Disrupting transmission theory: Genre as social action in the professional communication classroom

In professional communication service courses, students are often taught with textbooks or assignments that embody tensions between Shannon and Weaver's transmission model of communication versus more rhetorical concepts of purpose, audience, and context. I present three introductory business communication assignments designed to teach students to consider their writing choices and the functions of genre as social action as a richer way of learning to communicate in professional contexts: an analysis memo, an ESL messages packet, and an instructions and presentation assignment. Asking students to analyze their own professional communication practices and connect these practices to larger issues of purpose, audience, and context provides opportunities for students to go beyond merely transmitting information into a richer understanding of their own writing choices.