Course Descriptions
Spring 2006
COMM 190 Public Speaking
(4 semester hours)
Broz, Stefne
This course addresses basic theoretical principles of effective public speaking necessary for pluralistic audiences, concentrating on content, organization, audience analysis, ethics, language, and delivery. Students apply these principles to several oral presentations, some videotaped and requiring the use of PowerPoint.
COMM 200 Introduction to Communication Studies
(4 semester hours)
Jordan, Jerry
Pre-requisite: ENGL 101E
This course provides an introduction to the field of human communication studies and a foundation for future study within the communication discipline. The course introduces the core concepts, essential skills, and perennial issues found in several relevant contexts of human interaction, including interpersonal relationships, organizations, and cross-cultural interaction. It also examines these contexts from a theoretical perspective, suggesting how scholars have sought to formulate generalized explanations for the processes of human meaning making. Writing intensive.
COMM 280 Reasoning and Communication
(4 semester hours)
Waggoner, Catherine
Pre-requisite: ENGL 101E
This course provides extensive training in critical thinking, listening, reading, practical reasoning, deliberation, and oral and written advocacy. As part of a deliberative process, participants prepare oral and written arguments on contemporary issues for critical, well-informed audiences. Emphasis is placed on the ability to anticipate and address the wide variety of alternative perspectives represented by such audiences. Required assignments include: a personal essay regarding attitudes toward argumentation, a deliberation log, a roundtable performance of oral arguments with question and answer sessions, a written critique of the roundtable performances, and an argumentative position paper. Writing intensive.
COMM 290S Media Literacy
(4 semester hours)
Smith, Matthew
Pre-requisite: ENGL 101E
This course provides a broad foundation for examining the form, content, and consequences of mediated communication (including the Internet, recording, radio, television, cable, film, newspaper, and other publishing industries). The course introduces media industries from both an historical and contemporary perspective, covers the prominent theories that characterize mass media functions and effects, and addresses controversial issues in mediated communication. Students are introduced to intellectual tools that will enable them to be more critical consumers of media and given opportunities to practice applying those tools in both structured classroom discussions and formal writing assignments. A sample syllabus and assignments are available for your review at http://www4.wittenberg.edu/academics/communication/290.html. Writing intensive.
COMM 320 Topics in Communication: Intercultural Communication
(4 semester hours)
Broz, Stefne
Pre-requisites: COMM 200 or permission
The course exposes students to a wide range of scholarship about intercultural communication. The course will facilitate an understanding of the nature of the communication processes that influence and/or are influenced by intercultural contexts. The role of communication in intercultural understanding, cultural patterns of interaction, cultural identity, ethnocentrism, and specific cross-cultural experiences are explored, as well as intercultural communication competence and the costs associated with cross-cultural misunderstanding.
COMM 320 Topics in Communication: Interpersonal Influence
(4 semester hours)
Jordan, Jerry
Pre-requisites: COMM 200, 280 or 290S, or permission
This is an advanced course in interpersonal communication. Most generally the course adopts a language-action perspective as it focuses on the interaction processes apparent when people attempt to directly influence the behaviors of other people. The course first presents a survey of general influence strategies common to influence attempts. Then it moves to a more detailed examination of the discourse patterns created as people attempt to influence others and also resist the influence of others.
COMM 350 Topics in Media: Television Criticism
(4 semester hours)
Smith, Matthew
Pre-requisites: COMM 200 and 290S, or permission
This course studies television as a form of intentional message making and encourages students to develop an active, critical response to the television they consume and to examine the effects it has on the world around them. The course explores the production of television as texts and considers multiple approaches that scholars have used to analyze the form and products of this medium. Students learn to develop planned, in-depth critiques of television messages. Writing intensive.
COMM 390 Research Methods in Communication
(4 semester hours)
Jordan, Jerry
Pre-requisites: COMM 200, and COMM 280 or 290S; math placement score of 22
This course introduces students to the process of conducting qualitative and quantitative communication research, including how to 1) formulate a research question, 2) conduct library research for a literature review, 3) select a method (e.g., participant/observation, in-depth interviewing, focus groups, rhetorical criticism, content analysis, or survey research), 4) adhere to standards for scholarly writing, and 5) critically evaluate others' research studies. Writing intensive.
COMM 403 Communication Senior Seminar
(4 semester hours)
Waggoner, Catherine and Broz, Stefne
Pre-requisites: COMM 200, 280, 290, 390, and senior standing
This course is the capstone experience in the Communication program. Through their work on independent and group projects, students will practice research, writing, and critical thinking skills that are part of the process of conducting communication research, culminating in both written and oral presentations of results. Writing intensive.
