1.2 Community Engagement in Technical Communication Courses

Up until the 1970s, technical writing was perceived as an objective and fact-based task that augmented the work of industry and research, including the efforts of scientists, doctors, managers, and engineers. In the late 1970s, a scholar named Carolyn Miller wrote a famous article that offered a humanistic rationale for technical writing. This article prompted technical writers, and scholars in the academic field of technical communication, to investigate and articulate how even the most technical of communications, the most straightforward of templates or memos or content, is saturated with cultural context—and this context is never objective. Subsequent texts by scholars such as Blake Scott et al. (2007) and more recently Walton et al. (2019), emphasized the situatedness of technical communication within social structures and practices, further solidifying that communication is saturated with ethical choices—from what sort of tools we use to write to the content that is included and excluded to the most granular of choices we make such as those related to tone, style, and the verb tense we deploy.

Alongside this clear shift in technical communication as a field, from one perceived and practiced as seemingly objective to one recognized as subjective and context specific, a concurrent discussion took place about how language forms reality and understanding. Technical communication educators began to recognize that facility, or ability, with written communication is a tool. We don’t always think about how we use tools ethically; for most of us, the default is to use tools in ways that are ethical. However, there are many instances when language and technical documents have been used unethically or have caused audiences to act unethically. Part of effective instruction in technical communication, then, was a focused effort to ensure students understood the consequences of technical communication.

As the literature in technical communication expanded, professors began to focus on how to best teach not only the strategies of effective technical writing, but also effective ways of engaging in discussions of ethics and the social contexts of writing. In the 1990s and early 2000s, technical communication researchers tied these concerns about ethics to supporting students as active citizens. At this time, community engagement (often called service-learning) was a tool for teaching, with an emphasis on student learning. Articles in technical communication since that time have comprehensively addressed elements of the classroom community engagement experience, including topics like civic education (Sapp & Crabtree, 2002), nonprofit perspectives (McEachern, 2001), international engagement (Crabtree & Sapp, 2005), assessment (Brizee et al., 2020; Shumake & Shah, 2017), the community as a “lab” for citizenship (Sapp & Crabtree, 2002), online engagement (Bourelle, 2014; Nielsen, 2014), and prioritizing community partner voices (Kimme Hea & Wendler Shah, 2017; Phelps-Hillen, 2017). There are even textbooks devoted to supporting students in community engagement work in technical writing courses (Bowden & Blake Scott, 2003). The text you are reading now updates Bowden and Blake Scott’s book by offering modernized strategies and reframing community partnerships.

Today, all of these emphases remain concerns in the field, but are considered co-equal to the interests of community partners. Your professor has worked with nonprofit partners over the past several months—and, in some cases, years—to build relationships to support your learning in this course. We believe that your experiences and learning both within and outside of this course will contribute to the capacity building efforts of the organizations we are partnering with this semester.

References

Blake Scott, J., Longo, B., & Wills, K. V. (2006). Critical power tools. Albany, State University.

Bourelle, T. (2014). Adapting service-learning into the online technical communication classroom: A framework and model. Technical Communication Quarterly, 23(4), 247-264.

Bowdon, M. & Blake Scott, J. (2003). Service-learning in technical and professional communication. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.

Brizee, A., Pascual-Ferrá, P., & Caranante, G. (2020). High-impact civic engagement: Outcomes of community-based research in technical writing courses. Journal of technical writing and communication, 50(3), 224-251.

Crabtree, R. D., & Sapp, D. A. (2005). Technical Communication, Participatory Action Research, and Global Civic Engagement: A Teaching, Research, and Social Action Collaboration in Kenya. REFLECTIONS: A journal of rhetoric, civic writing and service learning, 4(2).

Kimme Hea, A. C., & Wendler Shah, R. (2016). Silent partners: Developing a critical understanding of community partners in technical communication service-learning pedagogies. Technical Communication Quarterly, 25(1), 48-66.

McEachern, R. W. (2001). Problems in service learning and technical/professional writing: Incorporating the perspective of nonprofit management. Technical Communication Quarterly, 10(2), 211-224.

Matthews, C., & Zimmerman, B. B. (1999). Integrating service learning and technical communication: Benefits and challenges. Technical Communication Quarterly, 8(4), 383-404.

Miller, C. R. (1979). A humanistic rationale for technical writing. College English, 40(6), 610-617.

Miller, C. R. (1989). What’s practical about technical writing. Technical writing: Theory and practice, 14-24.

Nielsen, D. (2016). Facilitating service learning in the online technical communication classroom. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 46(2), 236-256.

Phelps-Hillen, J. (2017). Inception to implementation: Feminist community engagement via service-learning. Reflections: A Journal of Community Engaged Writing and Rhetoric, 17(1), 113-132.

Sapp, D. A., & Crabtree, R. D. (2002). A laboratory in citizenship: Service learning in the technical communication classroom. Technical communication quarterly, 11(4), 411-432.

Shumake, J., & Shah, W. (2017). Reciprocity and Power Dynamics. Public Rhetoric, Civic Writing and Service Learning, 17, 5.

Scott, J. B. (2004). Rearticulating civic engagement through cultural studies and service-learning. Technical Communication Quarterly, 13(3), 289-306.

Walton, R., Moore, K., & Jones, N. (2019). Technical communication after the social justice turn: Building coalitions for action. Routledge.