How can I justify time spent on technical writing, when every hour that goes to it comes from mainstream language-arts topics?
One must distinguish literacy from literature. Previous answers have explained how technical writing in high school (a) addresses specific language-arts content standards, (b) prepares students for the California exit examination, (c) develops authentic verbal skills in high demand across a broad spectrum of current jobs, (d) improves the academic prose of those college bound, and (e) promotes general cognitive maturity and social awareness. This means that technical writing is mainstream; it is simply not literary. Some literature time sacrificed for it repays students in these many ways. For students with weak literature backgrounds, technical writing is the best alternative way, perhaps the only way, that they will ever enjoy these important benefits.
