This unit teaches students how to perform racial rhetorical criticism and positions them to engage in discussions of race through experiential learning, namely through exploring the links between rhetoric, public memory, and campus history projects. Courses: Rhetorical Criticism, Rhetorical Theory, Communication Theory. Objective: Students will…

This paper provides a theory-based introduction to instructional design that can be used in pedagogy seminars, training sessions, professional development events, colloquiums, and/or programmatic guidebooks. It includes a series of activities designed to assist instructors in the classes they teach. The exercises combine theory with practice to…

Courses: Communication Theory; Research Methods; Mass Communication Theory. Objectives: This activity introduces students to the socially constructed nature of theorizing through having a few students sort a bag of random items in ways of their choice. The class then discusses the categories of sorted items in terms of their properties as theories…

The hidden curriculum (HC) consists of implicit knowledge rooted in curricula and found throughout students' experiences navigating higher education (e.g. understanding professional email etiquette, graduate school applications and funding opportunities, or often taken-for-granted programs like Title IX and disability accommodations). In this…

Utilizing popular murder-mystery texts that transcend boundaries of race, class, age, and sex, students apply Toulmin's 1958 concept of claim, data, warrant (Toulmin, S. E. 2003. The uses of argument. Cambridge University Press). Ultimately, students engage in an activity that demonstrates how argumentation plays a role outside of the college…

This activity engages students in values-based decision making using a story about five characters caught up in a morally fraught dilemma. Students draw conclusions about each character based on perceptions of their actions, rather than explicitly stated attributes, as they interact with one another to reach a consensus ranking from best to worst.…

Unpacking the idea of how students consume and use models of professional voice is important and warrants more attention in the communication classroom. The following class outline, as a result, will provide other communication instructors with an overview of how students can bring in their own examples of language use from business to reflect on…

This activity helps students conceptualize and apply systems theory principles to a family communication context by having them create personal whole systems using paper, string, index cards, and the floor. In completing this exercise, students see how their subsystems interact and emerge as something greater than the sum of their parts. They also…

Abilities to interpret, analyze, and report data are in-demand job skills that many colleges and universities struggle to incorporate into the curriculum. The client-based project outlined in this study examines the experiential learning pedagogy used to teach students media analytics. This semester-long project encourages students to complete a…

Communication theory can be challenging to teach in an engaging manner. The following original teaching activity suggests a way to incorporate the phenomenon of escape rooms into your theory classroom. Courses: Communication Theory, Introduction to Communication. Objectives: In this activity, students will apply the basic tenets of several…

Analysis of political and visual arguments is a key exercise traditionally included in undergraduate argumentation courses. This activity teaches students how to identify and analyze political candidate arguments presented on visual social media platforms, demonstrating how argumentation theory applies to social media campaigns. In the exercise,…

Intersectionality is core to contemporary feminist rhetorical criticism. It is also a complex concept with great potential for promoting social change by shifting discourses about identity in the public sphere. Therefore, communication scholars have a vested interest in teaching the basics of intersectional criticism to undergraduate and graduate…

Courses: Mass Communication, Persuasion, Media Literacy, Political Communication, and Communication Theory. Objectives: This activity introduces students to priming theory through atmospheric peripheral cues. Students learn about media priming and understand how priming effects may occur in real-world situations.

Access to online data sets and free, data-visualization software programs that don't require coding skills has given journalism students the ability to produce charts, maps, and graphs quickly. Maps that used to require weeks of software training and expensive programs to create can now be produced in less than an hour. However, students must…

This teaching activity builds students' interpersonal competencies in identifying Mark Knapp's Stages of Relationships (Adler, Rosenfeld, Towne, & Scott, 2012, Interplay: The process of interpersonal communication, p. 504, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston). The activity establishes a theoretical understanding of each stage and asks students to use…