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The Social Issues Informative Guide Project: A Concrete Application of Invitational Rhetoric
Why Invitational Rhetoric for Technical Communication Pedagogy?
Core Principles of Invitational Technical Communication Pedagogy
Implications: How Invitational Rhetoric Addresses Systemic Exclusion in Technical Communication
Considerations, Challenges, and Honest Limitations
Appendix A: Social Issues Informative Guide Project Overview
Introduction
This paper proposes invitational rhetoric (Foss & Griffin, 1995) as a vital and operationalizable pedagogical framework for addressing persistent marginalization in technical communication classrooms. Specifically, I argue that implementing invitational rhetoric offers concrete communication strategies that are grounded in feminist scholarship and recent social justice work in technical communication—for creating more inclusive, socially just learning environments where marginalized students can direct learning guided by their lived priorities and values. Rather than treating this framework as merely theoretical, I ground this argument in a practical, implementable project. I call it the Social Issues Informative Guide Project, which is designed to teach invitational principles through hands-on, community-centered collaborative work. In this multi-week collaborative assignment, student teams select a contemporary social issue, identify the discourse community most affected, conduct community outreach and listening, and co-create an informative guide tailored to that community’s own priorities and resources. The project has been piloted in undergraduate technical communication courses and serves as both the motivating example and the practical culmination of the theoretical argument developed throughout this paper.
This paper addresses a critical gap: while recent scholarship in technical communication has called for social justice-oriented pedagogy (Jones et al., 2016; Walton et al., 2019), few resources provide concrete, teachable models that practitioners can immediately implement in their classrooms.
Invitational rhetoric emerges from feminist scholarship as an ethical alternative to traditional persuasive rhetoric (Foss & Griffin, 1995). Whereas persuasion seeks to change others' attitudes and beliefs through argument, often in ways that privilege already dominant groups, invitational rhetoric aims to foster understanding across differences by "offering perspectives without imposing them on others" (Foss & Griffin, 1995, p. 15). At its core, invitational rhetoric rests on three central philosophical tenets articulated by Foss and Griffin: (1) equality—recognizing all participants as valuable contributors with expertise worth hearing; (2) immanent value—assuming each person possesses inherent worth deserving respect, regardless of social position or status; and (3) self-determination—honoring people's right to make choices about their own lives, identities, and intellectual contributions. Invitational rhetoric invites participation by creating external conditions that allow others to present their perspectives in their voices, and on their terms (Foss et al., 2004, p. 83)—conditions that explicitly challenge hierarchical structures where certain voices are authorized while others are marginalized or silenced.
Invitational rhetoric provides a necessary framework for developing inclusive pedagogies that counter the ongoing marginalization of certain groups in technical communication classrooms and knowledge production. As Haas (2012) argues, despite claims of neutrality and objectivity, technical communication has been complicit in "the exclusion of non-white, non-male, non-Western peoples from full participation" in knowledge-making (p. 278). This systemic exclusion privileges certain voices and perspectives while rendering others inferior, invisible, or in need of remediation. Agboka (2013) similarly critiques "the hegemonic practice of dismissing or devaluing the communicative styles of some groups" in technical communication pedagogy (p. 29)—a practice that reflects deeper assumptions about what counts as "proper" or "effective" technical communication. Yet technical communication is not frozen in this exclusionary practice. Over the past decade, scholars including Jones, Moore, and Walton (2016), Cañas (2019), Itchuaqiyaq & Matheson (2021), and others have initiated what Walton, Moore, and Jones (2019) term "the social justice turn" in technical communication—an explicit commitment to examining how technical communication pedagogy and practice can advance equity, access, and justice for historically marginalized communities. However, while this scholarship brilliantly identifies problems and advocates for change, few resources provide practitioners with concrete, step-by-step pedagogical models they can immediately implement. Invitational rhetoric fills this gap by offering not abstract principles but actionable practices.
An invitational pedagogical model fosters classroom conditions welcoming all students to share diverse experiences and approaches without fear of dismissal, critique, or the necessity to assimilate to dominant norms. Foss and Foss (1994) argue that invitational rhetoric constitutes an offering of perspective, not an argument or a lecture that listeners must accept. Rather than positioning the instructor as sole arbiter of knowledge, students' narratives, experiences, and ways of knowing are treated as equally valid "sources of insight and knowledge" compared to empirical research or theoretical abstractions (Foss & Foss, 1994, p. 39). This decentering of institutional authority creates potential space for marginalized voices to emerge and gain legitimacy. However, this is crucial to acknowledge that decentering authority alone does not guarantee inclusion. Rather, it requires intentional, conscious implementation by instructors aware of power dynamics and committed to justice work. Teachers must deliberately structure classroom conditions, communication practices, and assessment approaches to realize invitational principles.
Several communication scholars and pedagogues have articulated the potential of invitational rhetoric to transform classrooms into more egalitarian, inclusive spaces. Pineau (2002) argues invitational pedagogies enable "the flowering of multiple voices" and foreground "opportunities for connection between self and other" (p. 51)—opportunities that cultivate belonging and mutual recognition. Similarly, Rudick and Golsan (2012) present invitational rhetoric as an activist teaching stance designed to empower students traditionally marginalized by social institutions like education. Applied to technical communication, adopting an invitational approach helps teachers relinquish exclusive "expert" authority and instead foster horizontal learning environments where all students' contributions are valued as knowledge production. This shift from expert-driven to collaborative knowledge-making aligns with recent work in narrative inquiry (Frost, 2015; Kalodner-Martin, 2022; Vealey & Gerding, 2021) demonstrating that lived experience and embodied knowledge constitute valid epistemological resources.
Technical communication education stands at a critical juncture. As the demographics of our students and fields continue diversifying, and as our society grapples with entrenched inequities, our classrooms must evolve to embrace alternate ways of communicating, learning, and producing knowledge. An invitational approach provides concrete, teachable strategies toward this goal. This project investigates how applying invitational rhetoric to technical communication pedagogy can practically transform teaching and learning, ultimately empowering marginalized students to become agents of change in their disciplines and communities. By centering both theory and practice, this paper demonstrates that invitational rhetoric is not a distant ideal but a framework teachers can implement tomorrow.