Using Cases in Graduate-Level Professional Writing Classes.

IN MY GRADUATE-LEVEL professional writing class, I incorporate cases to help students understand the issues inherent in corporate communications. The cases integrate information provided in the two textbooks that serve the class: Paul Argenti's Corporate Communications (1998) and Kitty Locker's

Business and Administrative Communication (1997). To expand on these texts, I've developed my own assignments. For example, an Argenti case describes a situation at the Bank of Boston, especially the problem faced by Barry Allen, director of communications: "the Bank of Boston had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of violating the federal currency reporting laws, and in the two days that followed the announcement, bank officials had maintained a silent defense" (Argenti, 1998, p.63). The case recounts the relevant context about the charge and the media response when the situation was made public. The assignment asks students to compose a form letter to send to all individual account holders explaining the Bank of Boston's side of the legal judgment.

Sample Writing Assignment for Bank of Boston Case

Barry Allen, Director of Corporate Communications for Bank of Boston, has just returned from a meeting of the bank's top management officials where they decided how they would manage the barrage of negative public reaction that has struck the bank following the public announcement that Bank of Boston had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of violating the federal currency reporting laws. Allen has a long list of documents that need to be written and he has asked you, a junior writer in corporate communications, to draft some of these documents.

Among the many actions that they decided upon to counteract the negative publicity was to draft a form letter that would be sent to all individual account holders explaining the Bank of Boston's side of the legal judgment and encouraging the customer to maintain his or her accounts with the bank. Allen has asked you to prepare a draft of this letter. It will come our under the bank chairman, William Brown's, signature, and although it will be a form letter, Allen notes that he would like you to try to personalize the message as far as possible. By this you understand him to mean that the letter should include the account holder's name and account number(s) and it should explain the bank's situation in more or less lay terms. He explains that the letter should also serve to counter recent accusations against the bank that it demonstrates a "'callous disregard' for the individual consumer" (p. 65).

Use the advice in BAG, Chapter 8, "Negative Messages," to prepare your draft of the form letter. You might also find the discussion in Chapters 9 and 10 on writing persuasive messages valuable as you work on this letter.

Students who enroll in this course represent a wide range of levels of expertise and knowledge of professional writing; some students know nothing about business writing, while other students are already working professional writers. The course is cross-listed with several other master's programs in addition to the Master of Arts in Writing. To address this large knowledge gap, I use Locker's book as an optional text, required for newcomers to professional writing and recommended (but not required) for experienced professional writers. In addition to the focus on writing technique, we also spend half of the course reading scholarship in professional and technical writing, including Geoffrey Cross's Collaboration and Conflict (1994) and a variety of articles. The cases provide materials for small-group discussions; corporate examples also serve as springboards to consider how nonprofit organizations might differ in approaches and concerns.

Further evidence comes during the last two or three weeks of the course, when students distribute to the class copies of documents that they have written for work. Each student sets the document in a context: the organization, the nature of the job, and the rhetorical situation. These real life examples vary widely, including a multipage account of a dispute between a client and a securities broker prepared for stock exchange commission, a one-page letter requesting donations from local businesses to support a career workshop for at-risk high school students, and the documents associated with a rigorous interview process for a position with an HMO.

For example, Suzanne, the writer of the fund-raising letter, explained that she was organizing a two-day workshop that would draw high school students and their parents from the local neighborhoods around the alternative high school where she taught. In the letter she wanted to persuade local businesses to donate food, paper products (banners, paper plates, and cups), money, or employee time to the event while also educating her readers about its importance. Suzanne explained that the students at this event were at-risk individuals, expelled from or dropped out of regular high schools, who were taking one last shot at an education. Her professional writing classmates asked questions to clarify the reader's motivation for participating, and then they suggested specific strategies to improve the letter. Another student, who had experience with recruiting businesses to support such programs in the community, suggested that Suzanne also offer her readers a chance to send employees to act as mentors to the studen ts to establish relationships that might eventually benefit both the student and the business. Suzanne was pleased to have feedback from classmates who were experienced at writing this type of letter.

Students also discussed the document's reception by its intended audience. These real world documents were highlights for most members of the class; newcomers to professional writing were pleased to gain some experience with the range and type of documents they might find themselves asked to write, and the employed professional writers welcomed feedback from their peers that was insightful, supportive, and often extremely useful.

I have taught professional writing classes with and without cases, and I find that the cases significantly improve the quality of education gained by the students. Cases provide a variety of contexts and examples for professional writing that enlighten students as to the range of documents, rhetorical situations, and audiences that may be addressed in workplace writing. Cases also energize and challenge students by generating opportunities to develop creative and complex responses to specific writing and communication situations.

References

Argenti, P. (1998). Corporate communications (2nd ed.). New York: Irwin McGraw-Hill.

Cross, G. (1994). Collaboration and conflict. Cresskill: Hampton Press.

Locker, K. O. (1997). Business and administrative communication (4th ed.). Boston: Irwin/McGraw-Hill.