Notice to Portfolio Viewers

This activity, while designed for my proposed Business and Technical Writing course, could easily fit into discussions about genre, audience, and purpose. While a resume is not an core course project in the aforementioned course, students will work (through activities like this one) to compose a living resume that develops throughout the semester. Completion of the resume factors into the student’s class citizenship grade. I see knowing how to assemble a resume as being vital to student success outside of the academy, but chose to include it in this capacity to differentiate my course design. This enables the core projects to focus on developing equally relevant skill sets in interesting contexts often overlooked by the traditional Business Writing course model.

Griffin

Business/Technical Writing

Resume Activity

(Insert Date Here)

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Overview

This activity is designed to get us thinking about composing a resume that makes us marketable to potential employers. It is not uncommon for individuals to draft multiple versions of their resume so that it is more applicable to specific jobs. Today, we will be looking at how a company’s mission statement can help us to create tailored statements of purpose that can increase our marketability to that company.

Instructions

Part One

Momentarily, the instructor will be projecting a mock mission statement for a fictional company. You will take 15-20 minutes to review that statement and compose a statement of purpose (reflect back to previous course discussions) that addresses it. When writing, consider how the company describes its purpose and what it claims to value. What traits do they seem to be looking for in their employees? How can your statement speak to that criteria?

Part Two

When the instructor notifies you, get into groups of two and share your statements with each other. You will have 15 minutes to discuss how you chose to position yourself, and how you see it tying back to the provided mission statement. You are encouraged to offer each other suggestions IN A RESPECTFUL AND CRITICAL MANNER. In what ways were you and your peer’s approach similar? In what ways did they differ? Do you feel one approach is more appealing than another? Why or why not?

Part Three

This activity will conclude with a collective class discussion about what we observed in working through this activity. Volunteers will be asked to share their statements with us and talk about why they composed it how they did. Questions are open forum and encouraged to be asked at any APPROPRIATE time. Make sure to give your peers their fair chance to speak.

*For Portfolio Viewers

Designing a mock mission statement for this activity is fairly easy to do. One could feasibly take an existing mission statement from a current company and edit it so that it does not disclose the company’s identity. Revealing the company to students during the end discussion period can be used to prompt further conversation about ethics and audience. Instructors could (with equal effectiveness) create their own statements, but should take care in designing them so that they clearly explicate the concepts they want students to consider in their writing.