Even though it is not covered in the tech writing textbook I am using, I decided that a spreadsheet assignment would help prepare students for the writing they would do in the field. In the activity, students identify kinds of writing that they will do in the workplace (e.g., emails, proposals), and they then gather data about those kinds of writing in spreadsheet form.

I explained my thinking on the assignment in my post on Fitting the Assignment to the Class. I’ve used the assignment four times, with only minor variation. Here’s the most recent version, from Spring 2015:

• The Assignment
• Example Spreadsheet Draft
• Help Using Google’s Spreadsheet Tool
• Peer Review Activity

I spend no time in the class explaining how the spreadsheet tools work. Most students have used a spreadsheet previously, though not necessarily for this sort of assignment. For the technical support on how to use spreadsheets, I give them links to Google’s documentation and to the relevant lynda.com videos (see the link on using Google’s spreadsheet tool above).

I do like the assignment as it stands, but I am considering asking students to add a column for links to an online explanation of how to complete the particular kind of writing. Let’s face it. Students are not going to keep the textbook after the class is over, so a link to additional online explanation could make the spreadsheet more useful to them once they are in the field.

If I were braver, I could use the spreadsheet as scaffolding for the entire course. It would be terrific for a course that didn’t use a textbook at all. Students could identify resources for various kinds of writing and then use what they found as we covered different writing activities in the class.

[Photo: I Love Spreadsheets by Craig Chew-Moulding, on Flickr