Teagle Collegium on Inquiry in Action Electronic ... - iub.educollegia/courseportfolio/cp_say_ozan.pdfElectronic Course Portfolio for C122 – Interpersonal Communication . Abstract

Yasar Ozan Say Teagle Fellow 2009-2010 05/14/2010

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Teagle Collegium on Inquiry in Action Electronic Course Portfolio for C122 – Interpersonal Communication

Abstract I teach C122 – Interpersonal Communication at Indiana University. This is an introductory class to communication and we use a cultural approach instead of a skill-based approach in this class. Most of the students who take it are freshman and thus, they come across with a lot of issues, theories, and methods for the very first time in their academic careers. Participant and non-participant observation, for instance, are two of the methods they have to use to conduct the research that is required for the main assignments of the course. I noticed that we do not have any initial learning activities in class where students could get prepared for these projects and write better assignments. Thus, my primary goal this semester was to facilitate initial learning through the use of “deliberate practice” (Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer 1993) and to help the students transfer this knowledge in order to write better papers. I created an in-class practice for this which involved volunteering students. After the in-class practice and the actual assignment I implemented a student assessment survey for the assignment. I mainly asked them about several of the methods they found useful (or not useful) for writing their assignment. The results showed that although the new in-class practice achieved its goals in terms of my objectives to facilitate initial learning, create an opportunity for ‘deliberate practice,’ enhance transfer; it did not erase the importance of the more traditional methods in students’ eyes. Introduction C122 Interpersonal Communication is a 100-level course offered through the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University. C122 is a core course taught at many universities, but at IU we take a slightly different approach to interpersonal communication; which can be labeled as a “cultural approach” to communication. This is evident in the title of the course book which was prepared by two CMCL faculty, Jane Goodman and Leila Monaghan, who taught and directed this course before: A Cultural Approach to Interpersonal Communication (Monaghan and Goodman 2007). Thus, C122 is an introduction to the study of communication in relation to the larger issues of culture, identity, and power. Unlike other traditional interpersonal communication courses we are not interested in how people should communicate, thus we do not teach our students the skills to improve their communication style – even though at the end of the class the issues we discuss might help them to do so. Rather, we are particularly interested in the question of how people actually communicate and use language in everyday conversation.

The course takes a cross-cultural, performance-based, and ethnographic approach to the study of interpersonal communication. We cross-culturally look at the communicative practices ranging from the greetings among the Tuareg people in North Africa to the use of slang among Bay City High School students in the San Francisco Bay Area, from 17th-century Quakers to a contemporary Deaf Church (see Appendix A: Course Syllabus). We also explore how various communicative strategies are performed


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every day within different contexts and how these performances relate to the larger social and cultural structures of power, race, gender, ethnicity, and nationality. Finally, the course takes an ethnographic approach to interpersonal communication. Part of this approach entails a close and critical reading of the ethnographic articles and excerpts in our course book which are written by prominent anthropologists, linguistics, sociologists, and scholars of performance studies. More importantly, however, it requires the students to conduct an ethnography project in order to examine the language used every day by themselves, their friends, or other Indiana University students, including gendered language; generational language; slang; verbal play; gossip: and academic and institutional language of fraternities, sororities, student associations, sports teams, and classroom settings.

Each semester, I teach two sections of C122 starting with 24 students per section. Some students, however, drop or withdraw from the class; in Spring 2010 semester, for instance, I had 21 and 23 students in two of my sections respectively. All of my students during the Spring 2010 semester were “traditional” college students in the age range of 18-22. My students were predominantly white and female. The first part of this statistics, the part about ethnicity, is in accordance with the distribution of the Indiana University’s student population in terms of ethnicity (%88 White in Fall 2009, see Appendix B-1). the two of my sections had %76 and %95 white students respectively. Although the first section was roughly balanced in terms of gender, in the second section the ratio of female students to male students was 3 to 1. Thus, except for the distribution of gender, the students enrolled in my classes in Spring 2010 were representative of the broader student body at Indiana University (see Appendix B-1 for details).

C122 sections meet twice a week for 75 minute-long classes. There are usually two or three articles assigned for each meeting. Thus, a typical meeting of C122 includes a mixture of small lectures, multimedia examples, and class discussion around the topic of these articles. Occasionally student presentations which are usually assigned as a group project become a part of the routine. Through the critical reading of excerpts from scholarly texts students learn to use communication and performance theory as a framework to analyze their own and other people’s interactions, as well as to question stereotypes and misconceptions in relation to broader issues of power and social identity.

The primary learning objective for the course is to “denaturalize our communicative practices” (Goodman and Monaghan 2007, 1). By “denaturalization” we ask our students not to take their communicative practices as ‘granted,’ ‘natural,’ ‘in-born,’ ‘the way it is,’ and/or ‘biological,’ but rather, as situated within the socio-cultural reality and context of our lives. Thus we want them to understand that communication and culture – two words that also make up the name of the department through which this course is offered – are mutually constitutive (Bauman 2007, 25-26).

The course provides students with basic ethnographic tools and theories to be able to examine the interactions of their day-to-day lives. The most important way students analyze such interactions is the Ethnography Portfolio Project. This multi-step


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project requires each student to conduct an original ethnographic research on the communicative issues discussed in class. After submitting a proposal for the project students record and analyze the interactions of a social group of their choice. They submit two sets of fieldnotes including jottings, transcriptions, and recordings. At the end of the class they make informal presentations of their research and submit a final ethnography paper comparing and contrasting their findings in the two situations they have observed. The ethnography project provides one of the few opportunities for original primary research at the introductory level. Many of my former students have indicated that this course and the ethnography project enabled them to look at daily conversations more closely and realize patterns that they normally would not notice within the course of interaction, and as such C122 changed the way they view the world and think about their daily communication.

Finally, I would like to clarify my role as a teacher in C122. As a graduate student at the Department of Communication and Culture I work as an associate instructor. Although in other departments the role of the associate instructors (hereafter AI) might be limited to leading the discussion sections once a week which accompanies big lectures taught by the faculty members, in CMCL the AIs have the primarily responsibility for the classes we teach. For C122, for instance, there are some twenty sections taught by AIs and we work under the supervision of the Course Director Jennifer Robinson. We are encouraged to use the standardized course syllabus, but we all have relative autonomy in how we teach the course. I am responsible for lecturing twice a week at section meetings, teaching the course material; preparing and implementing activities; coming up with lesson plans for each class; preparing and administering quizzes and exams; applying assessment techniques; and grading. Thus, I am able to make certain changes in the way I implement teaching and learning strategies although I keep the major components intact so the course remains comparable across all the sections.

I usually prefer to start each class with a question, either one of my own or any question, concern, or comment the students might have. This usually help both the students and I adjust to the class, warm-up, and relax for the substantial part of the class. Mini-lectures are usually a part of my daily class routine with the purpose of introducing main concepts and issues that will be discussed that day. In an attempt to make the subject matter familiar and transferable to the students’ own lives I usually provide some media example that would illustrate the topic at hand or, better, open up discussion. We spend the rest of the class usually with class discussion, either as small groups or as a whole. Objectives My primary goal this semester was to facilitate initial learning through the use of “deliberate practice” (Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer 1993) and to help the students transfer this knowledge in order to write better papers. In the past, I have found that the students find writing papers to be challenging. Most of my students were


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freshman (see Appendix B-2), thus, they came across with many of the concepts, theories, and methods – such as participant and non-participant observation – for the first time in their academic career. Although we do our best to introduce these concepts and methods to them and although there are in-built projects where they can test these concepts and ideas first hand, I noticed that we do not have any initial learning activities in class where students get prepared for these bigger projects and do a better job at them. As couple of my students expressed their concern that they did not know how to do their assignments, my initial idea was to create “deliberate practice” opportunities in class to help the students understand and be able to implement some of these concepts and methods.

In C122 half of the students’ grades come from a multi-step ethnography project where they choose two situations of their choice to record, transcribe, and analyze in light of certain communicative forms that we discuss in class. As a preparation for this big project we have a small assignment that we call the “Greetings Assignment” (see Appendix C for the assignment sheet distributed to students). This assignment is basically a non-participant observation. In this sense it is different from the ethnography project where they are supposed to participate in the interaction, but in terms of observation, description, and analysis of the interaction both projects are more or less the same. In order to observe the greeting we ask the students to go to a public place and take notes as they observe people greet each other. They are supposed to briefly describe and then analyze the greeting in one or two pages.

My intervention this semester was to implement a hands-on in-class activity for some of the methods which my students were going to use while conducting their greetings and ethnography projects such as:

1. taking jottings on an interaction they observe 2. writing a formal description of that interaction 3. analyzing the interaction

Implementation The idea for my intervention is based mostly upon Bransford, Brown, and Cocking’s discussion of experts and novices, and learning and transfer (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking 2000). They argue that the “experts” acquire knowledge that is ‘conditionalized’ and hence contextual. Thus, they suggest that “One way to help students learn about conditions of applicability is to assign word problems that require students to use appropriate concepts and formulas” (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking 2000, 31). My intervention was designed as a condition of applicability. The students did not only observe and take notes, but they were also required to analyze the interaction which forced them to apply certain frameworks which we discuss in class.

These authors also emphasize the importance of initial learning for transfer: “Initial learning is necessary for transfer, and a considerable amount is known about the


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kinds of learning experiences that support transfer. (…) Without an adequate level of initial learning, transfer cannot be expected” (ibid, 41). My intervention was not only an opportunity for initial learning where students could test their abilities to observe, take notes, and analyze, but, more importantly, it was also a ‘deliberate practice’ that was monitored and assessed so that they could fix their mistakes later on when they did the actual assignment: “(…) learning is most effective when people engage in ‘deliberate practice’ that includes active monitoring of one’s learning experiences (Ericsson et al., 1993). Monitoring involves attempts to seek and use feedback about one’s progress. (…) Students need feedback about the degree to which they know when, where, and how to use the knowledge they are learning” (ibid, 47).

Based on these premises here is a brief description of how I implemented my in-class practice intervention: Before doing the in-class practice activity for the Greetings Assignment I asked for two volunteers. I told these two students who volunteered to go outside and come up with a greeting situation that they will enact in front of the class. While the volunteering students discussed their scenario outside, I explained to the rest of them that they will be taking quick notes as they watch their classmates act in front of them and that this would be a very close approximation to the real life greeting they will encounter once they are ready to do their assignment. Then I invited the volunteering students inside to do the role play they have planned outside. Once the acting was over, I gave my students some extra time to organize their notes (or as we call them “jottings”). Once they were done organizing their notes I asked them to write a brief formal description of the interaction they have just witnessed. After five minutes, I asked them to write a brief analysis – i.e. what do they make of this situation – of the interaction.

In the first section two female students volunteered and decided to enact a greeting between a mother and a daughter where the mother was not happy about a certain issue related to her daughter and expected an apology. In this example the acting level of the students was not very good and the background of their story was not successfully revealed by their performance. This created certain problems in the description and analysis of the other students. In the second section a female and a male student volunteered. They enacted an ‘awkward,’ pre-arranged, first meeting between two college students. The female student was busy with her Blackberry and did not pay enough attention to the male student. This was a successful example and most of the other students in the class were able to understand the story and write a description and analysis of the interaction accordingly.


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Assessment After my students submitted their Greetings Assignment I conducted a student assessment survey in order to see how and why the in-class practice was helpful or unhelpful to the students (see Appendix D for the full survey). I included 10 questions to this survey, but here I will concentrate on questions 5 & 6 as they are the ones which are directly relevant to my intervention. Below you can find student responses to questions 5 & 6: Answers to Question #5: Did you find the in-class practice of the greetings helpful? (I’m referring to the exercise on the role-play of two of your classmates). How was it helpful or not helpful? Why?

Section 1:

a) ‘Yes with reasons’

Feedback

• Yes because the feedback, after the assignment was graded, showed me what I could add in to my assignment to improve it.

Correcting Mistakes

• Yes. With the in class example, it was easy to determine if I was doing it right or wrong. Made me confident in what I needed to do.

• Yes, it helped me to correct some mistakes I made. • Yes, finding mistakes or misunderstandings early helped eliminate them later.

How to

• Yes, I thought watching and observing the girls helped me to know how to watch the strangers.

• That was helpful w/ learning how to do jottings & what specifics should be included when doing the jottings part of the assignment.

• It helped me better understand the role of jottings.

Value/Amount of practice

• Yes, this was also helpful because it gave me some practice before doing the actual assignment.

• Yes, because when the time came to do the formal assignment, I had already completed a similar exercise.


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Simulation/Real-life situation

• Yes, it provided an actual real life example. • Yes because it was like a sample/practice of what we would do for the real

assignment.

Other

• It was helpful for those who did not understand the assignment sheet or teacher instructions.

• The greetings were helpful in-class because they sparked any questions that we may have never thought of before.

b) ‘Yes with suggestions’ or ‘somewhat helpful’

Bad acting/Bad example

• It was helpful, but the people that I was observing were not acting in such an obvious manner as the 2 girls so it was a little misleading.

Confusion

• I thought this was helpful but I was confused as to why we had to do an analytical AND a formal writing on the in class, but not do that on the actual assignment.

c) ‘Not helpful’

Unrealistic setting/Bad example

• It wasn’t very helpful because the setting was a little too unrealistic/controlled. However, it helped me become familiar with the process of jotting and fieldnotes.

Being a part of the role-play

• Not really. I understood the assignment already, plus I was an actor so I didn’t really do it.

• Not helpful for me since I was in it.

Section 2:


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a) ‘Yes with reasons’

Feedback & Expectations

• Yes because we got feedback from that. • By allowing us do a practice of the jottings it really helped. Also the feedback

you gave us on the jottings made me more aware of what I should be listening to and analyzing.

• I thought that the in class exercises of practicing were very helpful. It is always a great idea to give informal feedback before a formal assignment. That way students can have a better chance of doing their best.

• This in class practice was very helpful esp. since you graded it, we knew what we needed to work on etc. and the explanations were fairly helpful, you provided good detail.

How to

• This was really helpful. It showed us what to look for in the greeting and a quick example of how to write our fieldnotes and jottings.

• I thought it was very helpful. It showed me how much attention to detail I would need to pay and that nothing is too small to notice. I’m not used to thinking in terms of denaturalization when it comes to communication so it was nice to get to see what that looked like so I could better approach my own assignment.

• Yes because it gave me an idea of how much time I would have to get down information while watching a real-time interaction.


• Yes, very much. It was helpful because it was a simulation to what we were going to be doing and you provided some feedback on our writings.

Other

• Yes it was very helpful, I learned a lot from the in class example. • Yes, it did help practicing because we got a feel for it.

b) ‘Yes with suggestions’ or ‘somewhat helpful’

More time

• Helpful yes but more time to analyze it would’ve helped.


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• Yes, by practicing and receiving feedback from the role-play greeting I better knew how to complete the assignment. Only thing was the lack of time to complete our role-play greetings.

• It was helpful but more time was needed. • It was somewhat helpful; however since we only had like 5 minutes it was a bit

rushed. • The in-class practice was somewhat helpful. Only having 5-10 minutes made me

feel rushed so not all my ideas were able to be written out.

Groupwork

• Yes, giving real situation examples was helpful, but it might have been more helpful if he would have done it with as a group and out loud. Instead of alone.

Answers to Question #6:

Which of the sources (assignment sheet, in-class explanations, in-class practice) helped you most in writing this assignment? Why?

Section 1:

a) Assignment Sheet

Instructions and the Sample Assignment

• The assignment sheet. I followed the example. • The assignment sheet because it provided an example of a written achnogrophy

[sic] [ethnography]. • The assignment sheet helped me the most because it gave the example of how to

write my paper. • The assignment sheet because it mentioned what could be included on the

assignment which was helpful. • Assignment sheet, it showed an example. • The assignment sheet because everything we needed to do was written out in an

easy way to understand. • The assignment sheet because of the example that was included with it.

Constant Source of Reference

• The assignment sheet because I could refer back to it. • Assignment sheet because I had it with me during the assignment.


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• Assignment sheet – because it was a hard copy that I kept referring to while writing my paper.

• The assignment sheet helped me the most because it was always with me for a quick reference.

• The assignment sheet. Anything written down in the in-class explanation went on my assignment sheet. It’s a permanent go-to advice that follows us everywhere and always has some sort of answer for us.

b) In-Class Practice

Feedback

• The practice helped me the most because the feedback you provided gave me an idea of what exactly you were looking for in the assignment.

Hands-on Practice

• In-class practice probably helped the most because it was more hands-on.


• In-class practice because this was a real-life example of what it would be like.

c) Combinations • Assignment sheet/explanation. That’s how I’m used to getting info & having the

paper as I wrote reminded me of things I could miss. • Assignment sheet mostly, but the combination of all three was the best.

Section 2:

a) Assignment Sheet

Learning Style

• I learn really well from reading and listening so the assignment sheet was helpful as was the explanation.

Instructions and the Sample Assignment

• I think the assignment sheet was the most helpful in this assignment because the instructions were very detailed. The example on the back helped so much to give us ideas and something to compare to.


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• The assignment sheet was certainly the most helpful since it gave the most direction and a full example.

• The assignment sheet helped me the most to discover the format of the paper. (This student was absent on the in-class practice day).

• Assignment sheet because I like to see the directions in writing just in case I missed something the teacher said. (This student was absent on the in-class practice day).

Constant Source of Reference

• The assignment sheet because it was a good reference while I was actually doing the assignment.

b) In-Class Practice

Feedback

• Combination of the three but personally the in-class practice due to the feedback.

Hands-on Practice

• The in-class practice because we truly reacted to the greeting and had a chance to do a trial prior to our real assignment.


• In-class practice because it was the closest to a real situation than the other choices.

• The in class practice probably helped me the most during this project. It made it all become more clear while actually watching a greeting and not just reading about it on paper.

c) Combinations • I’d say all three b/c it gave us actual practice and written instructions to look

back at later.

d) None • None, office hours meeting helped me.


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In terms of numbers the clear-cut statistics to the sixth question about the most useful thing that helped them write the greetings assignment the picture looks like this:

Section 1 Section 2 Assignment Sheet 13 Assignment Sheet 8 Explanation 0 Explanation 0 In-Class Practice 3 In-Class Practice 5 Assignment Sheet & Explanation 1 Assignment Sheet & Explanation 0 Assignment Sheet & In-Class Practice 0

Assignment Sheet & In-Class Practice 2

Explanation & In-Class Practice 0 Explanation & In-Class Practice 1 All Three 1 All Three 1 None 0 None 11

Analysis and Reflection When I just look at the numbers above it looks like my intervention was not very successful. Especially if we speak of percentages only %17 and %28 of the students in two sections respectively, found the in-class practice to be the most useful. If we look at the combination of in-class practice with other methods and sources that were of help to the students these numbers go merely up to %22 and %50 respectively for the two sections – which is still relatively low numbers for the usefulness of my intervention. However, I am not willing to dismiss my intervention solely looking at the numbers, because I believe the specific comments that the students provided in the assignment assessment survey provide important nuances and insights. For instance, in response to the fifth question, which was about the helpfulness of the in-class practice, most of the students answered yes and provided reasons. In both of the sections the positive aspects of this in-class practice could be summarized as:

• Feedback & Expectations • Learning How to • Simulation/Real-life situation • Correcting Mistakes • Value/Amount of practice

Students, in general, thought my feedback on their in-class practice (I collected and graded them) was helpful as they clarified my expectations more solidly and helped them to correct some of their mistakes before they have submitted their actual assignment. More importantly, couple of the students emphasized that this practice enabled them to learn ‘how to’ do the actual assignment. This was precisely one of the 1 This student said office hours were more helpful.


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objectives in terms of initial learning and ‘deliberate practice.’ This deliberate practice also created a real-life situation in-class which some students appreciated, because for the actual greeting assignment they had to precisely do the same things they did for the in-class practice. Finally, to my surprise and happiness, some students emphasized the importance of practice for developing necessary skills. Repetition and practice are undoubtedly integral elements in any kind of teaching and learning activity (Gurung, Chick, and Haynie 2009): “It is important to be realistic about the amount of time it takes to learn complex subject matter. (…) Much of this time involves the development of pattern recognition skills that support the fluent identification of meaningful patterns of information plus knowledge of their implications for future outcomes” (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking 2000, 44).

Those students who did not find the in-class practice very useful mostly emphasized the bad acting and bad choice of example as reasons for the failure of the activity for themselves. They thought due to the acting level their observations were confused and they could not identify who these people were supposed to be. The ‘unrealistic’ context of the classroom setting also made it difficult for some of the students, for instance, to recognize that one of the students was acting the ‘mother’ and the other the ‘daughter’ whereas it would have been easier in a real-life setting.

The answers to the sixth question mostly support the answers to the fifth question. Those students who found the in-class practice to be most helpful pointed at the three characteristics that were mentioned at the fifth question:

• Feedback • Hands-on Practice • Simulation/Real-life situation

However, the more interesting result of the sixth question is its ability to show the importance of the employment of multiple methods in teaching and learning. The other two methods that were employed to help students were 1) providing a detailed and written assignment sheet which included a sample assignment (see Appendix C), and, 2) oral explanations and clarifications in class. An overwhelming majority of students found the written assignment sheet to be the most useful due to three reasons:

• Learning Style • Instructions and the Sample Assignment • Constant Source of Reference


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One student, for instance, clearly emphasized his/her learning style and why s/he preferred the assignment sheet:

I learn really well from reading and listening so the assignment sheet was helpful as was the explanation.

Another student emphasized how having clear and detailed instructions and a sample assignment made the assignment sheet most helpful source in writing the Greetings assignment:

I think the assignment sheet was the most helpful in this assignment because the instructions were very detailed. The example on the back helped so much to give us ideas and something to compare to.

Finally, many students were happy to have a hard copy (like the assignment sheet) that they could have with them all the time to refer back to:

The assignment sheet [was the most helpful]. Anything written down in the in-class explanation went on my assignment sheet. It’s a permanent go-to advice that follows us everywhere and always has some sort of answer for us.

I think these answers are an important reminder for us, the instructors, not to overlook the importance of old and good methods in our venture for new and affective ways of teaching. We might want to implement new and innovative ways of teaching and learning, but that might not always be the most effective way students can learn in better ways and perform well in their assignments. This is, of course, not to suggest that my intervention was unsuccessful or we should abandon any kind of innovation. I think one thing that this intervention and my experience at Teagle meetings showed me is that we need moderation between innovation and tradition. I believe maintaining certain traditional elements in our teaching such as using written materials for assignments and having oral explanations in class can create a familiar environment for students as they encounter these forms in different classes and learn how to navigate their way within such techniques fairly easily. However, the experience Teagle have nicely provided us also invites innovation and enables us improve our teaching. Although it is not fully reflected to my students’ answers in the sixth question (Which one was most helpful?), their answers to the fifth question (Was the in-class practice useful?) showed me that it was actually a successful intervention that fulfilled its goals in terms of providing feedback that would enable them to write better assignments; enacting a real-life situation in class that they will encounter while actually doing the


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project; and providing an opportunity to practice on a method that they are not yet fully comfortable with.

References Bauman, Richard. 2007. Five Principles. In A Cultural Approach to Interpersonal

Communication: Essential Readings, ed. Leila Monaghan and Jane E. Goodman, 25-26. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.

Bransford, John D., Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking, eds. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. Expanded ed. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Ericsson, K. Anders, Ralf T. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Römer. 1993. The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance. Psychological Review 100, no. 3 (July): 363-406. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.100.3.363.

Goodman, Jane E., and Leila Monaghan. 2007. Introduction. In A Cultural Approach to Interpersonal Communication: Essential Readings, ed. Leila Monaghan and Jane E. Goodman, 1-5. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.

Gurung, Regan A.R., Nancy L. Chick, and Aeron Haynie, eds. 2009. Exploring Signature Pedagogies: Approaches to Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind. 1st ed. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Indiana University. 2009. Fact Book 2009-10. http://factbook.indiana.edu/campus_fb/University/students/enroll/ethnicity_index_p1.html.

Monaghan, Leila, and Jane E. Goodman, eds. 2007. A Cultural Approach to Interpersonal Communication: Essential Readings. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.


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Appendix A: Course Syllabus

Spring 2010 C122 Interpersonal Communication: A Cultural Approach Course Syllabus

All readings are in A Cultural Approach to Interpersonal Communication (Monaghan and Goodman, eds., Blackwell 2006)

Date Topics Readings Assignments

Introduction to the Course

1 T 1/12

What Is Interpersonal Communication?

Speech communities, speech events, and ways of speaking

Course Guidelines for Students (Given out in class)

UNIT I

Ethnographer’s Toolkit

2 Th 1/14

Communication and Culture:

The circle around language; the fallacy of “normality”

Introduction (1-9) Miner, “Body Ritual among the

Nacirema” (10-12) Agar, “Culture Blends” (13-24)

Due: Course policies worksheet

3 T 1/19

Toolkit:

Learning to decode texts

Bauman, “Five Principles” (25-26) Monaghan, “How to Read and Present

on Complex Texts” (449-455)

4 Th 1/21 Toolkit:

What is ethnography? The social vs. the individual

Toolkit:

Geertz, “Thick Description” (27-28) (Group 1)

Goodman, “Winking as Social Business” (29-30) (Group 2)

Monaghan, “Speaking of Ethnography” (31-34) (Group 3)

Bauman, “The Emergent Quality of Performance” (35-37) (Group 4)


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What are fieldnotes?

Toolkit:

Social business

Toolkit:

Thin vs. thick description

Conquergood, "Poetics, Play, Process, and Power" (38-40) (Group 5)

5 T 1/26

Practicum:

Greetings

Youssouf et al., "Greetings in the Desert" (50-62)

Bauman, "Let Your Words be Few" (63-76)

Greetings jottings and fieldnotes introduced

6 Th 1/28

Examples of Ethnography:

Analyzing interpersonal communication

Basso, “’To Give up on Words’” (77-87)

7 T 2/2

Examples of Ethnography:

Analyzing interpersonal communication

Katriel & Philipsen, “What We Need is Communication” (88-102)

Ethnography project

Introduced

8 Th 2/4

Toolkit:

What is a transcript?

Practicum:

Transcription

Ochs, "Narrative Lessons" (41-49) Ottenheimer, "Writing Cousin Joe"

(103-118) Optional: Moerman, "Talking

Culture" (119-124)

Due: Greetings Jottings

and Fieldnotes

Group Project I introduced

9 T 2/9 Toolkit:

Summary and practice

UNIT II

Ethnography of Talk: From Language Form to Social Solidarity

10 Th 2/11

Semantics, syntax, pragmatics and politics

Lakoff, "The Triangle of Linguistic Structure" (128 -133)

Wilce, "The Grammar of Politics" (134-144)

Group 1: Project I

Due: Ethnography Proposal

11 T 2/16 Forms of talk and prosody Monaghan, "Conversations" (145-149) Tannen, "Conversational Signals and

Group 2: Project I


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Devices" (150-160)

12 Th 2/18

Male and female communication

Maltz and Borker, "Male-Female Miscommunication" (161-178

Tannen, Preface, and "Put Down that Paper and Talk to Me!" (179-194)

Group 3: Project I

Group 4: Project I

13 T 2/23 Swearing Andersson and Trudgill, "Swearing" (195-199)

Murray, "Swearing as a Function of Gender" (200-208)

Group 5: Project I

14 Th 2/25 Exam Review and Analysis of Projects

Transcripts: All bring in copies of short piece of data

Due: Fieldnotes I, Recording, Transcript

All present focus of ethnography and preliminary data;

Exam I Review

15 T 3/2 UNITS 1-2 TEST

EXAM I

UNIT III

Communication and Social Groups: The Work of Belonging

16 Th 3/4 Nature of social groups Goffman, "Encounters" (218-223) Eckert, "Symbols of Category

Membership" (224-242) Optional: Hudson, "Speech

Communities" (212-217)

17 T 3/9 Uses of slang Bucholtz, "Word Up: Social Meanings of Slang" (243-267)

18 Th 3/11 Male and female linguistic aggression

Simmons, "Odd Girl Out" (268-284) Kuiper, "Sporting Formulae in New

Zealand English" (285-293)

Group Project II introduced

T 3/16& Th 3/18

Spring Break

Classes do not meet.

19 T 3/23 Linguistic aggression and facework

Garot, "Inter-City Teams and Face-Work" (294-317)

Group 1: Project II

20 Th 3/25 “Signifying” as verbal art McDowell, "Speech Play" (318-321) Smitherman, “'If I’m Lyin’, I’m

Flyin'”: The Game of Insult in Black

Group 2: Project II


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Language (322-330)

UNIT IV

Interpersonal Communication in Institutional Settings:

Structure and the Exercise of Power

21 T 3/30 Local networks & the exercise of power

Kiesling, "Power and the Language of Men" (334-350)

Optional: Philipsen, "Mayor Daley’s Council Speech" (351-367)

Group 3: Project II

22 Th 4/1 Language and identity in school

Mertz, "Linguistic Ideology and Praxis and US Law School Classrooms (368-377)

Philips, "Participant Structures and Communicative Competence" (378-395)

Group 4: Project II

23 T 4/6 Footing, language use, and the building of social structure

Goffman, "Footing" (396-399) Goodman, "An Association for the

21st Century" (400-412)

Group 5: Project II

24 Th 4/8 Presentations of fieldnotes Discussion of ethnographies

Due: Fieldnotes II, Recording, and Transcript

25 T 4/13

Language variation, building of institutions, identity and resistance

Monaghan, "Signing" (413-415) LeMaster & Monaghan, "Variation in

Sign Languages" (416-420) Monaghan, "The Founding of Two

Deaf Churches" (421-436)

Groups 1, 2, 3:

Be prepared to discuss

26 Th 4/15 Socialization and resistance Shuy, "Attacking the Bureaucratic Language of Car Sales" (437- 448)

Groups 4 and 5: Be prepared to discuss

27 T 4/20 Exam II Review

28 Th 4/22 EXAM II

29 T 4/27 Ethnography grps.

30 Th 4/29

Ethnography grps.

Due: Portfolio

M 5/3 -F 5/7

FINAL’S WEEK

No C122 Final Exam or Classes This Week


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Appendix B-1: Student Body Statistics in terms of Ethnicity and Gender

Fall 20092 Bloomington3 Percentage Number Bloomington Percentage Number White 88.41 37,441 Female 49.51 20,967 African American 4.45 1,883 Male 50.49 21,380 Hispanic 2.60 1,099 Total 100 42,347 Asian American 4.26 1,803 American Indian 0.29 121 Total 100 42,347 Spring 2010 Section 1 Percentage Number Section 1 Percentage Number White 76.19 16 Female 57.14 12 African American 14.29 3 Male 42.86 9 Hispanic 4.76 1 Total 100 21 Asian American 4.76 1 American Indian 0.00 0 Total 100 21 Section 2 Percentage Number Section 2 Percentage Number White 95.65 22 Female 78.26 18 African American 4.35 1 Male 21.74 5 Hispanic 0.00 0 Total 100 23 Asian American 0.00 0 American Indian 0.00 0 Total 100 23

Appendix B-2: Student Body Statistics in terms of Class Standing

Section 1 Section 2 Freshman 12 Freshman 17 Sophomore 7 Sophomore 3 Junior 1 Junior 2 Senior 1 Senior 1

2 Spring 2010 data was not available at the time this portfolio was written. I will include the Spring 2010 data later. 3 From Indiana University Fact Book 2009-10 (Indiana University 2009). Available online at http://factbook.indiana.edu/campus_fb/University/students/enroll/ethnicity_index_p1.html. Accessed on May 08, 2010. Numbers only include IU Bloomington Campus students.

http://factbook.indiana.edu/campus_fb/University/students/enroll/ethnicity_index_p1.html�


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Appendix C: Greetings Assignment

C122 Interpersonal Communication

Greetings Assignment

• Due: At the end of the class on Thursday 2/4 • Worth: 50 points (5% of your final grade) • Requirements: Jottings can be handwritten. Fieldnotes should be 1-2 pages long, typed, double-

spaced, in Times New Roman 12 point font with one inch margins.

The Assignment

This assignment allows you to practice your ethnographic observation skills.

• Find a public place such as a cafeteria or a busy place on campus where people are coming and going.

• Watch how people greet each other. • Jot notes on interesting greetings, writing as much possible about them, including what

people look like, what people say to each other, what their body language looks like, what tone of voice they use, and what you think the “social business” or ends of these interactions are.

• Immediately after you finish jotting your observations. • Then write up a “thick description” of your observations in the form of fieldnotes.

More on Jottings

Jottings are handwritten notes you take as you are observing or just after you have observed interactions. These notes should be handed in with your fieldnotes. They will not be graded; however, I will let you know if you need to do more detailed jottings in the future.

One check on completeness of jottings is whether you have enough information to fill out all the sections of the SPEAKING model (setting, participants, ends, act sequence, key, instrumentality, norms, genre).

More on Fieldnotes

Fieldnotes are your formal summary of your observations, in this case, one of the greetings you observed. Your fieldnotes will be graded. They should be in complete sentences and coherent paragraphs. Include a description of the setting and participants, as full a description of the interaction as possible, and some speculation about social business of this interaction. Make sure that your fieldnotes description of the greeting is “thick” with details and delves into why you think the behavior described happened as it did.

Short Sample

I was sitting outside at a café on Kirkwood, watching people come and go when I saw a tall white blonde woman approach a short woman with dark curly hair, perhaps a Latina, sitting at one of the tables. Both were dressed in tee-shirts and jeans and had big bags that were carrying books.

The seated woman waved and called out "Heeeeyyy, over here," and smiled as the other woman approached her. Her expression changed as she saw the face of the blonde woman. "Hey," she repeated, not as drawn out as before, "What's up?"


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The blonde woman hesitated a moment before answering. "Hey," she said very briefly with a small smile and then paused again. "My mom called."

"What's wrong, is it your grandmother?" asked the brunette.

"Noo," replied the other woman, "My dad has just gone into the hospital." The blonde woman sat down and two women proceed to talk about what is wrong with the blonde woman's father and what she will do about it.

From my observations I would say that both these women are students at IU and had plans to meet at this café for lunch. The brunette woman was obviously expecting the blonde woman--she had a table big enough for two and had been looking around on a regular basis as if waiting for someone. Both had bags with books and dressed like other college students. They were also obviously pretty good friends. The brunette looked happy to see her friend and then concerned when she saw that her friend wasn't smiling back and didn't answer her immediately. When the blonde woman hesitated, the brunette asked if something was wrong with her grandmother, displaying knowledge of the blonde woman's family. This question also seemed to make the blonde woman feel more comfortable with sharing what was actually wrong, that her father was in the hospital.

This greeting throws light both on how people act as friends towards each other and the nature of greetings and conversation in general. The brunette woman seemed to be looking forward to seeing her friend, and worked to make contact. She smiled to show she was glad to see her friend and then looked worried when her friend didn't immediately respond with the same kind of greeting that she had given her. The brunette then guessed what was wrong, displaying an interest in her friend's affairs and showing that she had enough background information to guess at what might be wrong. Even though she guessed wrong, the blonde woman felt comfortable enough to tell her friend what was really troubling her. In their friendship, they seem to be able to share what is on their minds and this both makes them feel better in the short term and would probably strengthen the friendship in the long term.

What this greeting shows about the nature of American conversation in general, or at least greetings around here, is that bad news isn't expected. The blonde woman hesitated and let her friend guess what was wrong before she told her. This is like the Youssef et al article where the Beduoin always respond "The news is good" even if it isn't. Because greetings start conversations off, this means that the tone of most conversations should also probably be upbeat and cheerful. This is something I probably knew but never put into words before.


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Appendix D: Student Assessment for the Greetings Assignment

Student Assessment for the Greetings Assignment

1. Did you know what to do when you were writing the assignment? Please explain your answer.

2. Were the expectations of the assignment clear to you?

3. Did you find the assignment sheet helpful? How was it helpful or not helpful? Why?

4. Did you find the in-class explanations by the instructor helpful? How was it helpful or not helpful? Why?

5. Did you find the in-class practice of the greetings helpful? (I’m referring to the exercise on the role-play of two of your classmates). How was it helpful or not helpful? Why?


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6. Which of the sources (assignment sheet, in-class explanations, in-class practice) helped you most in writing this assignment? Why?

7. Do you think this assignment is relevant to the topics covered in the course? How?

8. Do you think this assignment is relevant to your daily life? How?

9. Were you able to use any ideas from the articles in the book and our class discussions? Please explain your answer.

10. What kind of connections can you make between the course topics and this assignment?

Documents

Teagle Collegium on Inquiry in Action Electronic ... - iub.educollegia/courseportfolio/cp_say_ozan.pdfElectronic Course Portfolio for C122 – Interpersonal Communication . Abstract