This article describes a unit-length project involving students in the analysis of how public memory is shaped by multiple factors and functions persuasively to influence one's understanding of historical events. This project was designed for an upper-division undergraduate course in Rhetoric and Public Memory, but could be adapted for use in…

As Barry Brummett (1984) has argued, the purpose of rhetorical theory is pedagogical--providing students with resources for understanding the rhetorical transactions that they encounter every day. An understanding of the implications of ideology is necessary for advanced communication students. Kellner and Share (2005) contend that this is…

To teach collaboration and overcome students' aversion to teamwork, Pope-Ruark (2012) recommends the Scrum approach, which she has used to manage major client-based course projects in writing and publishing courses. The Scrum approach emerged out of the software development industry in the 1990s as a framework for improving team…

One of the methods used to enhance students' ability not only to identify different cultures but also to describe their own cultures with proper analytical vocabulary is to teach students how to play the role of an outsider of their culture and de-familiarize their everyday practice so that they can distinguish cultural patterns and…

In this unit activity, students understand that social presence-one's ability to project a personality through computer-mediated communication-is critical for creating an effective online learning environment (Christen, Kelly, Fall, & Snyder, in press; Jorgensen, 2002; Kehrwald, 2010; O'Sullivan, Hunt, & Lippert, 2004). Without…

As an emerging interest area, positive communication scholarship focuses on issues of happiness and well-being in a variety of social contexts. Borrowing from positive psychology and happiness literature (Lyubomirsky, 2008), positive communication research explores expressions of gratitude, kindness, compassion, and forgiveness, as well as issues…

People express part of their identity through their style, gestures, speech patterns, and language use. Other people read these displays as presentations of ourself, an insight into who we are. It is important, therefore, for students to recognize their own performance of identity and be able to express that identity in a clear way. By focusing on…

Guided by the principle "good data presentation is timeless," (Cressey, 2014, p.305), this unit project challenges students to engage an alternative means of sharing communication research and to realize the potential for their presentations to become "visual legacies" through the creation of infographics. Students encounter…

When speakers rely too heavily on presentation software templates, they often end up stultifying audiences with a triple-whammy of bullet points. In this article, Lucas and Rawlins present an alternative method--PechaKucha (the Japanese word for "chit chat")--a presentation style driven by a carefully planned, automatically timed…

This article describes a realistic online crisis unit, in which students practice: (1) responding to fast-paced information on multiple social media channels; (2) coordinating and making team decisions; and (3) creating effective responses. These skills are required for entry-level positions such as digital specialists and community managers,…

The purpose of the activity described here is to integrate McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y into a group application: design a syllabus that embodies either Theory X or Theory Y tenets. Students should be able to differentiate between Theory X and Theory Y, create a syllabus based on Theory X or Theory Y tenets, evaluate the different syllabi…

This assignment described here serves as a meaningful way to engage students who are perhaps less involved in giving back to their own community (Galston, 2003). By engaging students in "pay it forward" experiences, this assignment can help foster a sense of active citizenship. Often political engagement is associated with acts related…

Academic literature suggests that today's college students are not as information literate as educators might expect, despite their generation being frequently described as "digital natives" or "Millennials" (Becker, 2009). A faculty survey at Pima Community College in Tucson, AZ, revealed that students' actual…

Using Critical Communication Pedagogy, this semester-long service-learning approach to public speaking requires students to apply public speaking concepts to a speech they develop and deliver to a specific community audience, to examine their own biases, and to explore and evaluate various strategies for adapting to their audience.

Research finds that student effectiveness can be related to how well a student interacts and communicates in the classroom, supporting the notion that student-student interaction is important (Frymier, 2005; Poulou, 2009). According to Sidelinger and Booth-Butterfield (2010), student-student connectedness (defined as "a supportive and…