Today’s Plan:
- Crucible Literary Magazine
- Google Drive Review
- Discuss: Brumberger and Lauer
- Code Job Ads
- Homework
Crucible Literary Magazine
Here is the link to the homepage.
Google Drive Review
I got a few emails regarding how to share a Google Drive document. Let’s go over that.
Brumberger and Lauer
I am curious what stood out to you in his article.
Coding Job Ads
For the next week, we will be working together on a collaborative qualitative research project. Here is a link to our workspace.
Here is a link to the coding scheme.
Homework
Read: Carolyn Miller, “A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Communication”
Miller’s essay, published in 1979, speaks to the ways in which writing (and not just technical writing) gets intellectually devalued. Underwriting this devaluing is a positivist epistemology (epistemology is the study of knowledge). In a positivist epistemology, humans can, through various systems, arrive at objective, transcendent Truth. This can be a scientific truth (the earth is round) or a humanistic one (the meaning of Romeo and Juliet). Writing courses aren’t epistemic, they merely provide you with the skills to communicate the truths you discover using other epistemic methods/disciplines.
In your reading response, I’d like you to do two things. First, try and summarize how Miller counters this argument. What is her argument against positivism? What does it require we do/think differently?
Second, think about your own experiences as a student at UNC. To what extent does your education reflect the positivist tradition? Particularly with writing? Is writing framed in a positivist manner as objective and impersonal? Do texts have one single correct meaning? A range of meanings? Is the meaning of a text completely open to a reader?
