Today’s plan:
- Syllabus
- Brumberger and Lauer
- ABO on emails
Essential Systems
Here are the things/spaces you will need:
- Syllabus
- Google Drive Account
- Canvas Files and Discussions
Brumberger and Lauer on Jobs
Our first project is rooted Eva Brumberger and Claire Lauer’s article “The Evolution of Technical Communication: An Analysis of Industry Job Postings.”
ABO on Emails: A First Day Assignment
The first genre we are going to work with this semester is emails. I expect all correspondence between us to reflect the principles laid out by ABO on pages 164-168.
A few other resources for today:
I’d like you to compose a short email to me (marc dot santos at unco dot edu) that does three things:
- introduces yourself (and your academic/professional trajectory) and
- explains your interest in the course (what are you hoping to learn? why are you here?)
- asks me a question that I can answer
I’ll give you time to compose your emails and then we will read them collectively as a class.
Homework
Thursday we will be meeting in Ross 2261.
To prepare for project one, finish reading Brumberger and Lauer’s (2015) “The Evolution of Technical Communication: An Analysis of Industry Job Postings.” You can find a .pdf of the file in Canvas (Files section). I would like you to print out a physical copy of the article and annotate it as you read.
By annotate, I mean I would like you to write comments in the margins and on top of the page. There’s a lot of different methods for annotating, and I wouldn’t force any one method on you. I tend to underline text that either highlights the author’s purpose/argument or that I find difficult or disagree with. BUT every time I underline something, I try to write a word or phrase at the top of the page that captures the essence/importance of that passage. Underlining without writing isn’t useful. Writing notes in the margins helps with retention and comprehension. Throw away your highlighter.
After you read and annotate, please post a 150-250 word response to the article in Canvas. In the future, I might ask you to focus your response on a specific element of a reading. For our first reading, I want to know two things: what in the article surprises you? What else do you wish the authors elaborated?
