![[PDF]](/pb-assets/Icons/adobe-pdf-icon-1498649896243.png){kind=icon}
Abstract
As technical communication (TC) instructors, it is vital that we continue reimagining our curricula as the field itself is continually reimagined in light of new technologies, genres, workplace practices, and theories—theories such as those from disability studies scholarship. Here, the authors offer an approach to including disability studies in TC curricula through the inclusion of a “critical accessibility case study” (CACS). In explicating the theoretical and practical foundations that support teaching a CACS in TC courses, the authors provide an overview of how TC scholars have productively engaged with disability studies and case studies to question both our curricular content and classroom practices. They offer as an example their “New York City Evacuation CACS,” developed for and taught in TC for Health Sciences courses, which demonstrates that critical disability theory can help us better teach distribution and design of technical information and user-based approaches to TC. The conceptual framework of the CACS functions as a strategy for TC instructors to integrate disability studies and attention to disability and accessibility into TC curricula, meeting both ethical calls to do so as well as practical pedagogical goals.
References
Section:
| Blyler, N., Perkins, J. (1999) Narrative and professional communication, New York, NY: Ablex Publishing Corporation. Google Scholar | |
| Booher, A. K. (2011) Defining Pistorius. Disability Studies Quarterly 31(3): Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v31i3.1673. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Brasseur, L. (2005) Florence Nightingale’s visual rhetoric in the rose diagrams. Technical Communication Quarterly 14(2): 161–182. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Browning, E. R. (2014). Disability Studies in the Composition Classroom. Composition Studies, 42(2), 96–116. Google Scholar | |
| Carter, J., Markel, M. (2001) Web accessibility for people with disabilities: An introduction for web developers. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 44: 225–233. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Desnoyers, L. (2011) Toward a taxonomy of visuals in science communication. Technical Communication 58(2): 119–134. Google Scholar | ISI | |
| Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) (2011) Mayor Bloomberg sued for neglect of disabled New Yorkers during emergency disasters. [Press Release]. Retrieved from http://www.dralegal.org/mayor-bloomberg-sued-for-neglect-of-disabled-new-yorkers-during-emergency-disasters. Google Scholar | |
| Dolmage, J. (2005) Disability studies pedagogy, usability and universal design. Disability Studies Quarterly 25(4): Retrieved from http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/627. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Dolmage, J. (2014) Disability rhetoric, 1st ed. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Dolmage, J. (2015) Universal design: Places to start. Disability Studies Quarterly 35(2): Retrieved from http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/4632. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | |
| Faber, B. (2002) Community action and organizational change: Image, narrative, and identity, Carbondale, IL: SIU Press. Google Scholar | |
| Fernheimer, J. W., Litterio, L., Hendler, J. (2011) Transdisciplinary ITexts and the future of web-scale collaboration. Journal of Business and Technical Communication 25(3): 322–337. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Haas, C., Carr, B., Takayoshi, P. (2011) Building and maintaining contexts in interactive networked writing: An examination of deixis and intertextuality in instant messaging. Journal of Business and Technical Communication 25(3): 276–298. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Ishii, K. (2005) The human side of the digital divide: Media experience as the border of communication satisfaction with email. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 35(4): 385–402. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
| Jameson, D. A. (2000) Telling the investment story: A narrative analysis of shareholder reports. Journal of Business Communication 37(1): 7–38. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
| Johnson, R. R., Salvo, M. J., Zoetewey, M. W. (2007) User-centered technology in participatory culture: Two decades “beyond a narrow conception of usability testing.”. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 50(4): 320–332. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Longo, B. (2000) Spurious coin: A history of science, management, and technical writing, Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Google Scholar | |
| Martin, D. (2008) Add disability and stir: The new ingredient in composition textbooks. In: Lewiecki-Wilson, C., Brueggemann, B. (eds) Disability and the teaching of writing, Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing, pp. 75–91. Google Scholar | |
| Meloncon, L. K. (2013) Rhetorical accessability: At the intersection of technical communication and disability studies, Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing. Google Scholar | |
| Moore, K. (2013) Exposing hidden relations: Storytelling, pedagogy, and the study of policy. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 1. 63. doi: 10.2190/TW.43.1.d. Google Scholar | |
| Nelson-Burns, C. (2004) The Davis-Besse nuclear power plant eroded reactor head: A case study. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 47(4): 268–280. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| O’Hara, K. (2004) “Curb cuts” on the information highway: Older adults and the Internet. Technical Communication Quarterly 13: 423–445. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Oswal, S. K. (2013) Exploring accessibility as a potential area of research for technical communication: A modest proposal. Communication Design Quarterly Review 1(4): 50–60. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Palmeri, J. (2006) Disability studies, cultural analysis, and the critical practice of technical communication pedagogy. Technical Communication Quarterly 15(1): 49–65. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Price, M. (2009) Access imagined: The construction of disability in conference policy documents. Disability Studies Quarterly 29(1): Retrieved from http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/174. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Ray, D. S., Ray, E. J. (1998) Adaptive technologies for the visually impaired: The role of technical communicators. Technical Communication 45: 573–579. Google Scholar | ISI | |
| Rivers, N., Söderlund, L. (2016) Speculative usability. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 46(1): 125–146. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
| Shakespeare, T. (2013) The social model of disability. In: Davis, L. J. (ed.) The disability studies reader, 4th Ed. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 214–221. Google Scholar | |
| Shakespeare, T., Watson, N. (2001) The social model of disability: An outdated ideology? In: Barnarrt, S., Altman, B. M. (eds) Exploring theories and expanding methodologies: Where we are and where do we need to go?, Amsterdam: Netherlands: JAI, pp. 9–28. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Simmons, W. M., Zoetewey, M. W. (2012) Productive usability: Fostering civic engagement and creating more useful online spaces for public deliberation. Technical Communication Quarterly 21(3): 251–276. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Swarts, J. (2012) New modes of help: Best practices for instructional video. Technical Communication 59(3): 195–206. Google Scholar | ISI | |
| Teston, C. (2012) Moving from artifact to action: A grounded investigation of visual displays of evidence during medical deliberations. Technical Communication Quarterly 21(3): 187–209. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Theofanos, M. F., Redish, J. (2005) Helping low-vision and other users with web sites that meet their needs: Is one site for all feasible? Technical Communication 52(1): 9–20. Google Scholar | ISI | |
| Walters, S. (2010) Toward an accessible pedagogy: Dis/ability, multimodality, and universal design in the technical communication classroom. Technical Communication Quarterly 19(4): 427–454. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Williams, S. J. (1999) Is anybody there? Critical realism, chronic illness, and the disability debate. Sociology of Health and Illness 21(6): 797–819. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Wilson, J. C., Lewiecki-Wilson, C. (2001) Embodied rhetorics: Disability in language and culture, Carbondale, IL: SIU Press. Google Scholar | |
| Wolfe, J. (2015) Teaching students to focus on the data in data visualization. Journal of Business & Technical Communication 29(3): 344. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Youngblood, S. A. (2013) Communicating web accessibility to the novice developer from user experience to application. Journal of Business and Technical Communication 27(2): 209–232. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Zdenek, S. (2011) Which sounds are significant? Towards a rhetoric of closed captioning. Disability Studies Quarterly 31(3): Retrieved from http://dsq-sds.org/issue/view/84. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Zoetewey, M. W., Staggers, J. (2004) Teaching the air Midwest case: A stakeholder approach to deliberative technical rhetoric. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 47(4): 233–243. Google Scholar | Crossref |
