T. R. Girill
Society for Technical Communication/Lawrence Livermore National Lab.
trgirill@acm.org

Philosophy Meets Literacy Through Positive Coaching

When I show high-school science students (or their teachers) how to
design effective nonfiction ("technical") text, they often end up
with a lesson not just in linguistics but also in philosophy--
about writer responsibility.  One way to see this is to tap the
distinction (another philosophical move!) between positive and
negative coaching.