PUBLIC SPEAKING

C&J 130

Fall 2006

Course Objectives: The purpose of this course is (1) to develop skills in presentational speaking appropriate to a variety of communication contexts; (2) to become more comfortable communicating in all kinds of life situations; and (3) to develop the capacity to analyze and evaluate the presentations of others.

Professor:

Dr. Karen Foss

246-2991 (home and fax); you may call me between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.

Office Hours:

Due to the renovation of the C&J building, faculty members do not have offices. I will be at class a few minutes early to answer questions. I am also very accessible via email, and you can make appointments with me by email. You may also call me at home between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. weekdays.

Textbook:

Inviting Transformation: Presentational Speaking for a Changing World, 2^nd ed., by Sonja K. Foss and Karen A. Foss. Available at the UNM bookstore.

Expectations:

1. With the exception of the impromptu presentation, all presentations should be delivered extemporaneously—spoken, using notes rather than memorized or read.

2. I expect that all work you turn in during this class will be your own. Submitting work that is not yours is plagiarism and is subject to policies of academic honesty at UNM. Plagiarism can result not only in a failing grade in this class but could be grounds for expulsion from the university. This does not mean you cannot cite the work of others; you simply need to acknowledge their contributions.

3. Qualified students with disabilities who need appropriate academic adjustments should notify me immediately to ensure that your needs are met in a timely manner.

4. Please use sex-neutral language in your speaking and writing. Since the language we speak and write leads us to perceive in certain ways, sex-neutral language will help all of us perceive women and men on equal terms, participating fully in the world. “People,” “humanity,” or “humans” are some substitutes for “man.” Instead of using the generic “he,” you can say “he or she;” alternate pronouns, using “he” in one paragraph and “she” in the next; or speak in the plural so you can say “they.”

5. Please turn off cell phones, pagers, and all other communication devices during class.

Assignments:

1. Professional/life orientation presentation: In this presentation, you discuss the profession you plan to enter/in which you presently are employed or the life route you plan to take. Every life orientation--whether a paying job, activism, parenting, whatever--will involve communicating and giving presentations. This first presentation is designed to get you thinking about the communication opportunities of your chosen life’s work and to give the rest of your class members the context from which you will be speaking for the semester. The presentation should be 2-4 minutes in length. It will be given August 31.

2. Presentational overview: Write up an overview of the four major presentations you plan to give during the semester, specifying the career/orientation that will be the context for the presentations, the nature of each presentation, and the interactional goal for each. This summary is designed to serve as a check on your presentations before you give them. It does not need to be typed. Due August 31.

3. Four presentations: Presentations of the type you are likely to give in your chosen life’s work. The speeches increase as the course progresses:

Presentation # 1: 4-5 minutes

Presentation #2: 5-6 minutes

Presentation #3: 6-7 minutes

Presentation #4: 7-8 minutes

The presentations should vary, as much as possible, by interactional goal: asserting individuality, building community, articulating a perspective, seeking adherence, and discovering knowledge and belief. If you would like to try the goal of discovering knowledge and belief, please do not do so until your final speech because of time constraints, and even then, the “discovery” portion will need to be a very small segment of your speech. Some sample scenarios for the four presentations follow:

If you plan to be a high-school teacher and basketball coach, for example, your presentations might include:

(1) a pep talk to the basketball team (building community)

(2) leading a discussion on Shakespeare with a class (discovering knowledge and belief; articulating a perspective)

(3) speaking to a community boosters’ group about the current status of the team and asking for their support (seeking adherence, articulating a perspective, building community)

(4) discussing with members of the basketball team the strategy to use in an upcoming game (discovering knowledge and belief)

If you plan to work in environmental advocacy, your presentations might include:

(1) encouraging university students to join an environmental organization (seeking adherence)

(2) introducing yourself to staff members as the new director of an environmental organization (asserting individuality)

(3) a staff meeting at which there are new staff members (building community)

(4) testifying before Congress on an environmental issue (articulating a perspective, seeking adherence)

If you plan to be an administrator of a public agency or private business, your presentations might include:

(1) a talk to a community organization such as the Rotary Club, offering an overview of what your organization does (articulating a perspective)

(2) a presentation introducing yourself—a new manager--to the staff of an organization (asserting individuality)

(3) a sales presentation to a potential customer (seeking adherence)

(4) a discussion with your employees about how to solve a particular problem (discover knowledge and belief)

If you are concentrating on parenting as you life’s work, your presentations might include:

(1) giving the birds and bees talk (articulating a perspective)

(2) a presentation to the PTA about a change in regulation that you support (seeking adherence)

(3) a presentation to a Girl Scout troop on a campout where factions have evolved among the girls (creating community)

(4) a talk with your child about an incident at school that s/he is reluctant to discuss (discover knowledge and belief)

If you are not familiar with the speaking opportunities in the profession you intend to enter, you may want to interview someone in that profession to discover the types of presentations that are typical.

4. Speaking plans: A speaking plan for each of your four major presentations must be turned in on the day you speak. A speaking plan includes a discussion of: (1) audience; (2) setting; (3) interactional goal(s); (4) commitment statement; (5) major ideas; (6) organizational pattern(s); (7) major forms of elaboration; and (8) type of introduction and conclusion and how these function to facilitate your meeting your interactional goal(s). See Chapter 10 for more detail about speaking plans.

5. Impromptu presentation: A presentation for which you will have little preparation time. Your particular occupational/life context will be the source for your topic, so you should naturally have something to say.

6. Self-Evaluation: Write a 2-3 page paper of evaluation and reflection about you as a communicator and your speaking process. Your paper should address, but need not be limited to the following: the major insights about you as a communicator that you received from this class, the most important skills you learned, and aspects of your speaking you feel need further improvement.

The Learning Process:

Here’s how the course will work: There are ten chapters in the text that I’ve divided into six units of material for the course. For each unit, you will be asked to engage in four activities:

Theory

Read: Read the chapter(s) relevant to a unit on your own and take notes using the study guide attached to this syllabus. You may take notes either on the computer or in longhand. If you have questions about concepts discussed in the chapters, feel free to ask me during class sessions or via e-mail. You must read the chapters and complete the units in the order in which they are presented in the textbook. If you are choosing not do all 6 units, you still must proceed in order, although you can skip units if you wish.

Present: Present an oral summary of approximately 10 minutes in length of the major concepts (notes you’ve taken corresponding to the guidelines) to a classmate. Both you and your listener will sit down for this presentation. You may use your notes, but not the textbook, during your presentation. At the end of your presentation, you will sign your name at the bottom of your notes and show them to me so that I know you have completed your presentation of the material and that your partner has listened to your presentation. These presentations must be completed in class, and I will be around to monitor them. If you know someone in the class, you might want to pair up with them and complete your work at a similar pace so that you will have someone available to whom to present when you are ready.

Listen: Serve as the listener for a classmate’s presentation of the material. As a good listener, you may probe the presenter for more depth (e.g. “Can you give me an example of x?” “What are advantages of y and z?” etc.) This probing for detail serves to reinforce the learning for both the presenter and listener. At the end of the presentation, print your name at the bottom of the notes from which the person spoke. Your name indicates that you believe your classmate knows the material presented and is ready to take the quiz. Again, pairing up with someone and working at the same pace may facilitate your in-class work; that way, you’ll have someone available to present when you are ready to listen.

Application

Quiz: The quiz is a short-answer quiz that asks you to apply concepts from each unit. You must answer four of the five questions correctly in order to proceed to the next unit. You may use the notes you used for your presentation to a classmate while taking the quiz; you may not use the textbook. If you do not satisfactorily complete the quiz, you may not take it again on the same day. You must wait until the next class session to re-take the quiz. There are six quizzes in the course, one over each of the six units.

Oral Presentations: There are four major presentations in this course. You will select how many of these you do, depending on the grade you plan to earn. Each must be done in order, and you cannot move on until you have successfully completed the presentation before.

Culminating Activities

In addition to the application experiences for each unit, there are two culminating activities: an impromptu presentation and a self-evaluation paper.

Impromptu presentation: If you elect to do the impromptu presentation, you may do so anytime after completing two formal presentations. The last day to do impromptus is the last day of class, December 7.

Self-evaluation: If you elect to do the self-evaluation, it can be turned in anytime after you have completed whatever number of oral presentations you have chosen to give in the course. The last day to turn in the self-evaluation paper is the last day of class, December 7.

Class Structure and Rationale:

As members of this course, we are all going to be engaged in a pedagogical exercise that is intended to foster increased learning for all involved. To this end, the structure of this class will be different from traditional university classes you might have attended. For this course, you are free to move at your own pace, and it is possible for you to complete the course requirements before the end of the semester.

One of the primary goals of a university education is to encourage you to develop self-directed learning and life-long learning skills. As self-directed learners, individuals have the ability to identify and set personally meaningful goals for their own learning; develop and use a wide range of learning strategies appropriate to different learning tasks; work independently and/or with others to achieve their learning goals; and persist to overcome obstacles in order to achieve their learning goals. This course is designed to help you develop these skills in a semi-structured environment in which you can experiment with learning preferences and methods.

Traditional classrooms often do not promote learning and instead encourage students to focus on earning good grades. At the end of the course, you may have earned a decent grade but may have learned very little. The focus of this course is on learning the subject, not learning to pass an exam or to get a good grade. It is designed to promote a deep understanding and knowledge of the material.

Learning is a cooperative endeavor between a professor and students. I have contributed a textbook, a plan for learning, and my expertise, available at any time for clarification and discussion. You also bring resources to the learning experience, and the format of this course is designed to encourage you to value yourself and one another as resources for teaching and learning. To this end, we are all teachers and learners in this course, helping one another grasp the material in ways appropriate for each individual.

We meet 13 times, 2 ½ hours each time, over the course of the semester. We will meet together for the first two class periods. You will then have eleven class sessions to complete your work. The first hour of class (7:00-8:00) is designed for you to give and listen to oral summaries, take quizzes, practice speeches, work with me or your peers on your work, and/or prepare. The last 1¼ hours (8:15-9:30) are devoted to presentations. You can take quizzes and give presentations whenever you’re ready.

You only need to attend classes in which you want to engage in a class discussion, give and listen to oral summaries, take a quiz, and/or present a speech. I am available every class session (as well as outside of class) as a resource to answer questions about ideas and concepts you don’t understand, to monitor the oral summaries, to dispense quizzes when you are ready to take them, and listen to speeches.

You usually will not have time to do more than take one quiz and give one presentation per day. You must pass a quiz or speech before you can move onto your next one. If you do not pass a quiz or a speech, you will not be allowed to redo it during the same class period. Therefore, it’s important to budget your time wisely. Don’t leave everything until the end.

If you do not pass a quiz or presentation, you can redo it until you get it right. Again, you cannot redo a quiz or presentation until the next class period. The goal is for you to go back home, work on the assignment, and come back more prepared than before.

If you are giving a presentation, you are also committing yourself to be an audience member for other speakers. So, do not plan on giving a presentation and leaving when you are done. Doing so will result in a minus for your speech. Also, presentations begin promptly at 8:15. If you arrive late, you will not be allowed to give your presentation.

Each day, there is approximately enough time for ten speakers to present; I will create a speaking order on a first-come, first-served basis. So if you want to make sure you can give your speech on a particular day, come early.

When you have earned the grade you wish to receive for the class, you are done with the course. Please let me know when you are finished as I’d like you to fill out a course evaluation for me.

Finally, I am here as a resource for you. My main goal is that you learn the material and become a better and more confident speaker. Please utilize me to help you achieve the goals you have set for yourself. I am eager to see every student achieve greater success then he/she thought possible.

Grading:

Your grade in the course will depend on the amount of work you wish to complete. Because everyone is held to the same standards for course work, your grade is largely determined by the depth to which you are willing to engage and apply the material. All work will receive a plus (+) or minus (-) rather than a letter grade. When you receive a + for your work, you can move on to the next assignment. If you do not receive a +, you must redo the assignment until you earn a +. To this end, these are the requirements for grading in the class:

To receive a grade of A, you must satisfactorily:

· Give the Professional Orientation presentation and turn in the Professional Overview on August 31 (the second week of class.)

· Present, Listen, and Pass quizzes on all six units of textbook material. A passing grade on the quizzes means you have answered four out of five questions correctly.

· Give four professional oral presentations and turn in a speaking plan for each.

· Give one impromptu presentation.

· Write a self-evaluation paper.

To receive a grade of B, you must satisfactorily:

· Give the Professional Orientation presentation and turn in the Professional Overview on August 31 (the second week of class.)

· Present, Listen, and Pass quizzes on five units of textbook material. A passing grade on the quizzes means you have answered four out of five questions correctly.

· Give three professional oral presentations and turn in a speaking plan for each.

· Give 1 impromptu presentation or write a self-evaluation paper.

To receive a grade of C, you must satisfactorily:*

· Give the Professional Orientation presentation and turn in the Professional Overview on August 31 (the second week of class.)

· Present, Listen, and Pass quizzes on four units of textbook material. A passing grade on the quizzes means you have answered four out of five questions correctly.

· Give two professional oral presentations and turn in a speaking plan for each.

· Give one impromptu presentation or write a self-evaluation paper.

*Please note that you must pass this course with a “C” for this course to meet UNM’s core-course requirements.

To receive a grade of D, you must satisfactorily:

· Give the Professional Orientation presentation and turn in the Professional Overview on August 31 (the second week of class.)

· Present, Listen, and Pass quizzes on three units of material in the text. A passing grade on the quizzes means you have answered four out of five questions correctly.

· Give one professional oral presentation and turn in a speaking plan for it.

· Give one impromptu presentation or write a self-evaluation paper.

Anything less than the above requirements will result in an F.

Schedule:

August 24: Introduction to course and to each other

August 31 First half: Professional orientation speeches

Second half: Begin process of presenting, listening, and taking quizzes.

September 7 7:00-8:00: Present, listen, take quizzes