| Week |
Date |
Assignments |
| 1 |
August 24, 26 |
T: Orientation to the course
R: Intro to TPW 1: TPWhat?
|
| 2 |
August 31, September 2 |
T: Intro to TPW 2: Readers and purposes
R: Intro to TPW 3: Email and "workplace" writing; also getting started with Word Online
|
| 3 |
September 7, 9 |
T: Intro to TPW 4: Rhetoric, Ecology, and other conceptual foundations
R: Intro to TPW 5: More rhetorical foundations
|
| 4 |
September 14, 16 |
T: Elements of TPW 1: Document design and being reader-centered
R: Analyze the genre of the fact sheet
|
| 5 |
September 21, 23 |
T: Elements of TPW 2: Readability (Writing styles and reader-centered content)
R: Elements of TPW 3: Accessibility (Ensuring equal access to your content, visuals, and media)
|
| 6 |
September 28, 30 |
T: Elements of TPW 4: Findability (Key messages, titles, headings, sentences, and parallelism)
R: Submit drafts of your own fact sheet
|
| 7 |
October 5, 7 |
T: Elements of TPW 5: Visuals, figures, and tables
R: Peer review for project 1
|
| 8 |
October 12, 14 |
T: Midterm discussion: What is TPW again?
R: Major project 1 due
October 11 (Monday of this week) will be the last day you can submit late work for the first seven weeks of the course.
|
| 9 |
October 19, 21 |
T: Tactical and strategic technical communication
R: Introduce 2nd project, Q&A forum discussion
|
| 10 |
October 26, 28 |
T: Proposals or pitches for project 2 due
R: Ethics/Justice 1: Technical Writing is for People
|
| 11 |
November 2, 4 |
T: Ethics/Justice 2: Communicating profesh
R: Research and analysis workshop for project 2
Friday, November 5, 2021 is the last day you can drop the course
|
| 12 |
November 9, 11 |
T: Ethics/Justice 3: Inclusion, language, culture, translation
R: Progress report for project 2
|
| 13 |
Novmber 16, 18 |
T: Ethics/Justice 4: 7Cs all over again?
R: Peer review for project 2
|
| 14 |
November 23 |
T: Ethics/Justice 5: Copyright and intellectual property
R: Thanksgiving break, finally.
|
| 15 |
November 30 |
T: Major project 2 is due
Discuss final debrief memo assignment
November 29 (Monday) will be the last day you can submit late work from the previous seven weeks of the course.
|
| FINAL |
December 9 |
T: Your final portfolio is due
There is no in-person final exam for this class.
|
Structure of the course
This course is structured into three units. You will complete two major projects and a series of exercises or discussion assignments each week to help you consider writing issues relevant to your workplaces, disciplines, professional fields, communities, and everyday lives.
Unit 1: Technical and professional writing: Theory and terms
- Weeks 1-3
- Introduction to rhetoric, technical communication, purpose, audience, genres, rhetoric, ecologies, and other core concepts for the course
Unit 2: Elements of technical and professional writing
- Weeks 4-8
- Learn about and practice readability, findability, accessibility, and specific writing styles, document designs, visual features and other concerns for writers in your field, discipline, or major.
Unit 3: Do the right thing: Ethics, justice, and writers
- Weeks 9-15
- Explore connections between and among kinds of technical and professional writing in your field through primary and secondary research.
- Also bring all we've talked about back together and return to a deeper exploration of how ethics, justice, and culture really do have something to do your life as a professional and technical writer and things like "effective and appropriate rhetorical methods and strategies in writing" and "achieving specific purposes with specific audiences."