Extended Abstract: Considering Race and Mortality from COVID as a Wicked Problem Using Praxiography as Pedagogy

Instructors of technical communication can benefit from a praxiographic approach to divergent understandings of COVID and race, a phenomenon that can be described as a wicked problem that allows our students to engage in dynamic and difficult issues where specific actions are needed but can be elusive. The case study used to this end describes how African-Americans who contracted COVID in early 2020 died at a rate that was 2.4 times greater than white Americans with COVID, and, when characterized as a wicked problem, offers different and competing reasons for this disparity.