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.