Kate Crane
Dillon, W. T. “The New Historicism and Studies in the History of Business and Technical Writing.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 11.1 (1997): 60-73. Web.
Dillon argues that, despite the academy’s push for research that can be directly applied to student outcomes, research in Business and Technical Writing should use a new historicist lens. New historicism, which takes a step further from historicism by shining a light on how historical texts have a direct impact (or legacy) in our present practices. Thus, part of learning history (according to new historicism) is understanding how it has shaped the present. Such theory is traditionally applied in literary theory, but Dillon claims that studying/examining Business and Technical writing through this lens not only shows “that their [students’] writing continues a rich, complex, and very old cultural tradition…but also [enables] them to frame more usefully the writing they produce and receive in terms of power, authority, culture, and economic necessity” (72).
For those of you interested in Technical Communication pedagogy, this is an article worth reading. How might we incorporate such examination in our classrooms? Where do students have the opportunity to deconstruct texts and look at it in theoretical ways or should this be the role of Tech-Com at all? These are some questions I’ve been pondering as I conceive of how to teach students both practical instruction of technical writing, but also providing a contextual framework for the work they do in our field.
The theory is, that no matter what area of study you are interested in, it is important to know from whence we came in order to properly understand where we are right now, and to have a clear idea of where to go from here. Sometimes, studying the historical progression of a field of study can be tedious and feel like a waste of time. Yet, I think there are benefits to be had from the experience. It may be a hard sell in 2311, but I agree that it's a good idea to implement it where we can.
ReplyDeleteSo you know I came here, Kate, after seeing your comment on my article. I agree with the premise of Dillon's article, not only because I'm a frustrated medievalist (;-)) but because I believe we often restrict our understandings of situations by limiting our focus. This ties back to Durack and recognizing, for instance, cookbooks as technical communication. Why don't we look to earlier texts (including illustrations) to learn technique, or understand approaches to audience? Why don't we approach these as other types of model texts?
ReplyDelete