Writing for an International Audience in a US Technical Communication Classroom: Developing Competences to Communicate Knowledge Across Cultures

Abstract

This paper confronts the local dimension of a U.S. scientific and technical communication program with the new challenges globalization raises, and shows how an assignment sequence implemented in an advanced technical communication course has enacted and nurtured new “communities of practice” (Wenger 1998) that cross institutional borders and favor a social orientation to learning. This paper argues that writing for and collaborating with an international audience helps students to develop a more sophisticated knowledge of their own communication practices, and to perceive the movement from local to global as a transition enabling the creation of knowledge and of new learning processes.