order for pick-up tomorrow, and suddenly I thought, have them choose any website that a Virginia Tech student might use in their academic work. Exclude academic departments, centers, schools, and colleges. Require that the site includes some kind of user documentation among its features.

  • Software company sites like Canvas or MatLab.
  • Resource sites on campus like the Counseling Center.
  • Library sites.
  • Various academic support sites like the registrar’s office or the Services for Students with Disabilities site.
  • General software company sites like Microsoft or Adobe.
  • Textbook websites, whether OER or publisher sites.
  • AI sites like ChatGPT.
  • (Probably not a good idea, but…) Sites like Chegg or CourseHero.
  • Communication software like Zoom or Gmail.
  • Video sites like Kaltura or YouTube.

I think this focus will result in choices that students can relate to regardless of major. It can even be a benefit if the group moves on to choose a resource that a group member has never used. Who better to test online instructions and other resources than someone trying to figure out how to use it for the first time?

Those are all large sites, so I will have to provide some guidance for narrowing the focus to a particular portion of the site. It just might work!

I still have no idea how to solve the thorny grace period problem, but I think the rest of things are coming together.

Filed under Teaching Prof Comm, technical writing

Potential Assignment Sequence

August 9, 2023

Vertical stack of stuffed-full writing journals

journals by Barry Silver on Flickr, used under a CC-BY 2.0 license

I could just think my plans through and go implement them. I’m better though if I think them through by writing them out. Just trying to think in my head means I may not consider everything. So these Ramblings posts are essentially my think-aloud teacher’s journal. I’m figuring out what I want to do and documenting why I’m doing it.

These posts not only help me figure things out now, but they will also help me at the beginning of next term when I assess how things went and make changes for the Spring semester. So if you’re interested, read on to see what I’m thinking.

Tentative Assignment Sequence

Yesterday I struggled mainly with the recommendation report focus and my desire to connect the major assignments so that they build on one another in ways that students understand. I could just say something like, “Trust me. These are related.” It’s better though when students can see and understand the connection. That “Trust me” stuff only goes so far. And honestly, I need their trust in other areas more than I do in believing in the connections among the assignments. (Specifically, in the ungrading system. But that’s another post for another day.)

Following all the thinking yesterday, I’ve come up with these series of major assignments:

Unit/Module Major Assignment(s) Other Activities to Include
Foundational Information Analysis of Online Resources (from Your Field?)
Usability
  • Online User Documentation Revision
  • Reflection Memo
  • Alternately Online Customer Support Document Revision?
 ???
Project Management
  • Online User Documentation Recommendation Report
  • Proposal
  • Progress Report
 Meeting Minutes

What to Do about Specific Focus Areas & Groups?

I’m still trying to figure out how to deal with groups and the topics of these pieces. The major issue is whether to have students

  • focus on their own major/field/discipline/career goals (however it’s defined).
  • focus more generally on their college’s area (e.g., Engineering, Science, Agriculture & Life Sciences).
  • focus on anything they like (which I fear is too open and could result in analysis of random and likely off-topic sites).

The group composition is the key here. If groups are completely mixed, it will be harder to choose topics for the recommendation report. For instance, if I’m an Ag major, I’m not going to have much connection to a website on assembly language, chosen by and Electrical Engineering major. If it’s wide open, I’m likely to get coffee house websites or local hair salon websites. That feels far away from students’ fields. So far away that it borders on busy work. This is a major issue to figure out.

Restructuring for More Group Collaboration and Coordination

I like the The Writing Commons structure of having a problem-solution definition project feed into the recommendation report (as I mentioned in the last post). Students write their problem-solutions, and then they develop a pitch based on that problem-solution that they present to their group members. Group members then choose among the presented problems of the group members for the topic of their recommendation report (and related documents).

To implement a similar assignment arc, I’ll need to rearrange the course structure in the template a little. I want students meeting and interacting with their groups BEFORE they have to decide on their recommendation report focus. Not only would it allow them to get to know one another before it is critical to their work, but it would also give them support as they work on their second projects. I’m seeing them working as a peer review group on the Usability unit and then moving to collaborative writing for the Project Management Unit.

Beyond the collaboration angle, I’m worried about the jam-packed end to the semester in the existing template. Here’s what it looks like as is:

Week Assignments Due
Week 10 Meeting Minutes
Week 11 Proposal Draft
Week 12 Progress Report & Proposal Final Version
Week 13 Recommendation Report Draft
Thanksgiving Break No work due
Week 14 Recommendation Report Draft 2
Week 15 Recommendation Report Final Version (by end of exam week)

I have multiple concerns about this schedule. First, I don’t think it’s reasonable to have major drafts and final versions due every week for the last third of the term. These are juniors and seniors for the most part, and they are all busy with major projects in all their courses. Many of those courses are far more important to them than my tech writing course (like their in-major senior capstones, for instance). I know this is a group project, so there is less work than individual projects. Still it feels far too crowded for me.

Beyond that, I readily admit that I am not superwoman. How in the world am I supposed to keep up with feedback on all of that for 4 classes of 22 students?! I’m in favor of plenty of feedback, but if I can’t keep up with this schedule, I’m hurting students—and trust me, I know I cannot keep up with that schedule.

That schedule also violates some working guidelines that I have been using the last few years when scheduling course work and my workload. Most importantly, I do not collect drafts (early or final) to respond to over Thanksgiving Break or Spring Break. That decision has allowed me to take a break and come back ready to finish out the course.

I also allow unlimited revision until the end of the grace period (usually the last Friday of classes). That means I could need to provide feedback on these documents even more times than are listed. I strongly believe in risk-free drafts that students can revise as much as needed. Even if a small handful need revision chances on these documents, it is going to add even more to my workload. I don’t think it’s reasonably possible. I’d rather start the collaborative writing earlier to have a better pace on the writing for the students and feedback for me.

Finally (yes, I have one more thing to say), I use ungrading that allows students to meet contract-style expectations to earn their grades. For instance, they need to earn a Complete on all of the major projects in order to earn an A in the course. In my system, the final exam is an optional Performance Review, in which they review their work during the term and can then argue for a higher grade than the number of Completes they have earned. They could argue for a lower grade too, but students are not crazy. The final is an important part of my system, so I don’t want to drop it. Nor do I want to pile it on top of the other work they are doing for the course. So this too means that I need to slide the work back in the term.

The downside of shortening time on earlier units would seem to be that students will have less time to learn those concepts. I don’t think that is an issue however. I’m setting up the sequence with the UX unit feeding into the Project Management unit and with the foundational information serving as the basis for their analysis of the UX document and of their recommendation report. Students will spend slightly less time during the opening weeks, but they will work with those concepts all term long. They are literally the foundation of every project they will complete.

And so….

That’s where I’m at now. I still need to figure out how I want to arrange students in groups, which matters in deciding the ultimate focus of the assignments.

I also have to figure out how the grace period (or late policy) is going to work for all these assignments. It has to be adjusted for the group work. I can’t have a single student’s decision to use the grace period impact an entire group’s progress. I know it means that I have to have different grace periods for different work. The big challenge is figuring out how to set that up, and the even bigger challenge is finding a way to make the system clear to students. I’ve had too many students in the past who get confused when different tasks have different grace periods. I need to figure out how to make it as clear as possible.

Those two tasks will wait until later however. That’s enough progress for today.

Filed under Teaching Prof Comm, technical writing Tagged with ,

What to Focus on for Fall Writing Assignments

August 8, 2023

SEAL candidates participate in surf immersion during training at Naval Special Warfare.

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.

You might say that I’m a little overwhelmed as I try to set things up for the fall, and I really need to figure out my fall assignments. First the requirements. There are three units (arranged in Canvas Modules) that I must work within, and for each unit there are related expectations:

  1. 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).

  2. 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.

  3. 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…

Filed under Teaching Prof Comm, technical writing

Recommendation Report Assignment Options

August 7, 2023

Snarky recommendation on the back of a blister package of 16 acetaminophen caplets (500mg each).
Recommendation for Headaches by Juhan Sonin on Flickr, used under a CC-BY 2.0 license
Text included in the image

A recommendation

If you are currently having an affair with a sibling of your spouse, embezzling funds from a children’s charity, and emotionally abusing your pet, “Help I have a headache” might provide only a temporary solution to your headache. If you would like a more permanent solution for your headache, may we suggest you end the affair with the sibling of your spouse, stop embezzling funds from children’s charities, and treat your pets kindly.

As I have worked on my plans for fall, I knew that I wanted to change the topic for the recommendation report. To help with that decision, I gathered the following list of potential topics for the report. It seemed useful to write up what I have so far to share and refer back to as I work on the progression of assignments for the fall course.

I haven’t decided whether to go with one of these or something else. I’m still brainstorming.

Assignments I Used Previously

  • Choose a website and analyze its use of audience awareness, ethical considerations, plain language, and document design, with the following focuses:
    • Choose one of the divisions of Student Affairs and make recommendations to the Vice President of Student Affairs. (2013 assignment link)
    • Analyze a genre of writing relevant to your field/major, and recommend the best way to compose such a document. (Building on an assignment of Paul Heilker’s. My 2019 version assignment link.)
    • Choose a Fortune 500 website and make recommendations to the CIO on how to increase the site’s diversity and inclusion. (2020 assignment link)
    • Choose a local website, defined as in Montgomery County, Blacksburg, Christiansburg, or Radford. Make recommendations to the appropriate stakeholder(s) at the relevant company, nonprofit, or organization. (2021 assignment link)
  • Identify a dangerous or inconvenient area or situation on campus, in a workplace, or in your community (endless cafeteria lines, an unsafe walkway, slippery stairs, a bad campus intersection). You may also identify a problematic online resource (an inaccessible corporate website, for instance). Analyze the situation and recommend the actions to take in order to improve it. (2020 assignment link)
  • Identify a food-related challenge that Virginia Tech students face, investigate solutions, and make a recommendation to an appropriate audience (such as Virginia Tech students, the Dean of Students, or the President). (2022 Topic Overview Link)

Assignments Found in Online Searches

I’ve noted the sources when I could relocate them.

  • Digital Divide Solutions, particularly focusing on Internet access and community needs. Including access needed for K12 students to do their homework. (A NC report on the topic)
  • Choosing a philanthropy for the company to support. Similarly recommending ways to support the philanthropy. (Found on CourseHero)
  • Recommendations for avoiding risks of machine risk, for machines in your major.
  • Review 2 or 3 introductory textbooks in your field/major, and recommend use of one for incoming students. (Found on ATTW Blog)
  • Ways to increase online community and engagement, from post-COVID (Algonquin College)
  • Appropriate or reasonable recommendations for social media and teens.
  • Review work your group did in the past and recommend the grade you should receive.
  • Funding recommendations for the campus. Choose a set amount and have students recommend how the money should be spent.
  • Recommend a conference or meeting venue for a specific event. Related recommend location for course meet-up.
  • Recommend an item that the company needs to purchase, setting relevant criteria for the item and evaluating at least 3 options.

Topics I’m Considering

  • Recommend ways that someone in your intended field or career could use AI ethically and legally to address a need or solve a problem.
  • Recommend most effective social media strategies to use for a specific organization’s goals (e.g., to raise money for a specific cause, to increase membership, to encourage public participation in a special event).
  • Write a recommendation report that “Advocate[s] for the inclusion of the spaces [‘nclusion of a nursing mothers’ room and a gender-neutral bathroom in the renovation plans for a new office building’] at the direction of an executive board who has already made the decision after hearing an oral presentation of the proposal and associated research. It positions the student writers as needing to document the research and deliberation process in a report and work to educate employees about the intended purpose and clarify the proper use of each space, establishing policies and expectations where necessary.” (Shelton, Cecilia (2020). Shifting Out of Neutral: Centering Difference, Bias, and Social Justice in a Business Writing Course. Technical Communication Quarterly, 29(1), 18–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2019.1640287)

Filed under technical writing Tagged with

Finding Sources for My Community Action Assignments Project

July 9, 2022

Covers of six books on Community Writing

I’ve felt a bit scattered as I’ve searched for sources for the project. Writing up the theoretical, pedagogical underpinnings is not my forte. I always feel a bit lost as I try to find the material to (in my mind) justify the assignments and strategies that I want to use.

Some would say I’m just suffering from a massive case of impostor syndrome. I would argue that it is at least partially that I am always stepping into topics that I haven’t had enough time to examine. I own lots of books, but I rarely get to read them all. I never know the latest articles or the most relevant publications. I always have to seek them out.

So that’s my situation. I have assignments and strategies to write up more fully. I have a strong sense of what will work and what students and teachers need to make an activity work. What I don’t have is a literature review that supports what I want to write.

Unfortunately the academy does not work on a “trust me” system. You have to spell out your support. You can’t just say what to do. You have to have a system that explains why it’s the thing to do.

During and since the ATTW Conference, I have been seeking out the sources that would help me explain the answers to some of those questions I mentioned from Lucía Durá and Bill Hart-Davidson’s featured workshop: Why these projects? What undertake these assignments now? What will the results be?

My simple search for resources that fit keywords such as community and writing yielded a handful of books:

Alexander, Jonathan, & Dickson, Marcia (Eds.). (2006). Role play: Distance learning and the teaching of writing. Hampton Press.

Deans, Thomas (2003). Writing and community action: A service-learning rhetoric and reader. Longman.

Deans, Thomas, Roswell, Barbara S., & Wurr, Adrian J. (2010). Writing and community engagement: A critical sourcebook. Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Faber, Brenton. D. (2002). Community action and organizational change image, narrative, identity. Southern Illinois University Press.

Grabill, Jeffrey T. (2007). Writing community change: Designing technologies for citizen action. Hampton Press.

Ryder, Phyllis Mentzell. (2011). Rhetorics for community action: Public writing and writing publics. Lexington Books.

What worries me most about these books is that while they are all appear to be quite relevant, they are not exactly the newest publications. Spanning the range from 2002 to 2011, the most recent title, Ryder’s Rhetorics for community action is over a decade old. The oldest of the titles, Deans’ classroom textbook Writing and community action, is two decades old. So I have to wonder if the entire topic is out of date. Is this a project that I should have been working on 20 years ago? Should I be approaching my ideas from a service learning angle rather than community writing and rhetoric? Who knows? I’m not even sure how to figure that out. For now, I’ll keep looking for more recent interest in the topic.

Filed under Personal Journal Tagged with

Community Action Assignments Project, #2

July 8, 2022

Cover of the ATTW 2022 Conference Program showing large bands of black, green, and pink with the text 24th Annual Conference, 2022 ATTW, Taking Action, Reimagining Just Futures in Technical Communication
Cover page of the ATTW 2022 Conference Program.

More things to record and think about for the collection I mentioned in my previous post. I described the advice I gathered from the works-in-progress session during the ATTW Conference in my previous post. It wasn’t the only session that seemed perfectly aligned with the issues that I have been exploring however.

Featured Workshop 3

Lucía Durá and Bill Hart-Davidson’s featured workshop focused on “Preparing Larger-scale Grant Proposals through an Equity Lens.” I’m not applying for a grant (If only. Wouldn’t it be grand to have a grant to pay for writing time?). That said, their heuristic for “creating an idea others will invest in” gave me these questions that I need to spend some time with before I fully commit to whatever it is I’m trying to write:

  • Why this project?
  • Why us [or me, in my case]? Why now?
  • What will we [I] do?
  • What results can we expect?

I don’t have the answers written out. I have an idea of the answers, but it’s not concrete. I am convinced however that I need to have solid answers if I’m going to get this project done.

Session E.2

Wesley Mathis, ryan moeller, and Hannah Stevens presented “Enacting Social Justice in Technical Editing.” I gained some useful resources from the session, including The Subversive Copy Editor (2016) and the Conscious Style Guide. I care very much about how the issues I plan to discuss are languaged. Words matter. It occurred to me during the session that style guides themselves should probably be folded into the collection of assignments I am dreaming about.

At one point during the session, I stated that we need to “stop talking about it as a style guide and start thinking about it as a descriptive discussion of how and what we value when we talk about people and issues.” The idea is that style guides are prescriptive systems, editor and publisher centered. My idea was to draw on the prescriptive/descriptive understanding of grammar. There’s more to figure out, and I’m glad I attended both Part 1 & 2 of the session.

Featured Workshop 5

Chris Lindgren, Marissa Buccilli, and Amilia Evans shared the analytical model behind their “Socially Just Content Strategy.” They are working with Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq on rematriation of Inuit knowledges (and there’s lots more on what goes into this work, but I stupidly did not write down enough notes on it).

What stuck with me was their system of landscape analysis, which considers how/if website design fit with the needs and ways of thinking and knowing of the readers the site. They use a three-part metric that examines (1) accessibility, (2) positionality, and (3) overall impressions. In small groups, we practiced using the analysis on the Passamaquoddy People: At Home on the Ocean and Lakes website. We worked through the site and considered how Passamaquoddy people would use the site, recording information in a spreadsheet.

As I considered the pages, I realized that this analysis strategy belonged in the community action work. Likely not in the exact form as Lindren, Buccilli, and Evans use it, yet students would very much need to consider the existing resources that a community has through the lens of that community. Further, the resources that they might make for the community must attend to the same issues. If the community action materials students create do not it the ways of thinking, knowing, and acting, they will be useless to that community—regardless of whether they are on point for the mission and message of the community.

Session G3

Erika Sparby’s session on “Tactical Meming” gave me the language for adding memes to the collection of community action assignments. I knew that they could fit, but before this session, I would have had trouble explaining the rhetorical and pedagogical reasons. In tactical meming, the images serve to make critical comments on situations and values that matter to a community. Further they can provide advice and resources to a community (such as handwashing memes at the beginning of the COVID pandemic). It’s a perfect piece to include in the collection.

Session J2

Megan Bronson, Sweta Baniya, and Liza Potts demonstrated a method for analyzing the rhetorical situation for disasters in their session “Collaborative Strategies for Networks for Collective Action Disasters.” Using examples from Potts’ 2014 Social Media in Disaster Response the three led attendees through the analysis of a disaster, asking that we identify “the people, places, technologies, organizations, groups, etc. that responded to, were affected by, or are somehow involved in a given disaster. Folks might refer to them as actors, change agents, chaos agents, participants, etc.” The group I was in focused on the BP Oil Spill Deepwater Horizon, creating this map:

Participant Map for the BP Oil Spill which includes the BP company, oil workers, protesters, oil costs, beach goers, animals, the oil righ, people buying gas and automobiles, boaters (including fisheries), and the legal system.

This additional way of mapping the communication related to an event can fold into the communication action projects as well. Whether looking at an event that has happened or planning one, writers need to think through how all these participants impact the messages, the medium, and the messengers. The visual aspect of the analysis seems likely to appeal to students, even if the maps are only used to make behind-the-scenes decisions about the projects.

Up next . . .

That’s all the notes I have from the conference. My next posts need to examine notes on the technology that might work for the collection and the resources that I have found in my brief research. I’m still trying to hammer down what this thing is, if it even is. That is coming soon as well.

 

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Community Action Assignments Project, #1

July 6, 2022

Rally to Prevent Gun Violence
Image Credit: Rally to Prevent Gun Violence by Maryland GovPics on Flickr, used under a CC-BY 2.0 license.

I am gathering notes for a collection I want to write on community action projects, focusing on assignments and classroom activities. I came up with the idea in mid-June.

I thought I could start with the "writing about/for community action/social justice" things I’ve done recently and then pull in revision of older stuff to fit. I’ve gathered 60+ pages in a Google Doc. Just copy/paste from originals with no revision, but still a large collection of notes.

ATTW’s Works-in-Progress Session

I attended a works-in-progress session during the ATTW Conference, for which I wrote this abstract:

I’m focusing on "writing about/for community action/social justice" in a collection of composing assignments and classroom activities. The collection will include various technical communication genres (e.g., technical description, instructions, white paper, correspondence, press releases). Composing media will include video, images, illustrations, and audio.

I’m working on a sort of mini booklet, PDF-ish, bigger than a pamphlet but smaller than a real book (I think). My practical approach to writing probably won’t work for a “real” press, so I’m guessing that this will be short and self-published. I am committed to an open access format and digital publication.

I realized later that I left out the fact that I am thinking of the audience to be writing teachers but also community organizers, if possible. I’m thinking of a collection that has multiple paths. There’d be one way to work through the collection if you were a writing teacher and a different way if you were a community organizer.

I had three questions for the session:

  • How much pedagogical framing is enough?
  • What would you look for in such a resource?
  • Any ideas on outlier places to place such a resource?

My group suggested that I might break things out so there are paths for learning objectives, genres, and kinds of social justice projects. For pedagogical framing, the group suggested that I could keep the intro brief and then follow it with an annotated bibliography where readers could find more information.

They also suggested some useful resources, including “Hashtag narrative: Emergent storytelling and affective publics in the digital age” by Paul Dawson.

More notes soon.

Filed under Personal Journal Tagged with

List of Ten: Food Story Ideas

May 27, 2022


A light blue plate filled with perfectly browned latkes. A paper towel rests under the latkes on the plate.
Photo: Latke Time [345/366] by Tim Sackton on Flickr, used under a CC-BY 2.0 license

I’m using a food-related theme for my summer technical writing course. The first assignment is an oral presentation (video) that they will use to introduce themselves to the class and then share a personal food story with the class. To kickstart their ideas, I created this List of Ten. I should work for any course that is focusing on food.

  1. What food must be in your home? Why? What happens if it’s missing?
  2. Tell us about a favorite (yours or your family’s). It can be a favorite meal, restaurant, dessert, cook, or something else.
  3. Tell us about the most complicated thing you’ve ever prepared or seen prepared. How did it go?
  4. What is your food indulgence? Tell us a story about the food that takes you to your happy place.
  5. Tell us the story of the weirdest thing you ever ate/drank. What was the experience like?
  6. Share a story of a time you were judged (or that you judged someone else) because of what they ate/drank.
  7. Tell the story of your experience with a food you hate.
  8. What has been your biggest food fail? Tell us about a meal or food situation that went wrong.
  9. What food is your enemy and why? Tell us a story of your battle with that food.
  10. What food aroma/smell takes you somewhere else? Tell us the story of where you go and how the smell is part of that trip.

Extra Tips

  • Your story does not have to be on the numbered list above. It’s just a list of ideas to help you get started.
  • For our purposes, food is widely defined. It can include meals, ingredients, beverages, candy, and so on.
  • You can talk about your food experiences, the experiences of your family (however you define family), or experiences related to your culture or community.
  • Please no stories about topics like the first time I got drunk.

 

Filed under List of Ten, Teaching Composition, technical writing Tagged with

10+ Things to Add to Your Community Action Toolkit

May 13, 2022

Vintage wooden toolbox filled with tools for woodworking
Image Credit: Toolbox by Florian Richter on Flickr,
used under a CC-BY 2.0 license.

As I mentioned on my List of 10 on hashtags, I’m working on a series of assignments and classroom activities that will support the “Digital Assignments for Activist & Justice-Oriented Projects” presentation that I’m giving at the Computers and Writing Conference this year. In this list I’m moving on to community action toolkits (see examples below) and several overarching assignments.

First, let me explain what these toolkits are. Imagine you have a group of people all interested in a specific cause, but unsure how they can promote their work and gain other followers. That’s where these toolkits come in. They provide some background on the cause and why it’s needed, and, then, they outline how to promote and participate in the common cause.

Because community action efforts are typically grassroots movements, toolkits help those organizing and promoting their cause. Toolkits can include advice on reaching out to community supporters, the media, and the public. Further, they can include step-by-step instructions for common tasks that support community efforts, such as writing letters to politicians and government officials as well as to media outlets such as letters to the editor and comments on news websites. The name of these collections, toolkits, are a perfect analogy: these collections provide the tools and resources that a community effort can use to promote its cause.

Deciding on the Composing Strategy

These assignments and activities present opportunities for students to create their own community action toolkits, focusing on the ways that writing and digital composing contribute to activism and social justice efforts:

  • Individually-authored Toolkits: Use this assignment as a course-long project by asking each student to create their own toolkit, working individually. Based on the length of your course, suggest the number of documents students should compose. If appropriate for your course, choose specific items students need to complete. Allow for some choice among options as well.
  • Small Group-authored Toolkits: Arrange students in small groups, and have each group choose a community effort for its focus. Ask each group member to contribute to the toolkit by creating one (or more) components of the report. The entire group is responsible for framing the toolkit and ensuring consistency in the overall document.
  • Class-authored Toolkits: Choose a community effort as a class, and have each student in the class contribute to the overall class-authored toolkit. The class can begin by collaborating on design guidelines to make the assembly of the document smoother.
  • Individual Projects: Instead of creating a complete toolkit, choose any of the components listed as an individual writing assignment. For example, everyone in the class writes an FAQ on a local community action campaign.

Choosing a Local Focus

If possible, students will choose a local community action efforts and create their toolkits to support those efforts. The activities can work for larger efforts as well; however, students may find that resources already exist. For example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has published a StopBullying.gov Community Action Toolkit that takes on the campaign to end bullying in schools. Rather than duplicating such work, students can provide resources specifically focused on what the local community needs.

When working on local community efforts, students can also benefit from closer access to the audience and stakeholders for their toolkits. For instance, students working on an anti-bullying campaign on campus can connect with administrators and faculty who support their cause and with some persuasion, possibly have their toolkits adopted for local use.

Deciding on Media for Interaction

In addition to choosing the kind of community action students explore, you can narrow their projects to particular kinds of interaction—anything from fairly traditional print communications to highly visual or interactive broadcast or social media. Here are the most obvious options:

  • Open Guide: Students can write a general guide without restrictions. Anything that fits the genre goes. Students can decide if they want to focus more specifically.
  • Guide for All Media: Students ensure that their guide covers a variety of media, including print media, social media, video and broadcast media. A broader toolkit of this sort is perfect for class-authored toolkits, as it broadens the list of components to include.
  • Guide for Social Media: Students focus specifically on community action that uses social media as the primary communication tool. Resources in the toolkit would focus on sites such as Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok.
  • Guide for Broadcast Media: Students produce broadcast-ready videos that can be shared on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Videos can also be embedded on websites and in blog posts as well as distributed to local media outlets (e.g., open access channels and local community television stations).

Toolkit Components

Your Community Action Toolkit can include a variety of resources. Depending upon the needs of the community and the goals of the community action group, you can add information to tell readers about the group and its work as well as resources to help readers participate in the work of the group. Once you determine who your readers are and establish the purpose for your toolkit, choose among the following items to include in your toolkit:

  1. Background on the Campaign & Need
    Every toolkit needs some background information that explains the cause and persuades readers to join in working for change. Tell the story of your cause and the needs it will serve. Remember that stories make your cause personal, so focus on a specific person or people who have or will benefit from the campaign. Be sure that your background information convinces readers why the cause is important to the community. Keep your paragraphs short and clear, and add photos that help tell your story.
  2. Timeline
    Provide a fast review of the key accomplishments the community has reached and the levels of need that exist. Your timeline can include past events as well as upcoming milestones. Try using a tool such as Knight Lab’s TimelineJS to create an online timeline for a web-based toolkit.
  3. Info Sheet or Fact Sheet
    People interested in the community effort can use the fast facts from an info sheet or infographic to convince others to support the cause and to promote the group’s work. Create a one-page sheet that provides the most important details about the cause and how the community works to solve it. See the “Intimate Partner Violence and Transgender Communities: Factsheet” (on page 7) for an example of the genre. If your toolkit is to be a print document, you might increase the size of your info sheet to a two-page spread. Incorporate document design and graphical details to make the info sheet easy to understand. Use the Fact Sheets resources from Kent State to learn more about info sheets.
  4. Infographic
    Identify significant data related to your cause and create an infographic that visually presents the details.
    Read the article “Designing Effective Infographics” (2018) from the Nielsen Norman Group to find out more about infographics. You can find Infographic templates on sites like Canva, Venngage, or Easel.ly. [Teaching Note: For a more structured assignment, use The Infographic Project from Writing Commons.]
  5. Campaign Schedule/Key Dates
    If the community action group has upcoming events, create an agenda or a calendar that indicates the dates and provides those who use the toolkit with the basic information they need to participate in the events. For events that take place regularly (like an annual activity), you can point to past resources to show the successes the campaign has had. Adobe Express (formerly Spark) and Canva include calendar templates.
  6. Case Studies
    Stories will draw people into the campaign, as they read how others faced challenges and worked to succeed. Add case studies or success stories to the toolkit to demonstrate the impact that the community effort can make. Tell the story from a participant’s point of view, integrating quotations and descriptive details that show the reader how community action has made a difference. Photographs of the people in the story will emphasize that these are real members of the community who have benefited from community action. For examples, see the Appendix: Stories of Success (p. 71) in the Be the Change—Community Action Toolkit. If you have before and after images that you can include, use the Juxtapose tool from Knight Lab to create slick comparisons that show the change.
  7. Instructions on How to Participate
    Readers who are new to the community need instructions that show them how they can participate in the work of the campaign. Choose activities that fit your toolkit, and provide step-by-step details on how to accomplish them. For a social media toolkit, for instance, you can provide instructions on how to participate in an Instagram Hop, a Tweetstorm or a Twitter Chat. Consult the technical writing resources on Writing Instructions for help with the genre. Read the StopBullying.gov Resources (p. 33) for an example of step-by-step instructions.
  8. How to Contact a Politician
    Add instructions on how to contact government officials and elected representatives to ask for support of the community action project. Include step-by-step details on how to identify specific people to connect and how to compose effective messages. Further, provide sample letters, text messages, and phone/voice mail scripts that readers can use as models. Consult Section 1. Writing Letters to Elected Officials from the Community Tool Box for examples of what this section can include. To understand how audience effects toolbox documents, compare Contact Elected Officials (written for family adults) and Contacting Your Representatives (written for youth advocates)—both from the Community Action Toolkit: A Guide to Advancing Sex Education in Your Community.
  9. How to Write an Op-Ed or Letter to the Editor
    Letters and public statements can share the community action through newspapers and television sites as well as through blog posts and similar forum sites. Add instructions that show members of the community how to compose their messages and provide advice on submitting them to local media outlets. The “Writing Opinion Editorials and Letters to the Editor” resources from the CDC’s “Community Action Toolkit: A Guide to Advancing Sex Education in Your Community” (2021) are a good model. You can also find useful ideas in Tips for Working with the Media (p. 22) from the StopBullying.gov Community Action Toolkit.
  10. Shareable Images or Videos
    Create a collection of easy-to-share images and videos that community members can post in their social media networks. Focus on images and videos that focus on your main message without any clutter. Videos can focus on public service announcements, brief testimonials, and news from the community. Follow the guidelines for image size and shape and video resolution and length that are recommended on the sites where they will be shared. For instance, choose square images to be shared on Instagram.
    Section 19. Using Social Media for Digital Advocacy from Justice Action Toolkit | Community Tool Box outlines useful background information. The shareables and Twibbon resources in the 2020 Global 16 Days Campaign Social Media Toolkit and Social Media Posts for COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters are useful examples.
  11. Sample Posts
    Compose ready-to-post status updates that community followers can easily copy and paste on their social media networks. As with shareable images and videos, Section 19. Using Social Media for Digital Advocacy from Justice Action Toolkit | Community Tool Box provides useful tips. Text Messages for Community-Based Organizations to Encourage Vaccination and the Community Action Month- Mini Toolkit #1 provide sample text messages to copy and use. In addition to posts meant to be copied and pasted, consider other kinds of messages that community members may find useful. The Social Media Safety Toolkit for Veterans, Their Families, and Friends, for example, directly addresses the possible issues that their community may face by including Sample Responses to Posts and Tweets That Indicate Emotional Distress (p. 4).
  12. Slideshows
    Design PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides presentations that can be used to share details about the accomplishments and goals with the community and that community members can use to encourages others to participate in the efforts of the group. Check out the Presentations section (pp. 12–18) of Effective Tools for Communications and Leadership in Indian Country for useful advice on creating presentations. For examples, the sections of the Justice Action Toolkit | Community Tool Box include Powerpoint presentations that summarize the information included on each topic in the toolkit. Use the tabs above the Main Section to switch to a link allowing you to download the presentation. You can also create slideshow carousels, or Stories, that rotate on social media sites like Instagram. See How social justice slideshows took over Instagram for more details.
  13. FAQ
    Gather a list of questions that community members may have about the cause or about the community actions to support it, and then provide clear answers to each one. Use the
    FAQs on COVID-19 Vaccines for Essential Workers in Agriculture as an example. Find advice on writing FAQs from ZenDesk’s “8 great FAQ page examples and how to create your own” or Truckee Meadows Community College’s “FAQ Writing Guidelines.”
  14. Glossary
    Go through your toolkit and identify words and phrases that community members may be unfamiliar with.
    Your list can include abbreviations and acronyms, proper names of relevant parts of the organization or of documents that the group relies on. For each word or phrase, explain what it is and how ti relates to the community. See the Glossary (p. 72) in the Be the Change—Community Action Toolkit for an example, and consult Writing Definitions from the Purdue OWL for help with the genre.
  15. Additional Resources
    Gather links to additional resources that provide community members with more information or tools to use as they work toward the community’s goals. Include direct links to the resources and short annotations that explain what the resource is and how it will help the community member. Add subheadings to help community members find what they need easily. For examples, see the list of Further Resources (p. 10) from the Community Action Toolkit for Addressing Intimate Partner Violence Against Transgender People and Social Media Suicide Prevention Resources and Additional Suicide Prevention Resources (p. 8) from the Social Media Safety Toolkit for Veterans, Their Families, and Friends. Consult the Annotated Bibliographies resources from the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for tips on writing annotations.

Example Toolkits

Center for Community Health and Development. (2020). Justice Action Toolkit | Community Tool Box. Retrieved May 6, 2022, from https://ctb.ku.edu/en/justice-action-toolkit

Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. (2020). 2020 Global 16 Days Campaign Social Media Toolkit. Global 16 Days Campaign. Retrieved May 6, 2022, from https://16dayscampaign.org/2020-global-16-days-campaign-social-media-toolkit/

National Association for State Community Services Programs. (2016). Community Action Month- Mini Toolkit #1. Retrieved May 6, 2022, from https://nascsp.org/community-action-month-mini-toolkit-1/

National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. (2017). Community Action Toolkit for Addressing Intimate Partner Violence Against Transgender People. National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. Retrieved May 6, 2022, from https://avp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/ncavp_trans_ipvtoolkit.pdf

National Congress of American Indians, & Pyramid Communications. (2011). Effective Tools for Communications and Leadership in Indian Country. National Congress of American Indians. https://www.ncai.org/news/tribal-communicators-resources/NCAI_ConferenceBooklet_FINAL_SinglePage.pdf

Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). (2018, November 18). Community Action Toolkit: A Guide to Advancing Sex Education in Your Community. SIECUS. Retrieved May 6, 2022, from https://siecus.org/community-action-toolkit/

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2021, December 16). COVID-19 Community-Based Organizations Toolkit. WECANDOTHIS.HHS.GOV. https://wecandothis.hhs.gov/resource/community-based-organizations-toolkit

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2017). StopBullying.gov Community Action Toolkit. Retrieved May 6, 2022, from https://www.stopbullying.gov/sites/default/files/2017-09/community-action-toolkit.pdf

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (2022, February 10). Suicide Prevention—Mental Health [General Information]. https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/suicide_prevention/prevention/index.asp

Verhoeven, Andii. (2014). Be the Change—Community Action Toolkit. World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. Retrieved May 6, 2022, from https://www.wagggs.org/en/resources/be-change-community-action-toolkit/

 

 

Filed under instructor resources, Teaching with Digital Tools, technical writing Tagged with , ,

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