Final Exam Study Guide Spring 2014

This study guide is intended as a tool to help you focus your study for the final exam. The test will include objective methods of testing: multiple choice, true/false, matching and word banks. The test will primarily focus on material covered in class, but will also include information from book chapters on culture, relational communication, groups, and media.

Be able to distinguish between hi-context culture communication and low-context culture communication

Be able to define and distinguish between all of the major terms an concepts in the chapters on GROUPS, CULTURE, MEDIA, and RELATIONSHIPS.

Understand the ways that genres can be divided & the way that genres lead to ideology.  What does it mean for a particular media text to PUSH a genre or SERVE a genre?

How does Burke's Pentad help us understand the meanings and motives of stories.

What is a media conglomerates and how do they affect media?

Understand the idea that there are multiple stories being told in any media text; and what it means to find them. Understand the relationship between the main story, the genre story, the money story, the audience story and the medium story.

Understand the idea of a "mythic" story behind the story in a media text.

Know and be able to distinguish between all the steps of the standard agenda.

Be able to identify and explain each of the dialectic tensions from the relational communication class.

Be able to identify and understand the three different meanings of "Performance" in communication.

Be able to identify each of the six aspects of performances from Aristotelian thinking about performance.

Know the difference between media and mass media.

Be able to apply the five elements of cultural performances to an example from class.

Community Involvement Advocacy

As you know, much of your grade for "Community Involvement" comes from the advocacy and support of your peers. Now is the time for you to spend a few moments advocating on their behalf.

I am sending you a Community Involvement Advocacy Form a week before your advocacy is due.  This form will be arrive in your email in the form of a link.  Once you click on the link you will arrive at the form which will look like an online survey.  This form includes the names of all the students in the class and a box below where you can advocate for them.

At the beginning of the semester, I shared a roster with you that included the names of all the members of the class along with their pictures.  If you need help remembering a name, you should check that roster.  It's available in the google doc folder full of shared items.

As you advocate for your peers, you may type in anything that you would want to about the members in the class. You do NOT have to write about everyone (please don't), but you MUST write about yourself.

Here's an example:

Sheila Peterman

Sheila always seems to have done the reading before class, because the questions she asks seem to be informed. I have also appreciated the examples she gave on the day we talked about informative speaking. I worked in two small groups with her, and she subtly kept the group "on task" the whole time.

Andrew Rudd (me)

I have been going over my notes with my roomate Sean and I listened to Tammie's speech the night before she gave it. Even though I don't say very much in front of the whole class, when we work in groups, I try to be a leader by making suggestions and connecting people's ideas to the ideas from the book.

Don't forget to think about in-class conversation groups, performance groups.  (Maybe you've even jotted down reminders in your class notes?  Like I asked you to do? Please consult those reminders if so.)

Please turn in your advocacy on time -- the due date is listed on the course calendar; If you do not complete a community involvement advocacy sheet, your own community involvement grade (assigned by me) will automatically be reduced by 20%.

Handbrake Instructions

You will use handbrake to compress the Oral History files that you collect.  The instructions below will help you learn how to use this software. Click on the blue box to read it.

Exam One Study Sheet

Exam One Study Sheet/Terms

Communication Models

- Distinguish between the models of communication from the chapter and lecture.

- Be able to apply the elements of the Coordinated Management of Meaning model to multiple different communicative contexts.

• Speech Act
• Episode
• Identity
• Relationship
• Culture

Public Communication

- Be able to distinguish between the five Roman Canons of Rhetoric (from the course blog)

- Explain the three types of proof that Aristotle said all persuaders use.

- Know the two dimensions of credibility (and the third that he didn't include)

- What was Aristotle’s three step process for evoking an emotion in an audience?

- What did Aristotle think the best kind of proof was? Why?

- Know and be able to identify and apply Monroe's Motivated Sequence. Know the particulars of each step.

Speech Delivery

Be able to define and distinguish between

Appearance
Posture
Eye Contact (sustained / distributed)
Poise
Facial Expressiveness
Rate
Pitch
Volume
Articulation

Nonverbals

Be able to identify the following nonverbal behaviors in case studies of human behavior:

kinesics, haptics, physical appearance, olfactics, artifacts, proxemics, environmental factors, chronemics, paralanguage, and silence.

Be able to identify the ways that particular nonverbal behaviors regulate interaction, establish relationship-level meanings and reflect cultural values.

Be able to link these to the examples from class.

Oral History

Know the history of oral communication that we talked about in class.

Be able to identify the ways that oral histories differ from other forms of history.

Listening

Be able to identify all the steps in the process of listening according to the chapter

Be able to identify all the barriers to listening

Be able to correctly order the empathic and critical listening process.

Speaker Order - Community Speech

Speaker Order

Monday, February 17
1. Kaitlyn
2. Jordan Schlabaugh 
3. Ally
4. Hannah
5. Erin
6. Tina
7. Kelsey


Wednesday, February 19
1. Mahogany
2. Jhonathan
3. Lucas
4. Jake
5. Nate
6. Benjamin



Friday, February 21
 
1. Leah
2. Xavier
3. Andrew 
4. Jordan Muir
5. Thomas
6. Gabrielle
7. Tara
8. Colton 

Community Needs Speech Topics

Kelsey - Insufficient Awareness about Resources for New Mothers

Erin - High Crime Rates- specifically

Mahogany - Local violent Crime

Gabby - Addictions

Kaitlyn - Obesity

Thomas - Kids Who Lack Role Models

Tina - Canton's "run down & rough area" reputation

Jordan S. - Poverty in Canton

Jhonathan - Extreme Poverty in Canton

Hannah - the need to help people restore their houses to proper living conditions when they can't afford it or are not able to do it themselves

Leah - Unwanted pregnancies 

Lucas - Homeless Need for Good Shoes 

Ally - At risk kids who are unsupervised after school - drugs & gangs & crime

Jake - At risk kids, unsupervised after school - lower grades and scores in school

Jordan M. - lack of fitness in Canton

Tara - Needs of women & children from homes with Domestic abuse

Benjamin - Animals on the edge at animal shelters.





 

Speaker Schedule SOMETHING I LEARNED SPEECH

WEDNESDAY SPEAKERS
Kaitlyn Brant
Jordan Schlabach
Ally Ramsdall
Hannah Maczko
Erin Moomaw
Leah Webb
Tina Yu
Mahogany Oldham
Jhonathan Zapata            

FRIDAY SPEAKERS
Thomas Watt
Nate Boyer
Tara Pete
Gabby Swafford
Kelsey Ciha
Jake Bohrer

MONDAY SPEAKERS
Josiah Brown
Tyler Dingus
Lucas Haupt
Ben Mariano
Jordan Mui
Andrew Rorbach
Colton Hale
Xavier Denton

SOMETHING I'VE LEARNED approved topics

patience from golf - Hannah

organizational leadership - Jordan

perserverance - Tara

how to be a customer - Tina

overcoming shyness - Jordan Muir

how i fell in love with running - Erin

we do not control our lives - Mahogany

how I learned to view my job as an RA as a service to God - Leah

accept your life for what it is  - Gabby

good things can come out of bad situations/circumstances - Kaitlyn
 

 

Course Introduction

This is a course about communication. During this semester the aim is for you to become more aware of the communication around you, and for you to improve your own skills as a communicator. Sometimes it will seem strange and over-analytical as we dive into the pools of communication over and over again. Much of your own experience will provide the context for talking about this subject. We’ll work hard to use your experiences to understand some of the complicated and enriching ideas we’ll explore.

Course Description

You will give speeches, analyze media, collect an oral history, appreciate a theatre production and better understand your own interpersonal communication strengths and weaknesses.

We will look at many levels of communication, ranging from intrapersonal communication to interpersonal communication, public speaking, group communication, intercultural communication and mass media and communication. Many of the principles we’ll learn will be relevant to all of these different contexts and levels. Hopefully by the end of this course you will not only be a more effective communicator, but you will be much more aware of how the communication around you works.

Community Engagement Persuasive Speech

OVERVIEW: You must use Monroe’s Motivated Sequence to construct a persuasive display and presentation to convince your classmates how to understand or take action about a significant problem in the local community. Your presentation must be roughly five minutes in length and must include and integrate visual aids. This presentation will occur in a “fair” setting so your style of presentation should adapt to that context. You will be graded both by the teacher and your peers, and you will be responsible to grade your peers.

DUE: February 17 (and following)

POINTS AVAILABLE:80

ASSESSED BASED ON:
Employed Monroe's Motivated Sequence (10),
Employed Variety of Evidence (15),
Developed Quality of Evidence (15),
Crafted Practiced Presentation (10),
Utilized Effective Visual Presentational Techniques (10),
Interacted Improvisationally with Audience (10),
& Demonstrate Good Audience Member Qualities (10).

PROCESS OF PREPARATION:

1. After reading through this description of the assignment, identify a community need.

2. Email me (Andrew) to reserve your topic or community problem. I will accept proposals for community problems beginning at 8 am on September 19th. I will only accept proposals via email. Be sure to title your email "Community Issues Proposal." I will post the approved topics in a google doc and share it with you.

3. Develop a good understanding of your topic through research. In class we will talk about the various types of research that are helpful to employ while developing your understanding.

4. Painstakingly apply Monroe's Motivated Sequence to your presentation. Think hard about the context of the presentations, and your audience's experience as you develop each step of the sequence.

5. Develop any appropriate visual aids.

6. Practice your presentation WITH SEVERAL REAL PEOPLE.

7. Look over the criteria above and tweak any last-minute issues.

8. Turn in your OVERVIEW SHEET on YOUR speech day (see below).

9. Arrive to class early on the day of your presentation, we need to start as soon as possible once class begins. Please set up your presentation on one of the approved tables.

TURN IN:

1. An "OVERVIEW SHEET" that includes a clear statement of your community problem, a clear statement of your persuasive goal, an explanation of how you implemented each step of Monroe's Motivated Sequence, and an appropriately formatted list of references.

2. Any handouts that are a part of your presentation.

On days that you are not presenting you will be ranking your peers and listening well to their speeches. You will note that 10% of you grade is based on how effective you are at being a good audience member.

ORAL HISTORY Preparatory Materials

The Preparatory Materials for your oral history needs to include the following elements: 1.) statement of consent, 2.) letter of introduction, 3.) your reason for choosing this narrator, & 4.) a review of one previously recorded oral history. be typed and submitted to me through google docs. Please share your proposal with comm.110.malone@gmail.com. . 

Back to the project page.

Something I Learned Speech

I want you to tell a story about something that you learned.  You need to be able to clearly articulate the thing that you learned, but it’s up to you how you communicate it to your audience.  

Really, this is a speech that asks you to think hard about your audience, think hard about the thing that you learned and then create a speech that answers the question:  SO WHAT?  

Maybe you’ll start your speech by describing what you learned.  Maybe you’ll end your speech by explaining what you learned.  Maybe you’ll include stories.  Maybe you’ll structure your speech more like an informational speech.  

In any case, I *do* expect that you’ll do research and I *do* expect that the structure of your speech will emerge primarily based on the needs and interests of your audience.  

This speech will be 3 minutes long and will include 12 power point slides which must auto-advance every 15 seconds.  This structure is commonly used by the “ignite” movement.  You should click the link and watch a few of the stories. 

One way of thinking carefully about your audience is to think about the five canons of rhetoric that the Romans used in order to help them prepare well.  In our case: 

• invention = coming up with a creative way to shape your topic, 
• style = will include the flare you use to make your power point interesting as well as the structure and wording that you use in your speech, 
• arrangement = will have to do with the development, main points or "plotline" of your speech as well as the order of your slides and the relationship between your speaking and your slides, 
• memory = the ways you help your audience remember your speech and 
• delivery = has to do with the practice that you put into the speech. 

PRACTICE YOUR SPEECH TO A LIVE AUDIENCE.  There's no substitute for real practice and your mirror tells you terrible lies. 

This will give you a clear idea of HOW people use power point slides not just to illustrate the points that they are making, but to actively interplay with their spoken presentation to move the presentation forward.  Jot down ideas as you watch about HOW they make their slides work. 

You can also find a rubric that will guide my grading in the folder I have shared with you in google docs.

Oral History Project

Two of the most important values that you will encounter in the Communication Arts Department are that (1.) STORIES are one of our most valuable human resources and that (2.) LISTENING to understand is one of the best skills you can develop while in college. 

While this Oral History project will develop your skills in summarizing, researching, interviewing and planning (all very marketable skills)-- the MAIN focus of this project is to help you become BETTER LISTENERS who VALUE STORIES that other people tell (skills which are both market-friendly, and, more importantly HUMAN skills).

With the help of one of your peers, you will collect an oral history from someone that you will find and work with across the course of the semester. An Oral History is a recording of a someone’s own personal recollections about a particular time, theme, topic or place.  Oral Histories are usually archived in libraries, museums and on the internet; the oral histories you collect will be archived in these kinds of institutions, too.  This website does a fantastic job talking about the history and current practices of oral history.  This website is the assigned reading for class.  You only need to read until you get to the sixth blue box -- the one that says: "Transcribing Oral Histories."  If you want to keep reading you may (of course). And if you keep reading even further -- our assignments are most like assignments "C" or "D" -- though it won't be precisely and only that.

After researching the topic of your speech, you will record an oral history of about an hour in length on video, transcribe it and eventually develop individual speeches which will contextualize portions of the interview. 

This project will include four assignments (click on each of them for more information): 

1.) preparatory materials

2.) research preparation
3.) the collected interview
4.) the listening paper

You will find one other student and that student will act as your “assistant” during the recording of the interview -- you will also act as as the “assistant for that student during the interview they collect.  Throughout the history, the two of you will also serve as resources for each other’s projects.

Course Objectives

For students to:

1. Integrate their understanding and practice of the Christian faith with communication.
2. Engage specific critical standards for evaluating messages.
3. Understand the communication discipline generally.
4. Increase understanding of communication processes and contexts.
5. Develop communication skills interpersonally, in public speaking, and in groups.
6. Read and listen to the ideas of others with understanding and discernment.
7. Speak clearly & effectively.

The Listening Paper

The Listening Paper will ask you to reflect on both the oral history that you collected and the process of listening that you engaged in to collect the oral history.

In the first section of the paper, you should analyze the oral history to identify some key themes or ideas that emerged.  You should then make connections between those ideas and the research that you did beforehand.  You may want to connect this part of your paper with the second part of your paper.

In the second part of your paper, you should talk about what you learned about the listening process, yourself and your own listening skills.  In order to write this paper, you should first re-read your notes from our class lecture on empathic listening and then you should re-read the course textbook on listening and interviewing.  

NEXT, you should listen to the entire oral history again, and take note of the way that you asked questions:   

• Did you ask open ended questions?  
• Did you ask follow up questions to the things that your narrator said?  
• Were you using the empathic listening process that we talked about in class?  
• Did you miss any great opportunities to follow up with any of the things your narrator said?  

Please identify patterns of your listening and question asking that define your STRENGTHS as a listener (and interviewer) and your AREAS FOR GROWTH.  Give concrete specific details from this interview (including the timecode from the interview) and set some goals for your listening and interviewing skills in the future.

I will expect you to use vocabulary from course lecture and from the textbook as you analyze your own listening and interviewing skills.

Please share your paper through google docs with comm.110.malone@gmail.com

GO BACK TO THE MAIN ORAL HISTORY PAGE

The Collected Interview

The Collected Interview includes the uploaded video recording of your oral history on youtube, a “segmentation” that you will submit and a completed statement of consent from your Narrator.

In preparation for your interview, I will train you in choosing a location, setting up and operating your video  camera and microphone.  During your interview, YOU will ask questions and your ASSISTANT will operate the camera and microphone.  Your practice and communication with each other will be key to succeeding in capturing the interview successfully.  It will be up to you to SCHEDULE the interview at a time that works for your Narrator and your Assistant

 A segmentation lists the stories, ideas, and main points that the participant talked about during the interview.  This list also includes time notations so that these various parts of the interview can easily be accessed.   You will turn your segmentations into me as google docs:  comm.110.malone@gmail.com

You should turn in hard copies of your consent forms in class.

GO BACK TO MAIN ORAL HISTORY PAGE 

The Research Preparation

The Research Preparation for your oral history will help you in thinking about your participants, their experiences and the process of interviewing them.  After meeting with them to find out some of the details of their life and experience, you should do some research so that you have some background knowledge about the historical, cultural and sociological forces that have surrounded the time frame of their lives.  You should collect some academic research, you should read some first-person accounts, you should collect some literature from the popular press.  You should turn in some summary paragraphs that draw together your key findings,  a list of possible questions that you may include in your interview, and a list of works that you consulted.  Please use MLA format or APA format in this citation.  You will turn in your research via Google Docs, again sharing your document with comm.110.malone@gmail.com.  

GO BACK TO ORAL HISTORY MAIN PAGE

Exams

Exams will focus both on information from the textbook and from lecture, with more focus placed on ideas that are developed in class lecture and discussion. The test will be multiple choice, matching & true/false. The test will only include 30-33 items.

Students will be permitted to use 3x5 notecards during the test period if they turned in the review notecards on the day readings were due. Each day that reading is due -- a 3x5 notecard will be collected at the beginning of class. No notecards will be accepted later in the class period.

Study sheets will be provided one week prior to the exam for students.

Identifying a Community Need

Before you begin your search for a Community Need that you can be invested in -- let me spend a moment defining "Community Need." A community need is a problem that affects many people in the community in a similiar way. A community need is never caused by one person; these needs always have a complicated history and are rooted in multiple institutions and events. Different groups in the community are affected in different ways, but what makes it a *community* need -- is that many people are troubled and almost everyone wants to solve it (though in different ways).

I recommend that you start this process by brainstorming. What are the community needs that you already know about from your own hometown? They can be needs that exist at the neighborhood level, the city level, the county level. These issues could be related to some community institutions, community businesses or just residents. These issues might affect only older people, younger people, married people or handicapped people.

Often the problems that are most significant in our own lives -- are rooted in a much larger systemic problem that might not be obvious at first, but may actually be a problem that could be addressed in the community.

I'd recommend that you brainstorm a list of problems that you can think of without doing any research first.

Next, I'd recommend that you try to think about how other people, unlike you, who also live in your community, might answer the question: What are the biggest problems that people in the community face? What are the biggest problems that the community faces?

After you've thought hard about your own experiences and those experiences that you're aware of -- I suggest you look to some other sources. There are institutions that already exist in this community (the greater Canton area & Stark County) who only exist to address existing problems. Many of them are non-profit institutions; a few more are government branches. I suggest that you browse the links below and expand your list of problems by thinking about the work that these organizations do.

Stark County Foundation

Stark County Family Council

City Data on Canton

Census Data on Stark County

After you've thought hard about these agencies and their work, you may already have enough options. If you don't, I suggest that you read the paper. The Canton Repository and the Akron Beacon Journal (maybe the Cleveland Plain Dealer) are good; I might recommend a national paper or two, too (The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc...). Unfortunately much of the newspaper's pages these days are NOT devoted to community needs, but are, instead, devoted to surprising local events.
Make sure you focus your reading on problems that fit into the definition above.

Now that you've brainstormed a huge list of potential problems -- how do you choose the right one for you to address?

I suggest that you identify the top three-five problems that you're most interested in and spend an hour or two researching them on the web. How have other communities dealt with this problem? What does this problem look like in this community? What information and resources will aid your preparation for this presentation? Look over the assignment again before you make your choice -- which option best fits:

your gifts + the assignments demands + your classmates' interests + this community's needs.

Once you've settled on a Community Issue, send me an email proposal and if I approve it, I'll add it to the list of approved topics here on the blog. If I have some concerns, I'll email you.

When you send me your issue-proposal-email, you should clearly articulate the problem in a full sentence. In a second sentence, you should explain *why* this is a problem, even if it seems too obvious to you, I want you to explain the "harms" and the "impact" of this problem.

That's it. Just two sentences. I'll only accept these proposals through email. While these proposals are not graded, the longer you wait to turn one in, the more difficult it will be for you to find a problem. If you present a problem at the fair that I have not approved in advance, you risk the possibility that it will not meet the criteria I stated at the top of this post. If you present a problem that does not meet these criteria, your presentation will automatically have 20% deducted from the grade you earn.