In “Regenerating Once Fallow Ground:Theorizing Process and Product in 21st-Century Technical Communication Ecologies,” Adrienne Lamberti and David M. Grant write,

“We ultimately found ourselves needing to repeatedly return to this argument: pointedly theorizing both pedagogy and the purposes of technical communication does not have to squeeze out application in the classroom, but rather can enrich it”

Their point? They believe that theory in the classroom helps to develop a holistic sense of self which marries both the public and private, that it is a positive, even necessary, component to the pedagogy of technical communication classrooms. 

To put their point into perspective, it’s important to understand that universities, far from being ivory tower type places, untouched by the roiling tides of culture and society which surround them, monoliths, even, of academics behaving academically — the modern university is pulled in many directions: political, cultural, financial, and — last, and sometimes least — academically. The university in my hometown dissolved an entire academic department for the sole purpose of putting more money into their football team. This is not, sadly, an isolated incident. As teaching fellows, we straddle the line between student and faculty; we generate value for the university which far outpaces our remuneration. In fact, we teach classes that once were — and may yet return — taught by faculty within the academic departments house our students: business, science, engineering — fields which don’t really have, at their core, an appreciation for the work of rhetoricians like ourselves. To keep our work within the purview of teaching fellows, present and future, we have to make an argument to the university of our intrinsic worth, of how what we know adds value to the education of the comp sci undergrad (for example).

Lamberti and Grant also found themselves in the position of justifying their technical communication pedagogy to their employer, saying “we write as technical communication teachers and scholars who nevertheless have continued to experience marked and ongoing contestation of institutional ‘turf’ that is fueled largely by a persistent belief in a theory/application split.” (It is notable that as technical communicators, they are no doubt aware of the principles of plain language, but nowhere in this document do they actually apply plain language.)

How, then, do they make the argument to their own institution about their intrinsic worth as rhetorician-educators? In short, they marry theory to practical application: “We ultimately find ourselves needing to repeatedly return to this argument: pointedly theorizing both pedagogy and the purposes of technical communication does not have to squeeze out application in the classroom, but rather can enrich it,” seeing theory as an addendum to practical applications in the classroom, which then illuminates theory.

Likewise, as teaching fellows, we too must take the path of marrying theory to application in our own classrooms. It’s not enough to ensure that our students understand the basics of grammar, the genre forms of the types of writing they must do (resumes, social media posts, infographics — the list goes on). We must also ground our pedagogy in communication theory, to present to them the underlying pinnings for what we do and why it’s so important.

Communication is political, I tell my students — because it is, because that is a theory which undergirds how they approach their practical work — communication deals with questions of access, power, and privilege, and not explicitly helping students understand this means effectively hamstringing their efforts to write for diverse audiences beyond the classroom. Who else but a rhetorician can present this to students in an easily accessible manner? To teach it, you have to understand it, and this understanding is not universal.

Returning, then, to Lamberti and Grant, I find myself in agreement with their ultimate point: “That is, rather than choose sides between humanistic and technical training, rather than divorce outcomes between the logical precision of technical literacies and the passionate ethical orator, and rather than delineate particular areas where public persona stops to become private, we take the whole person as educated decision maker.” In other words (to put it plainly), marrying the theoretical and the practical enriches the educational experiences of our students, allowing them to grow, develop, and mature.