Workplace Writing Experience
Another difference between returning students and most traditional students
is that more returning students already have experience with nonacademic
workplace writing before taking a technical writing course.
When workplace experience is recent
Some returning students have been recently or are currently employed in
positions in which writing is involved. As many colleagues and I
have discovered, this can be a double-edged sword in the technical writing
classroom.
Advantages of recent experience:
Oral and written communication skills
These students often have practical experience in writing reports,
proposals, correspondence, and/or other types of workplace documents; they
also have experience with oral communication, ranging from office meetings
and phone calls to professional presentations. Many will readily
share their experiences with the class as both confirmation of textbook
principles and as cautionary tales of time management, supervisory eccentricity,
ethical conflicts, and so forth.
Management and leadership skills
Throughout the 1990’s, as group work expanded across the curriculum
in response to business interests expressed to colleges and universities,
technical and professional communication courses incorporated more collaborative
writing and presentation projects. Returning students who have management
experience are able not only to keep better track of their own academic
tasks but also to provide leadership skills for this type of group work.
More computer expertise
Returning students with recent workplace writing experience also tend
to have more experience with using computers for their writing tasks.
They may be familiar with more current hardware and software, such as Word
or WordPerfect, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint, and they may be valuable
troubleshooters. In fact, some are accustomed to working with better
resources than those available in the average English department’s computer
classroom.
Disadvantages of recent experience:
Each of the items listed above, however, can also become a disadvantage
for the technical writing teacher and an annoyance for class peers.
For example, some students with previous writing experience can be resistant
to new approaches (“At Company X, we always did it this way”) and even
resentful at having to take the course (“But I’ve written for years”).
Anecdotal reports from colleagues have also shown that some of these students
will readily and publicly question authority of instructor, particularly
with our favorite line, “You’re just an English teacher.” If the
instructor is not able to channel this resistance in constructive ways,
control may shift to the student regarding class discussion and group work.
Control shifts may be more apparent in the computer classroom.
Experience in the computer classroom shows us that we relinquish the type
of control the perennial lecturer has over his classroom and his students:
not only can we not control all of the possible technical problems which
occur on a daily basis, but we also realize at a practical level that listening
to a lecture is not nearly as interesting as working on a computer.
Regarding the technology-savvy returning students, the computer classroom
can become an arena in which to take center stage, whether through directing
demonstration sessions verbally from their seats, utilizing opportunities
to correct or contradict the instructor, or taking control of other students'
stations when they have simply asked for assistance.
When workplace experience is not recent
Other returning students have workplace writing experience as well, but
it is not recent. Interestingly, I have observed that this writing
experience tends to fall into groups corresponding to developments in computing
technology: pre-Web, pre-electronic mail, pre-Windows, and even pre-word
processor. This brings us back to the earlier discussion of the dual
challenge of developing both writing skills and computer skills throughout
a single course.
When returning students have no workplace writing
experience
Some returning students have no specific workplace writing experience;
however, they may have other types of experience, ranging from homemaking
to skilled manual labor, which they can be encouraged to discuss in relation
to time management, ethics, collaborative work, and so forth. Sometimes,
but not necessarily, this may also be accompanied by a lack of computer
experience.