Students in the English Language Arts classroom have access to more author commentary than ever. While following authors on social media may deepen students' engagement with their assigned reading, it also threatens to subdue students' own interpretations of the authors' texts. This essay explains how educators can introduce basic aspects of…

A main goal of academic courses is to help students acquire knowledge and skills that they can transfer to multiple contexts. In this article, we (i) examine students' responses to test question templates (TQTs), a framework intended to facilitate transfer, and (ii) determine whether similar transfer-promoting strategies are commonly embedded in…

Courses: Rhetorical Criticism, Communication Theory, Communication Research Methods, Introduction to Communication Studies. Objectives: This is an introductory exercise that acquaints students with rhetorical criticism as a means of communication inquiry. By the end of the exercise, students will be able to: understand symbols as connected and…

Anthropogenic climate change is an urgent and pervasive challenge, yet it remains a polarizing subject. In the United States, studies have shown that rural communities tend to view climate change with less urgency than urban communities, which could delay action in response to the crisis. In rural areas that are highly dependent on agricultural…

Courses: Public Speaking, Rhetorical Criticism, Persuasion, Political Communication, and Media Communication. Objectives: By the end of this activity, students should be able to: explain the key components of Lloyd Bitzer's rhetorical situation; assess and navigate various conditions affecting various speaking situations; conduct audience analysis…

Research-based assessments (RBAs) measure how well a course achieves discipline-specific outcomes. Educators can use outcomes from RBAs to guide instructional choices and to request resources to implement and sustain instructional transformations. One challenge for using RBAs, however, is a lack of comparative data, particularly given the skew in…

This accessible guide will help studio art and design professors meaningfully and effectively transform their curriculum and pedagogy so that it is relevant to today's learners. Situating contemporary college teaching within a historic art and design continuum, the author provides a practical framework for considering complex interactions within…

Courses: Introduction to Communication Studies, Rhetorical/Media Criticism, Political Communication, Language and Social Interaction. Objectives: The aims of this single-class activity are (1) to emphasize the complexities of communication competence; (2) to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate communication behaviors; and (3) to…

Today's students are inundated with popular culture and pop culture texts in their daily lives. One such form of pop culture is that of music. This medium is one that teachers must use as a way to connect to students and build a bridge to the curriculum. This article will discuss uses of music in the classroom from capturing students' attention…

As a communication educator, the author's goal is to help students examine and understand how communication addresses--or, in this case, fails to address--public problems such as gun violence. Communication concepts can provide insight about America's bewildering debates about gun violence, and in turn, these debates can help illustrate and refine…

This article is meant as a useful classroom methodology by which teachers of literature may give their students a coherent rubric for understanding literary meaning and exegesis which can incorporate most literary theories while addressing the basic-to-advanced concepts required of literary students. Also, it will provide a working methodology for…

Many U.S. politicians have criticized the trade relations between the United States and countries like Canada, Mexico, and China. They argue that more is imported into the United States from these countries than is exported to these countries from the United States. Political action is needed, they claim. This article is designed to help educators…

Courses: Rhetorical Criticism, Composition, Environmental Communication. Objectives: This unit activity, for which students view a documentary to identify and evaluate persuasive ethos and then create their own rhetorical messages for reducing food waste, serves as a platform for teaching both the critique and practice of rhetoric, as well as…

Courses: Communication Theory, Nonverbal Communication, Public Speaking. Objective: At the end of this activity, students should be able to define key components of expectancy violations theory and apply the theory to analyze violations that occurred in Clint Eastwood's speech at the 2012 Republican National Convention.

Courses: Persuasion; Persuasive Speaking. Objectives: Students will demonstrate the ability to apply persuasive concepts in constructing persuasive messages creatively, and students will present and analyze their persuasive messages.