[ATTW-L] the ICE memo on international students

[Keisha E. McKenzie]

Chris, thanks for sharing this classroom exercise.

I'm reading in it language analysis connected to people's daily life,
awareness of institutional, cultural, administrative, and political
context, a prosocial professional ethic, and creative teaching—all things
that originally drew me to the field of technical communication and
rhetoric years ago.

It delights me to end this week knowing these qualities are still alive in
tech comm classrooms across the country.

In my day-to-day, I'm watching and navigating the slow implosion of digital
and social marketing: content that leaders and organizers create to
influence users to take action, including reading the informational or
narrative content we produce and publish. It's connected to web content
strategy and online copywriting like the kinds communicators used to
translate and adapt the website in your exercise.

How institutional authors develop, revise, and market content in memos, on
websites, in reports, or in video explainers reflects assumptions about the
user, the institutional author, their respective positions, and their
shared world. Students need to learn how to read and contextualize those
assumptions and, when necessary, challenge and improve them.

Sometimes it's just a memo or website or product ad. And sometimes it's
lives.

Thanks again for sharing.
Keisha

On Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 8:45 AM Chris Lindgren <lindgren at vt.edu> wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I wanted to write my support for international students. I can't think of
> a more prominent role as an educator than the extension of care and
> practice of justice.
>
> I also wanted to share my appreciation for the response by our leadership
> and other ATTW members here. Thank you!
>
> And, in the spirit of the original intent in sharing the memo, I'll share
> a related anti-racist activity for those who teach content strategy.
>
> This lesson focuses on introducing students to 1) how content strategy
> isn't a neutral practice; 2) requires research and knowledge about
> social-political contexts and issues linked to the organization; and 3) how
> content strategists can develop anti-racist content audit metrics to
> address issues of racism. These are all goals that are seriously lacking in
> the currently available scholarship and resources.
>
> I use the DHS ICE website <https://www.ice.gov/> as a case of racist *content
> prioritization*. My students and I analyzed it's content priorities on
> both English and Spanish sites last semester and found some despicable
> choices within minutes. Just as a quick example,
>
>    - The content itself has notable issues, which can be placed into
>    context by preparing research about immigration and interrogating the
>    oppressive use of the illegal/legal binary that frames the entire site's
>    content. This helps me guide a conversation about the importance of social,
>    cultural and political knowledge within the scope of TPC work.
>    - Regarding content prioritization, note how numerous content tabs are
>    removed from the Spanish version of the site, including the "How do I?"
>    tab. Students noticed how this tab included career opportunities and other
>    content, which, when contrasted against the complete removal of it on the
>    Spanish version of the site, highlights their racist bent that hinges on
>    user language literacy.
>
> I paired it with the chapter on "Oppression" from Moore, Howard, and
> Jones' book, and a modified table from their TCQ article, "Disrupting the
> past to disrupt the future" dubbed "Tenets of inclusive work." This way,
> students could take insights from the chapter and activity to develop their
> own *content audit metrics* informed by anti-racist goals, which is the
> major project that I use this activity to prepare them to perform next.
>
> Solidarity to everyone. I appreciate the anti-racist goal-making and
> practices that our field is producing and advocating. That's where my heart
> and energy is working too.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Chris
> --
> Chris Lindgren, Ph.D. | clndgrn.com
> (he/him/his)
> Assistant Professor of Technical Communication & Data Visualization
> Department of English
> Virginia Tech
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 4:43 AM Obrien, April <aprilobrien at shsu.edu>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> I just want to verbalize my support for all the international students
>> and POC (those of who are a part of ATTW and all else as well) and say that
>> YOU ARE WELCOME here. Collectively, as a nation and as academics, we are
>> responsible for the well being of all our people.
>>
>> _________________
>>
>> *Dr. April O'Brien*
>> Assistant Professor
>> Technical Communication
>> Department of English
>> Sam Houston State University
>> She/her/hers
>> aprilobrien.net
>>
> Keisha E. McKenzie, PhD
McKenzie Consulting Group
http://mackenzian.com
Keisha E. McKenzie, PhD
McKenzie Consulting Group
http://mackenzian.com
Keisha E. McKenzie, PhD
McKenzie Consulting Group
http://mackenzian.com
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