Abstract

To teach students how to write for the workplace and other professional contexts, technical writing teachers often assign writing tasks that reflect real-life communication contexts, a teaching approach that is grounded in the field's contextualized understanding of genre. This article argues to fully embrace contextualized literacy and better teach workplace writing, technical writing teachers also need to contextualize how they assess student writing. To this end, this article examines some of workplaces' best assessment practices and critically integrates them into an introductory technical writing classroom through a method called student-centered assessment instruments. This method engages students, as workplaces engage employees, in the assessment process to identify local requirements for writing tasks. Aligned with theory and practice, this method is not only an effective classroom assessment method, but becomes an integrated part of students' genre-learning process within and beyond the classroom.

Journal
Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Published
2008-07-01
DOI
10.2190/tw.38.3.e
Open Access
Closed
Topics

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (3)

  1. Technical Communication Quarterly
  2. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  3. Journal of Business and Technical Communication

Cites in this index (8)

  1. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  2. Technical Communication Quarterly
  3. Technical Communication Quarterly
  4. Technical Communication Quarterly
  5. Written Communication
Show all 8 →
  1. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  2. Technical Communication Quarterly
  3. Written Communication
Also cites 15 works outside this index ↓
  1. 10.2190/PL1C10
  2. 10.2307/358601
  3. 10.2190/NET
  4. 10.1080/00335638409383686
  5. 10.4324/9781410601254
  6. 10.2307/j.ctt46nxp6
  7. 10.1002/tl.7410
  8. 10.1177/108056999706000403
  9. 10.1037/1061-4087.52.2.99
  10. 10.4324/9781410609724
  11. 10.1002/tl.7402
  12. 10.1002/tl.168
  13. 10.1002/tl.7405
  14. 10.2307/358862
  15. 10.1177/1080569907301646
    Business Communication Quarterly  
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