[ATTW-L] [EXT] Re: STEM Targeted Intro TW Courses?

Mon Sep 26 18:20:19 UTC 2022

I currently teach Engineering Technical Communication in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University. My courses are presentation-heavy, with a written proposal (junior level) and a technical paper (senior and graduate level) as the final written deliverables. I use the IEEE Professional Engineering Communication Series, as well as Gastel and Day's How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, which is in a new edition.

Our English department also offers some sections of our introductory technical communication course, English 210, specifically for engineering students. However, these offerings mostly constitute placeholders to make sure the engineering students, who comprise almost a quarter of our student body, can get into this core requirement. Rarely do the instructors adapt the course material for engineering. But because I have either taught technical communication or worked as a technical communication professional in the engineering sector (nuclear, computer, and petroleum) since 1990, I did adapt the content for my -ENGR sections when I taught in the English department while earning my Ph.D.

I added a set of instructions or procedures and a safety communication unit to these sections' syllabi. Formal reports had to be on an engineering problem in each student's major.

Gia Alexander

From: ATTW-L <attw-l-bounces at attw.org> On Behalf Of Anne-Marie Womack
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2022 11:56 AM
To: Stephen Bernhardt <sab at udel.edu>
Cc: attw-l at attw.org; psawyer at selu.edu
Subject: Re: [ATTW-L] [EXT] Re: STEM Targeted Intro TW Courses?

What a great thread! I joined the Engineering Communication team at Rice last year, and I really appreciate all the resources. One thing I'll add is that it's been useful for me to ask students directly what they would like to learn
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What a great thread! I joined the Engineering Communication team at Rice last year, and I really appreciate all the resources.

One thing I'll add is that it's been useful for me to ask students directly what they would like to learn and write in the course, and then to let that influence our assignments. My students introduced me to a few genres I wasn't even aware of.

I'm sure it would work differently if you're trying to collect info from students at the programmatic level, but for my own classes I solicit input in two main ways: On the first day of class, I break students up into groups and they list what they want to learn to write. I also meet with students individually in the early weeks of class to ask several questions, one of them being: what do you want to learn in our class? (I've been teaching small classes asynchronously, so that's how I've had the time for multiple meetings.)

Good luck!

Sincerely,

Anne-Marie

---
Anne-Marie Womack, PhD
Assistant Teaching Professor
Engineering Communication Program
Rice University

AccessibleSyllabus.com<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.accessiblesyllabus.com/__;!!KwNVnqRv!B8mbIyF_3flQbbTS0iy5gybxscGff-D7qnzrxT263Xu7SVai98UMu0om45YgYXkADyI-T3HenqMV-qQ4FJ7fAg$>

On Sun, Sep 25, 2022 at 1:01 PM Stephen Bernhardt <sab at udel.edu<mailto:sab at udel.edu>> wrote:
A couple more thoughts. I'd have persistent teams of four with each centered on a specific domain. I'd want them to develop domain expertise by deep exposure over the term.

Some of their work would be individually authored, some as dyads, some as four person. All work would be reviewed by the team, with emphasis on how to structure reviews.

On Sun, Sep 25, 2022 at 1:52 PM Stephen Bernhardt <sab at udel.edu<mailto:sab at udel.edu>> wrote:
My experience tells me to work with genres that have wide utility for both university classes and professional lives: research proposals, study protocols, lab reports, literature reviews. I'd stress visual design, data displays, writing for lay vs experts, and how to go beyond description to analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and extrapolation. I'd schedule a couple of visits from scientists who work in R&D and in field research.

On Sun, Sep 25, 2022 at 12:12 PM Faber, Brenton <bdfaber at wpi.edu<mailto:bdfaber at wpi.edu>> wrote:
Thanks all for the great contributions and good topic. I've been building courses specific to our Life Sciences programs and in 2021 created a COVID-19  "Writing in the Life Sciences course." Using journal articles published over the first year of the pandemic we examined (published date in brackets):

  *   the report of the first case of COVID-19 in the United States (Jan 2020),
  *   early epidemiological accounts (transmission dynamics) from Wuhan, China (Mar/2020),
  *   reports from front line providers (mostly correspondence) characterizing the virus, examining, aerosol and surface stability, reporting clinical characteristics, describing patient care reports, and offering experimental treatments (Apr-July 2020)
  *   RCTs and preliminary treatment reports (May-September 2020)
  *   Case Reports (July - December)
We were able to simultaneously study the process of science (from discovery to treatment) and examine the writing used to develop, evaluate, and share new knowledge. It was humbling and illuminating to be able to see the process unfold across the articles. Using data from the articles, students created their own epidemiological reports, Cochrane-type literature reviews, fictional RCTs, and case reports.

In my last set of course evaluations the students said their lives were already too COVID focused so this year I'm letting them pick their disease.

If others in this space are interested, I'd be happy to send over a syllabus (new or old).

Thanks again for the suggestions and great course material.

-brent

Brenton Faber, PhD, NRP
Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Department of Humanities and Arts
Worcester Polytechnic Institute

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Potsdam Volunteer Rescue Squad

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From: ATTW-L <attw-l-bounces at attw.org<mailto:attw-l-bounces at attw.org>> on behalf of Northcut, Kathryn <northcut at mst.edu<mailto:northcut at mst.edu>>
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2022 9:14 AM
To: psawyer at selu.edu<mailto:psawyer at selu.edu> <psawyer at selu.edu<mailto:psawyer at selu.edu>>; attw-l at attw.org<mailto:attw-l at attw.org> <attw-l at attw.org<mailto:attw-l at attw.org>>
Subject: [EXT] Re: [ATTW-L] STEM Targeted Intro TW Courses?

Cagle's materials were great fun to look over - Thanks!

TLDR: Following is a recommendation for an edited collection, another textbook, an article, and an assignment that adds to Cagle's suggestions.

Paul, consider the following book despite the gratuitous self-promotion? Many of the names you'll see in the ATTW list (including Cagle and Katz) contributed chapters to it. Scientific Communication: Practices, Theories, and Pedagogies. Yu & Northcut, 2018. It was written to address the kind of question you're asking, with evidence-based arguments across every chapter. Identifying real audiences for STEM student writing emerges as a theme.

Another textbook (besides Katz and Penrose) I find very useful is House et al's The Engineering Communication Manual. It helps some folks break away from MLA style essays that they may otherwise default to when they think of "papers." Cagle mentioned Wolfe's book - she also had a great article in TCQ titled "How Technical Communication Textbooks Fail Engineering Students," much or all of which applies across sciences as well, and which we require graduate teaching assistants to read.

In various courses at Missouri S&T, we added some additional genres including hazard/warning signs, instructions, technical descriptions, and process analysis. In courses beyond the service course, white papers and specialized reports have been assigned.

I taught a one-off honors prof & business writing course for STEM majors in F21 in which the students had to determine the genre for the response, so it departed from the genre-focused approach. We examined a case study of an explosion (through documents and a guest speaker who'd been a witness at the hearing). The explosion was in a St Louis facility and students were asked to "go back in time" and create a text that may have helped to prevent the disaster (people were killed and wounded). They could use any genre, including a script for a telephone call they'd make or a watercooler conversation - any text they thought they could effectively prevent the explosion. The students claimed to really loathe the assignment, but the evaluations of the course were high, and one student said she changed her major to tech com because of that course.

Kathy

From: ATTW-L <attw-l-bounces at attw.org<mailto:attw-l-bounces at attw.org>> on behalf of Paul Sawyer <psawyer at selu.edu<mailto:psawyer at selu.edu>>
Date: Saturday, September 24, 2022 at 9:07 PM
To: attw-l at attw.org<mailto:attw-l at attw.org> <attw-l at attw.org<mailto:attw-l at attw.org>>
Subject: [ATTW-L] STEM Targeted Intro TW Courses?

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Hello everyone--

My department is thinking of offering some of our Intro to Technical Writing courses targeted specifically to our science-based/STEM majors on campus.

I'm having a hard time finding examples of universities that offer such a course.  Does anyone know of/teach such a course at your university?  I'm wondering  what assignments would be in such a course?

Thanks!  I appreciate your help.

--Paul

--

Paul R. Sawyer, Ph.D.
Professor of English
Director, Technical and Professional Writing Program
Southeastern Louisiana University
SLU 10861--English Department
Hammond, LA  70402

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