Blakelee.Bridging+the+Workplace

Blakeslee, Ann M. "Bridging the Workplace and the Academy: Professional Genres through Classroom-Workplace Collaborations." //Technical Communication Quarterly// 10.2 2001. 169-192. Print.


 * Abstract**

This article explores the effect of classroom-workplace collaborations on student learning. Drawing on two case studies, I explore how classroom-workplace collaborations help us to teach professional genres. I examine how they replicate workplace activity and convey features of workplace genres and how they serve as transitional experiences for students. I also examine students' reactions to the feedback they received during the projects.


 * Argument**

This article discusses whether some genres can be taught effectively in the classroom. It brings up issues on how genres are taught in professional and technical writing classes. It talks about different types of assignments that professional and technical writing instructors use. It talks about ways in which students solve workplace problems. One way to solve problems it uses is using issues and research questions. Another thing that is used is studies of classroom-workplace collaborations. It talks about exposing students to workplace practices and genres. It discusses meaningful exposure to workplace practices. It also discusses how student value this exposure. It then goes in to authenticity. It talks about students' perceptions of the projects as artificial. It talks about how students value the projects. It also discusses how the students find the audiences for the projects more concrete. It goes in to the importance of client investment. Next it discusses how these students help to facilitate students to transition into the workplace. It talks about bridging classroom and workplace activity systems. It then talks about the students' frustrations with the projects. Finally it discusses the response that students had and what value they assign. The responses are student's general dissatisfaction with client feedback, overly critical and overly complimentary feedback and students still wanting client feedback.


 * Key Passages**

"Technical and professional writing instructors often use two types of assignments to simulate workplace practice and to teach professional genres: case studies or client projects," (169-170).

"The scholars who studied cases, for example, were concerned with how closely cases match the actual writing that occurs in the workplace," (171).

"Client projects carried out in the classroom can hardly provide the kind of immersion that scholars say is needed to learn professional genres," (176).


 * Selected Works Cited**

Bazerman,Charles. “Editor’sIntroduction.” RealitybyDesign:The Rhetoric and Technology of Authenticity in ---Education. ByJoseph Petraglia. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998. ix-x.

Blakeslee, Ann M. “Activity, Context, Interaction, and Authority: Learning to Write Scientific Papers in Situ.” JBTC 11 (1997): 125-69.

Freedman, Aviva, and Christine Adam. “Learning to Write Professionally: ‘Situated Learning’and the Transition from University --to Professional Discourse.” JBTC 10 (1996):395-427.