General Advice

1. Start early. Set the expectation that you will talk about student performances together regularly. Be sure to tell them why (it enhances learning!). Also decide early if students have a choice about getting oral feedback on their presentations.
2. Give instruction on the kinds of comments you hope to get. General tips for asking for and sharing feedback include:
   

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MEMO

To: English 302 Students
From: Chris Nelson, Course Lecturer
Date: 11 January, 2007
Subject: Style Oral Presentation Requirements

Objectives

To create an opportunity for students to experiment with strategies for audience adaptation. To give students a chance to feel the discomfort associated with being listeners to a speech that was prepared with an audience different from the actual audience in mind.

Approximate Time

Fifteen minutes of assignment explanation and planning at least one week prior to the speeches and then one seventy-five minute class session or one and a half or two fifty minute sessions to listen to and to process the speeches

Material Needed

Why case studies? To provide context. In Burkean terms, to provide a “scene” having its own acts, agents, agency, and purpose. Case studies are developed scenes that satisfy, inform, educate, and entertain. Most basic business communication textbooks include snippets of workplace examples, which are inadequate for detailed rhetorical examination of workplace communication problems.

Most upperclassmen cite wordiness as a weakness in their writing. Reading their first papers confirms their assessments. Even though high school and first-year composition students have been told repeatedly that their writing is wordy, no one has shown them the simple mechanics of recognizing and curing wordiness.

English 150: Interviewing a Classmate

Interviewing an individual and including quotes and paraphrases in a paper often makes an essay more interesting. An interview is referred to as a primary source since you are obtaining the interview firsthand. Later in the course, you will use secondary sources in which you quote or paraphrase from articles. For this assignment, do the following:

Prior to the Interview

• Read pp. 564-570 in Writing in a Visual Age.