Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

A goal of professional and technical writing classes is to teach students how to challenge and improve the design of documents for diverse audience needs. Instructors of professional and technical writing courses are, then, in a unique position to teach students how “to interrogate and to intervene in the ways in which professional-technical communication practices work to reinforce ableist hierarchies” (Palmeri, 2006, p.58). Furthermore, the field of technical communication has continued to reassert its commitment to creating accessible documents to users with special needs (as evidenced with the Society of Technical Communicators’ (STC) Accessibility Special Interest Group). This paper reports on a study where upper-level undergraduate students majoring in a professional writing and rhetoric program at a small liberal arts university in the Midwest completed a multi-genre analysis project during a sixteen-week semester in 2017. Students analyzed health insurance and writing center websites to determine accessibility, how disability was constituted, and what was being normalized as acceptable. After projects were submitted, students completed surveys that assessed their perceptions regarding website design as institutional discourse that disables and professional-technical communication practices that construct and are constructed by normalizing discourse. Survey results and teaching strategies used will be discussed, and the paper will conclude with recommendations for incorporating class projects that teach professional and technical writers to respond ethically to the problematic functions and effects of digital texts.