EN :

As interest in the singular “they” has burgeoned in scholarly venues and mainstream media over the past decade, writing studies scholars remain surprisingly absent from these conversations. I studied the impact, value, and challenges of teaching this gender-inclusive pronoun in three sections of my institution’s first-year writing course. Prior to instruction on gender-inclusive language, students used the singular “they” liberally and were not aware of how gender-inclusive they were. After learning multiple gender-inclusive writing strategies, students indicated increased awareness of their own use of such language, interest and confidence in using it, and appreciation of its relevance. They preferred the singular “they” to other gender-inclusive writing strategies. But evidence of a disconnect between language use and ideological opposition to gender-inclusive language was also apparent in two (of 71) students’ work. In addition to their work, students’ self-assessments are therefore vital indicators of the value, impact, and challenges of teaching gender-inclusive language: the nexus of perceived use, interest, ability, and relevance drives whether students will transfer their learning to other contexts and reconcile the disconnect, if one exists, between their language use and ideological orientation towards such language. These findings may be relevant to teaching other forms of inclusive, bias-free language.

FR :

La norme internationale sur le langage clair (ci-après « la norme ISO ») établit les lignes directrices de la communication écrite. Bien que la norme ISO ne soit disponible qu’en anglais actuellement, les principes qui y sont mentionnés se veulent universels et ils font l’objet d’un consensus. Appuyé par des données empiriques, le travail des experts impliqués a permis la création d’une norme plutôt concise.

Puisque le travail du comité d’experts se base sur des données empiriques, nous nous sommes demandée si le contenu de la norme intégrait les connaissances rédactologiques actuelles. Si tel est le cas, nous verrons si la norme peut servir de fondement à l’enseignement de la rédactologie. Cet article se veut une recension de la norme.

EN :

The International Standard on Plain Language (hereinafter "the ISO standard") sets out guidelines for written communication. Although the ISO standard is currently only available in English, its principles are intended to be universal and are the subject of a consensus. Backed by empirical data, the work of the experts involved has resulted in a rather concise standard.

Since the work of the expert committee is based on empirical data, we wondered whether the content of the standard incorporated current Writing studies knowledge. If so, we'll see whether the standard can serve as a basis for the teaching of Writing studies. This article works as a review of the standard.

EN :

This teaching report describes a workshop delivered at the University of Toronto Mississauga as a part of the Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre’s (RGASC) Head Start program. The workshop was premised on two guiding ideas: (1) since the University of Toronto maintains flexible guidelines regarding generative AI (hereafter genAI) policies across courses, undergraduate students benefit from participation in candid discussions of the contextual nature of shifting technological values and (2) first-year university students are in the unique position of also needing to contextualize the shift from high school to university learning contexts, so they are in particular need of opportunities to discuss the diversity of perspectives surrounding the permissibility of genAI use in higher education. The workshop led students through noticing the differences between high school and university learning expectations; applying socially oriented theories of communication; contextualizing “local” genAI syllabus policies; and crafting a personal theory of acceptable genAI use. This report is a collaboration between an undergraduate student (Author 1) and a writing professor (Author 2). To support educators in replicating all or part of this exercise within their own local contexts, workshop materials are appended.