This article describes a gamified technical writing assignment inspired by the Hunt a Killer board games. Students solve a fictional mystery by analyzing AI-generated technical documents as an introduction to the most common deliverables and genres in the field and practice of Technical and Professional Communication. Grounded in research on gamification and AI, this activity fosters experiential learning by situating technical writing genres as both structured and dynamic tools. By combining genre analysis with collaborative problem-solving, the assignment offers a novel approach to teaching genre in technical writing, emphasizing flexibility and critical thinking.

This assignment asks first-year writing students to collaboratively create a tabletop game design that would expose players to possible future developments of climate change. The multimodal component is accompanied by a series of writing, research, and communication assignments that are scaffolded to guide students through the iterative process of composing. As students explore alternative formats to make a persuasive argument, they gain a more nuanced understanding of their topic, hone critical thinking skills, and practice addressing different audiences. The final project includes a research paper and a formal project proposal. The author argues in favor of the affordances of game-based pedagogies in a writing and technical communication classroom.

This article describes a technical writing assignment that requires students to use Minecraft to design and document interactive learning environments. In this project, students balance a critical awareness of this game's technical features with a rhetorical understanding of how those features impact the audience’s experiences and actions. This article demonstrates how video game-based writing projects can help students understand the role of an audience's agency in technical communication.

This essay reflects on a three-part assignment in which students plan, design, and reflect on a text-based videogame. Created originally for a composition course focused on rhetoric and videogames, the assignment lends itself to teaching about the writing process, especially invention and revision, teaching procedural rhetorics, and teaching technical communication concepts such as iterative design and usability. This essay is coauthored by the instructor with two students who took the course in different semesters, highlighting the collaborative nature of even solo-authored game design, as well as how making games can help students take up rhetorical concerns in other genres.

In teaching technical writing for nearly 20 years, I have recognized the importance of including writing assignments focused on improving students' clarity and effectiveness at the sentence level. I present a writing assignment for STEM students ranging from freshman to graduate-level. Students first find a published abstract in their discipline and then use readability tools to analyze the abstract's style. They revise the abstract for better readability while maintaining professional tone. This assignment reinforces research skills, audience awareness, and reflection on sentence-level stylistic choices.