COMM 101:
There are six class periods left. Here's my plan for the remainder of the semester. You can also consult my online calendar for my meeting schedules.
As I said in class, I regret that this semester hasn't finished up according to schedule. It's my last semester--after three years--at Denison, and I wanted to try to do some things better than I had done them before. I have succeeded, but in the process I have failed on other accounts, including in the breadth of material we covered and, admittedly, the coherency of the assignment and grading schedule. I hope that you all will at least be proud of the fact that you surely have a much greater familiarity with Greco-Roman rhetorical figures than any basic public speaking students in the country, that you have developed and written near-professional quality policy speeches (which never happens in the basic course), and that you have learned to express your ideas through the most exciting and potentially democratizing communication medium of our digital era (weblogs). Again, for the failures I apologize. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with some of the brightest young minds in the country, and I look forward to our last couple of weeks.
In the interest of a fair grading system, I am altering my policy a bit here. Each group's policy speech grade will be the average of a grade I give for "content" and one I give for "delivery." If you do not like the grade I give your group for delivery, you may arrange to deliver the speech to me yourself (outside of class), and I will give you a delivery grade independent of the rest of your group. This is a great policy for each of you--if you are a better speaker than your designated group speaker, you now have the opportunity to improve your personal grade; if you are a less talented speaker, you may still benefit from the grade I give to your designated group speaker.
In accordance with my belief that you will be better served by learning to do one thing expertly rather than several things sloppily, we will spend the remainder of the semester on the policy speeches. When you leave my class you will have worked very rigorously--much more so than in most public speaking classes--on the entire cycle of producing a policy speech, from invention to delivery. I am confident that in the future, when the occasion arises, each of you will be equipped to produce a professional quality speech of your own.
Here is a schedule of our last class days:
Wednesday, April 21: Finish "dry run" of policy speeches.
Friday, April 23: Workshop on "delivery."
Monday, April 26: First graded speeches.
Wednesday, April 28: First graded speeches (continued).
Friday, April 30: Second graded speeches (redo for improved grade).
Monday, May 3: Second graded speeches (continued [redo for improved grade]).