"PoWeR" is the Professional Writing and Rhetoric program at Longwood. Many students would like to hone their professional writing skills in order to increase their marketability upon graduation. Students who take the Professional Writing and Technical Writing classes gain experience creating a variety of professional documents, such as reports, proposals, resumes, memos, business letters, and websites.

Students in Professional Writing complete a client project with the organization of their choice. Many students remarked on how much fun it was to work with a client when I taught the class the fall of 2007.

Students in Technical Writing create a set of instructions we have fun trying out in class. Last spring, students had to build something fabulous using 50 Legos. They took pictures of the process and generated the appropriate text. Then, they dismantled their creations and brought them to class. Their classmates had to use their instructions and Legos to create the same thing. In other classes, we've done usability testing on instructions and ended up making homemade playdough, learning a song on the guitar, and creating creatures using origami. Although working technical writers often have to create instructions for software programs or mechanical parts, we have fun learning the same concepts in our class.

Courses Offered Online

Recently, I taught English 470/570, Professional Writing and Editing, fully online. I hope to do so again in the near future. Right now, I plan to teach English 302, History of Rhetoric, fully online in the spring of 2009. I am also working to put English 319, Technical Writing, fully online.

Contact Information

I'm in Grainger 210, (434) 395-2071. My email is welchkd@longwood.edu. Please contact me if you have any questions/concerns.