Has anyone ever come across a book on how to teach writing?  One of 
my crazy ideas is to develop a course for engineers (and maybe other
"professionals") to teach them how to write.

10 responses total.

the best thing to do with the engineers is to put them in a regular writing
class with others (provided you're not talking professional/technical
writing here). at the bottom of writing is one's notion of community and
communication. 

i hate to sound so apo-ontological, but one cannot really read a book to
learn how to teach writing: the only preparation to teaching writing is 
having written a good deal and studied language and its organization. there
are several (at least) decent texts that can facilitate basic writing in-
struction, but in order to evaluate and critique writing, one must be a
writer.

I agree with you in that to really learn something you need to more
than read a book.  Engineering is like that, too.  To become an
engineer, you need to actually design stuff and not simply read about
it.  Still, there are plenty of books to help folks become engineers.

Having said that, let me add that I am a writer. Now, I need some
guidance on how to develop a class on how to teach others how to do
it.  You say there are some decent books.  Can you give me their
titles?

err...That should read, "...how to develop a class to teach others..."  :)

well, you still need to answer a lot of questions...what kind of class are
you teaching? what are the expected skills and needs of the class? how large
will the class be? what kind of writer are you, and what kind of writing are
you teaching? what will the class format be? these are all prerequisites to
choosing the best text for your needs. the short form of those questions is,
what do you expect the text to do (for you), and what do you plan to do
yourself? oftentimes, the best text is the one that does nothing more than
complements the pedagogy of the instructor. note that there is a difference
here between complementing it and matching it. i often use strunk and white,
though i have differences with it and i'm not at all prescriptive. but the
prescriptive, compact formula is easy for students to digest, and it helps
to set off my derivational/rhetorical approach, which is more complicated
(and therefore better presented in demonstration rather than in readings).

well, much more and i'll justify the queen's complaint to polonius: "more
matter with less art." let me give you a few of the texts commonly employed
in our department: strunk and white's _the elements of style_ (3rd edition
with index), the american heritage dictionary, the little, brown handbook
to english, martha kolln's _rhetorical grammar_. i don't believe that any
of these titles will be of use to you until you've formulated your own 
syllabus, but there you go. some people in our department use no grammar
and no readings...they use all student essays. some use much weightier 
books. some use their own course packs. it really all depends...

Dan,
Lansing community college has just such a course--you might want to
write to the head of the Engineering Department and ask for information.

View hidden response.

re #4:  I think you've misunderstood my question, Dan.  What I am asking
for is a book that will help me develop the class not to use as a text
for the class.

hmmm...i think perhaps i have, though a few of the above might still help 
you do that by providing an approach. off the top of my head, i cannot 
think of one, but if i suddenly realize i've been thick-headed (again),
i'll post or mail you a title.

thanks!

Can't you just tell them to keep it simple? Hve them try to explain their 
most recent design or concept to a five year old who just said "Whatcha 
doing Dad, er, Mom , er Parental Unit?.

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