Teaching Toward the Telos of Critical Thinking: Genre in Business Communication

Definitions Within the Literature

It is useful to review concurrent definitions of critical thinking to identify the disparities among definitions in the field as well as within the workplace. The September 2014BPCQissue reinforced the need for continued conversation about ways in which to teach critical thinking in the business classroom.Knight (2014)invoked American sociologist William Graham Sumner to define “what we now call critical thinking as ‘the examination and test of propositions of any kind which are offered for acceptance, in order to find out whether they correspond to reality or not’” (p. 247) and emphasized this definition as a point for authors to move from within the issue. Although Knight suggested Sumner’s definition of critical thinking can be considered universal, the authors of the first article in the edition offered a different perspective altogether, one that focuses on what critical thinkingdoesversus how it isdefined. In other words,Bloch and Spataro (2014)saw the acquisition of critical thinking skills as fluid rather than static. While critical thinking is not the focus of the article, Bloch and Spataro came to the conclusion that their students have good critical thinking skills if they can conduct a root cause analysis, recognize and evaluate assumptions, generate creative alternatives, minimize biases in their thinking, construct and deliver a clear argument, clearly communicate their ideas, and embrace curiosity (p. 254). The articles following Bloch and Spataro’s emphasis on the outcomes of critical thinking skills do not explicitly mention a definition of critical thinking. Those articles discuss the importance of oral exams (Burke-Smalley, 2014), how impromptu assignments can help develop communication skills (Yale, 2014), the examination of termination documentation (Duncan & Hill, 2014), and a survey on class size, delivery modes, assignments, and topics covered in business communication classes (Moshiri & Cardon, 2014). Essentially what the reader of the issue is left with is different definitions of critical thinking and many questions about the success of teaching critical thinking in the business communication classroom. TheBPCQissue does not represent an exhaustive corpus of texts that defines critical thinking and its teaching practices in the classroom. However, it does show just how difficult it is to come to one definition, even in a single issue focused on critical thinking. Therefore, one reason for the difficulty of teaching critical thinking skills in the classroom could be the lack of a common definition or outcome within our field (Grant, 1988).

Definitions Within the Workplace

Beyond the lack of a universal definition in business and professional communication, the difficulty of defining critical thinking extends into the workplace.The American Management Association (AMA, 2012), a nonprofit training organization, defined critical thinking in tandem with problem-solving as “the ability to make decisions, solve problems, and take action as appropriate” (p. 2). Yet a recentAMA (2012)study confirmed that “more than half of executives admit that their employees are ‘average’ at best in critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication skills” (p. 1). Executives have argued that critical thinking skills are crucial not only for current work practices but also for future jobs within the next 3 to 5 years (AMA, 2012, p. 3). While companies look for, and stress the importance of, critical thinking skills in employees, it is extremely difficult to find a corporation that defines what they mean by critical thinking. TheFoundation for Critical Thinking (n.d.), a rare nonprofit, blended the values of academia, business, and the community in order to define critical thinking as “that mode of thinking—about any subject, content, or problem—in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them” (para. 10). The foundation emphasized that a well-cultivated critical thinker should have the ability to raise vital questions, gather and assess relevant information, think with an open mind, and effectively communicate complex problems. Considering this version of critical thinking with those discussed above, we now have multiple definitions of critical thinking for a variety of situations and contexts across academia and the workplace.

Academia and business do, however, have similarities in their explanations of critical thinking. WhileKnight (2014)and theFoundation for Critical Thinking (n.d.)both offered definitions, it seems as though their focus is on the outcomes students should gain from learning critical thinking skills. Academia and the workplace emphasize a set of critical thinking skills they want students to gain, or what Aristotle defines astelos. Telos focuses the importance of education on teaching to the outcome. Instead of creating a universal definition for critical thinking that both academia and the workplace can use, it seems as though we can agree (to some extent, anyway) on the outcome, or telos, we want students to gain. The definitions listed above all suggest that students should be able to identify and understand knowledge that can be applied to other contexts.

Teaching Toward Telos Using a Genre Focus

One way to teach to the telos of critical thinking is to focus on genre. YetParetti (2008)argued that even when instructors teach “workplace documents,” or genre, students are able to repeat and write document formats, but they potentially do not understand how and why to adapt those documents in professional contexts (p. 491). Therefore, it is useful to contextualize workplace genres within professional discourse.Miller (1984)suggested that thinking about genre in terms of a “social action” would be helpful to understand that there is a situation surrounding a particular discourse classification, or document in business communication, that helps contextualize the creation of that genre. Genres are so embedded in their context thatSwales (2004)urged us not to see genres “as single—and perhaps separable—communicative resources but as forming complex networks of various kinds in which switching modes from speech to writing (and vice versa) can—and often does—play a natural and significant part” in the formation of genres (p. 2). Understanding what genres are and how they work in a complex network of other genres embedded in communities can help students understand why “workplace documents” are written and the role genres play in the broader communities within which they are situated. Therefore, we can teach students explicitly that they will need to use genre analysis in the workplace, and the act of them applying and adapting that knowledge to new contexts is exactly the telos of critical thinking that we are looking to establish in our students.

Genre theory suggests that we can offer our students knowledge (of analyzing and discovering how to write within the genre) in order for them to apply it to different contexts. Although some in our field have documented the use of genre theory in the classroom (Creelman, 2012;Kallendorf & Kallendorf, 1985;Pope-Ruark, 2012;Ruppert & Green, 2012;Walker, 2003), many of them do not focus on genre as a framework to teach. One scholar, in particular, focuses specifically on genre theory to teach business communication, but the focus is on nonnative speakers (Garzone, 2012). There has been little written about the potential affordances of the use of a genre theory framework in the business communication classroom to cultivate transferrable critical thinking skills.

Therefore, to teach for the telos of critical thinking, we can consider how we could integrate a genre theory framework to cultivate critical thinking skills for business communication students. In this article, I will suggest that the telos of critical thinking is the ability to identify and understand knowledge that can be applied to other contexts. In what follows, I offer an examination of a small corner of genre studies, how this pedagogy could encourage the transfer of critical thinking from the classroom to the workplace, and how business communication instructors might consider practical application of this pedagogy into their classrooms. This article asserts that students in business and professional communication are not being adequately equipped with critical thinking skills that transfer into the workplace; however, by explicitly teaching genre to achieve telos, we can cultivate critical thinking skills in our students. In the next section, I will explicate genre theory for its use in the business communication classroom. I will then end with the practical application of a genre theory framework, and implications of such a framework for use in future business communication classrooms.

While genre theory is vast and contested, a framework of how we might use it in the classroom can help us better conceptualize meeting the outcomes of critical thinking. Genre theory is mostly recognized by composition scholars who often use the framework in their writing classrooms. In her foundational article, “Genre as Social Action,”Miller (1984)explicated the emergence of formandcontent situated in a conversation within a bigger community of people. We better understand genre theory through the standpoint of the rhetorical situation—which, at its most basic level, considers the audience, purpose, and context.

Genre theory is not a neat, clean, boundaried framework to use as an analytical tool to help students critically think in the classroom. However, we can begin to see the impact of how teaching genre analysis throughMiller’s (1984)lens might help students understand the broader implications of writing within the workplace. Furthermore, it is imperative to understand the historical context, the exigence, and the genre’s broader place within the current context (Miller, 2015). Historically, we can analyze genres through how they emerged as genres, what traits they share with other genres like them, how they find their way in their community, and their fluid nature. Though, the historical conceptualization of genre is extremely complex and advanced—for both instructor and student—and difficult to understand and use as a framework within a business communication classroom.

The Dynamic and Social Nature of Genre

Ideally, while considering historical context within a genre theory framework, we need to teach students how to analyze both genres and how they work within their broader context in order to instill rhetorical and ideological understanding when encountering new genres (Devitt, 2004, p. 194). By doing this, we are teaching both “workplace documents” and how they are contextualized; therefore, students can understand the nuances of writing. Social action allows for students to understand documents within an interconnected network of other genres, previous writers, and previous contexts. If just the “form” of the memo were to be taught, the article summary, the proposal, and each genre would be decontextualized. Students might learn how to write the document in the classroom, but they would have no way to know how that document functions in the workplace. What makes students successful in writing genres for a class may not necessarily be the recipe for success for writing in that same genre in the workplace. Understanding genre within a broader context and with different audiences could be the key to cultivating critical thinking.

But, what does this all mean within the classroom? First, we need to explicitly introduce and then analyze the genre we are asking the students to write. For example, and as you will see in the next section, explicitly analyzing each genre that is introduced creates a framework that students can use over and over again to understand an unfamiliar genre. Next, as a class, we discuss the broader context and the historical context within which the genre is operating. I encourage my students to do research to trace the genre’s origins and how it is used in other contexts (specifically in contexts outside of the classroom). Finally, once students identify the various contexts of a genre, the genre is adapted to build on what exists but to operate rhetorically in the current situation. Genre framework and analysis are done through scaffolding.

Scaffolding

Granott, Fischer, and Parziale (2002)likened the act of developmental scaffolding in education to the building of the Roman and Greek arches. These arches “are logically impossible to construct: the central closing stone is needed for keeping the lateral supporting stones in place, and the lateral supporting stones are needed to keep the closing stone in place. Scaffolding solves this ‘logical impossibility’” (Granott et al., 2002, p. 146).Granott et al. (2002)argued that by creating a scaffolding for support, construction of the “impossible” can begin.

The scaffolding analogy, as it is used in education, allows for teachers to conceive of their teaching as “support” to help build the structure of knowledge. Ideally, once the knowledge is constructed, the teacher can remove the support systems, and the knowledge will remain. By using genre theory as a lens to help scaffold critical thinking, students’ structure of knowledge can, in theory, be much more sound before the support structures from the teacher are removed.

Practical Implementation

While not often explicitly acknowledged, students have genre awareness well before they reach college. Students have been asked to write essays and book reports, among other writing. Although students were not asked to identify the specific conventions, exigence, context, and purpose of those genres, the sheer repetition of composing within the genres helped students become effective writers within those specific genres. I suggest here that we continue to build on this knowledge but that we do so explicitly.Devitt (2004)suggested that students need to have several interactions with a particular genre, in a number of different ways, in order to see how it operates and to enable the writer to compose in that genre effectively. In this section, I will highlight important aspects of integrating a genre theory framework into the business communication classroom.

Gaps in Genre Theory/Critical Thinking Framework

Clearly, I find value in conceiving of ways to integrate a genre theory framework into a business communication classroom. However, at the end of the semester, I asked my students to write a white paper as a group. Previous to the white paper, students individually wrote analyze and recommendation (A&R) reports where they were asked to analyze a specific problem within a company and offer recommendations to alleviate the issue. Before the A&R report assignment began, as a class we analyzed the A&R report genre by using the framework outlined in previous sections. However, when students were asked to analyze the white paper genre on their own, they struggled. In other words, once I removed the scaffolding at the end of the semester, the structure did not seem strong enough to stand alone. Students even expressed frustrations in evaluations at the end of the semester that not enough direction was given for the completion of the white paper. So, what happened?

First, I think that our college classes primarily front-load information but do not have the opportunity to test the structure once the scaffold is removed. If students cannot retain or apply the knowledge they gained during the semester within the same class, how are they going to transfer that knowledge into the workplace?Brent (2011)questioned if students can transfer rhetorical knowledge from the classroom into workplace at all (p. 397). Although there was evidence in my classroom that students were thinking critically through a genre theory framework by adapting to new situations, they were still within a classroom setting—not in a workplace. While this article is not focused on transfer, it does beg the question: What is the purpose of the classroom?

Second, while I taught students how to use the genre framework as a class, I did not pay special attention to their ability to operate within the framework as individuals. If there is a case of too much scaffolding, I might be guilty of overloading direction early in the semester. Therefore, in the future, I will work to develop a course where students have support but are much more autonomous in learning to compose within a genre theory framework.

Conclusion

At the beginning of this article, I argue that in the business communication and writing classrooms there is still a lot that can be done to focus on the development of critical thinking skills. More importantly, a genre theory framework offers potential in helping students cultivate critical thinking in our classrooms. One critical barrier in teaching critical thinking is the lack of a common definition about the scholarship in our field, along with unclear definitions in the workplace. The common thread among the literature in the field and the workplace is, although not explicit, the importance of teaching to the outcome, or telos, of critical thinking. A genre theory framework in the business classroom could lead to adaptability. More specifically, a genre theory framework can help students identify and understand knowledge that can be applied to other contexts, which ultimately is the end goal, or telos, of critical thinking.

My hesitation with encouraging a genre theory pedagogy in the business communication classroom, especially to those who are unfamiliar with genre, is that we have the potential to walk into the content/form debate. In composition theory, instructors privilege the process of creating content versus focusing merely on form. Yet, in business communication, form is often at least as important as content, if not more so. In other words, if we are not contextualizing genre as a social action (Miller, 1984), then we run the risk of valuing the conventions of a particular genre over its content. In essence, teaching the genres of business communication in its own right is useful for students. Yet using genre theory to understand how to analyze genres within their broader contexts is what helps to cultivate critical thinking.

What is unique about a business communication classroom is that the corpus of genres is considerably shrunk when we think about the kinds of assignments we assign and the kinds of writing we anticipate students will do in the workplace. In addition, many business writing genres, such as memos, meeting minutes, proposals, résumés, and cover letters, are available in templated form, even from within Microsoft Word (which is problematic, and only further stresses the importance of teaching genre explicitly). If students download templates, there is no careful consideration that goes into the development of the genre. Genre theory allows us to contextualize those documents that students will write in the workplace; it gives life to a genre and allows for mutations of the templates offered on Microsoft Word. When students understand how and why they are writing within a genre, within a context, and for a specific audience, they have agency to make rhetorical choices to alter the genre to fit the needs of the individuals involved. When students feel that they have agency to write within a genre—knowing its conventions and historical context—but can change the conventions based on context, critical thinking happens. When students can then take those skills and transfer them into the workplace, it shows evidence of the telos of critical thinking.

While I saw sparks of critical thinking happening in my classroom through the use of a genre theory framework, I certainly have room for improvement in the development and practice of genre theory framework in the future. Longitudinal research could be done to follow students into their workplace to see how genre theory might be implemented when they are asked to write. Then, the difficult work would be to consider how critical thinking should be measured. Regardless, valuable research is missing from our literature about understanding the development of critical thinking across contexts.