Think rhetorically: Navigating the contested territory of social media in the workplace

This paper presents an assignment that challenges students to evaluate and make decisions about social media in the workplace, using an evaluative framework adapted from Sophistic rhetoric. After outlining the contested territory of online work-related talk, we present a professional writing assignment based on a recent court case involving social media and labor relations: Shepherd vs. McGee. This assignment introduces three key concepts that students can use to analyze the case and formulate a revised Social Media Strategy for the plaintiff: kairos, appropriateness and possibility. After articulating learning outcomes for the assignment, we review methods for assessing multimodal writing and adapt Ball´s Kuhn+2 assessment criteria to our assignment. We conclude by discussing potential adaptations of this assignment for contexts within and beyond professional writing.