The other day, my 16-year old came home from school and told me about a fun and interesting way his English teacher is teaching his class about technical writing. His teacher, Mr. Garrett, is a big fan of board games. In fact, Mr. Garrett has a board game club that meets after school one day per week. That, alone, is enough to make me smile.
Mr. Garrett decided to use board games as an introduction to writing procedures. And this is what he did:
The students were divided into groups. Each group was given a board game to learn. At the next class, the students had to teach other students how to play the board game. Finally, at the class after that, the students had to write instructions on how to play the board game. They were graded on how well their procedures could be followed, how accurately the procedures were written, and so on.
Writing instructions for how to play a game that you just learned can be quite a challenge. I didn’t see the exact assignment, but I would imagine that the students needed to focus on:
- Accuracy
- Readability / Clarity
- Completeness
- Order
- Caveats
and more.
I really love this imaginative way to teach the topic. Have you heard of other approaches that are fun and engaging?
Val is on the Advisory Board for the Technical Communications Program at the University of North Texas. When not working with customers or students, Val can be found sitting behind her sewing machine working on her latest quilt. She also makes a mean hummus.
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