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Chapter 8. Not a Laughing Matter: Creating a HumorCentric User Design in OWI

Online spaces are often viewed as cold and robotic platforms where it is difficult to cultivate human connection. Building and nurturing a virtual classroom community can be more challenging than fostering a face-to-face classroom community. Moreover, OWI deals with the teaching and learning of writing, and writing can be an immensely personal and social activity. In that sense, it is crucial that OWI classes possess an element of warmth and cordiality so that the members of the classroom community feel a sense of comfort and ease while sharing their thoughts and work with one another. This chapter presents humor as a method to promote that togetherness and sociability. It focuses on the ways to utilize pedagogical humor in OWI classes in a productive manner while cautioning about the downsides of inappropriate humor.