In the spring of 1994, I was preparing to teach my first technical
writing course. In addition to my previous experience in composition
theory and pedagogy, I had taken graduate seminars in technical writing
pedagogy, the rhetoric of scientific communication, and publications management.
That summer, as I muddled my way through my first technical writing course,
I began to overcome my initial qualms about evaluating documents concerning
field-specific information with which I was unfamiliar by designing assignments
geared for multiple majors with multiple levels of writing skill.
Throughout the next few semesters, however, I saw a small but recurring
retention problem with my older students. Returning students, usually
defined as those outside the traditional 18-24 undergraduate age bracket
who have decided to begin or return to college-level study, not only have
to master their academic material, but some must essentially relearn how
to go to school: how to participate in class, do homework, take tests,
and write papers.
In some cases, my returning students have stated that they felt overwhelmed by the more complex rhetorical demands of an advanced class. For example, on the first day of the Fall 2001 semester, one student approached me after class, stated that this was her first semester back at the university, and worried that she was in over her head. In fact, I have heard this during the first week of the course in most of the technical writing sections I have taught. While some returning students make the adjustment to technical writing successfully, others continue to struggle to bring their writing skills up to speed throughout the term, and some eventually drop.
More often, though, the returning students confessed to being intimidated by the computer classroom and the level of computer expertise they perceived they needed but lacked to complete course assignments. In the technical writing class, these students' frustration at the dual challenge of completing an in-class writing task while attempting to follow computer instructions proved too much, and they would drop the course despite a great deal of reassurance on my part. Granted, computer-assisted instruction has grown increasingly important throughout all college-level composition pedagogy, but the technical writing class by its nature requires specific study and development of specialized computer skills along with written and oral communication skills. For example, compare the contents of common freshman composition textbooks with technical writing textbooks. Standard composition adoptions focus on expository writing, research, argumentation, rhetorical principles, and the writing process overall. However, technical writing texts cover not only various genres but also graphics, document design, electronic correspondence, multimedia presentations, and the electronic workplace, the contemporary study of which necessitates the concurrent development of computer skills.
This is not to say that computer use in freshman composition consists simply of word processing and online research in order to support essay writing. Computer-assisted instruction in freshman composition may include Daedalus, PowerPoint, web design, and similar tools, but these skills supplement the main goal of developing students’ academic writing and research skills to prepare them for future coursework. However, in technical writing, specialized computer skills are not only integral to the completion of more advanced field-specific communication tasks, they are often studied themselves in relation to visual rhetoric, the decline of formality in electronic correspondence, the effect of electronic publication on scholarly research, and so on. In this regard, the level of computer skill which returning students need (but may lack) to navigate technical writing courses merits special attention.
Returning to the retention and attrition problem in my technical writing courses, although I have not collected official statistics concerning the retention rate of returning students in technical writing, I can state anecdotally that it is not unusual for me to lose one or two returning students per course throughout the first half of the semester. For example, during the Fall 2001 semester, three returning students have dropped from my two technical writing sections; I have also lost four traditional students, but considering that the returning student population is much smaller to begin with (four or five per course), their drops constitute a much larger percentage of their population. Although I hate to lose any of these students, I am particularly affected when returning students want to drop because they fear that they cannot keep up with the "kids" in either writing and/or computer tasks.
To address this retention problem and improve the returning student’s
chances for success in technical writing, I began to identify sources for
the problem, considering not only computer experience but the returning
student’s previous total writing experience in both academic and workplace
settings; I discuss these in the "Writing Experience" section. As
I worked with concerned returning students to identify strengths and areas
for improvement in both their writing and their computer skills, I developed
various approaches to improve class retention, which I outline in the "Retention
Strategies" section. My goal is to present to the instructor new
to technical writing, particularly those new to teaching technical writing
in the computer classroom setting, these strategies for retaining returning
students in their own classes.
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