During my tenure as a teacher, I innovated the use of the internet at a mode of teaching. The following are websites generated for my various courses. The nature of the reading varies greatly from course to course.
These courses enrolled only undergraduate students. Typically, the students enrolled were from throughout the university. Although the courses attracted sophomores through seniors, most enrollment are juniors and seniors.
COMM 401: Interpreting Strategic Discourse
This course taught various ways to read discourse to understand its meaning and powers. The course provided opportunities to study examples of strategic discourse from throughout the twentieth century.
COMM 469A: The Discourse of Social Movements: Civil Rights
The course studied the speeches and documents of the movement constructed by Americans of African ancestry in the 1950s and 1960s. The approach was to understand each of the messages as a response to their historical and rhetorical situation.
COMM 498e: Eight Leaders, Eight Speeches
The purpose of this course was to learn about the power of speaking at key moments when leaders are called upon to face great challenges. Students in this course studied only eight speeches, thus providing the liberty of approximately two weeks on each speech. The speeches chosen are among the most powerful ever delivered in American history and include speeches of political leaders, movement and moral leaders, delivered in political, legal, and other public situations. Student research teams researched various aspects of each speech and then introduced that work into focused discussions of those speeches.
COMM 498i: The Rhetoric of the Internet
This special topics course examined the internet as a rhetorical space considering the rhetorical aspects of the internet and the influence of the internet on social rhetoric.
These courses teach through various mixtures of lecture and discussion. The level of the courses is advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate student. Typically acquisition of material is tested by examination and ability to work with the things learned is evaluated through a term paper.
COMM 453: The Power of Discourse in American Life
This course introduced contemporary ideas about the powers of language in everyday life. The first third of the semester explained the viewpoint of contemporary rhetoric on the powers of language. The remainder of the semester contained a series of applications of the perspective to modern life.
COMM 460: Public Life in American Communities, 1634-1900
People make public life with their voices. In our public life we reach beyond ourselves to join our friends and neighbors in seeking those goals we share, addressing those problems we believe we should solve together, and making a life together. How to seek this public life is not always clear in modern America. This course examined how American communities of the past, from the Puritans of New England to the small towns and urban workers of 1900, have joined together to pursue a common life.
COMM 461: Voices of Public Leadership in the Twentieth Century
The voice is a source of power. The twentieth century illustrated that power. Two themes dominated the century: the search for leaders who could use their voices for the good of the community in which they lived, and the search to empower more and more people by giving them voices that would be heard. This course concentrated on those two themes in understanding the use of discourse in the 20th century.
COMM 498O: Barack Obama, Speaker
An exploration of Obama’s unique qualities and style as a public speaker through study of a series of his most important speeches. Study of various perspectives from which to illuminate the character of public speeches by leaders.
The primary objective in these courses was not to acquire material, but to help the student become an active researcher.
COMM 652: Contemporary Rhetorical Theory
The last third of the twentieth century has marked a dramatic retheorizing of the power of human symbolic interaction. This course was designed to lead to your involvement in that exciting activity. Reading focused on eight characteristic moves in contemporary rhetoric and the directions those moves have taken us.
COMM 661: Communication and Social Change
A viewpoint on the role of communication in changing social form. The course took a theory/praxis approach to the various modes of change from conservative political change to epistemic change.
COMM 700: Introduction to Graduate Study in Communication
COMM 711: Historical/Critical Methods in Communication Research
A skills oriented treatment of the humanistic tradition of communication research. The course entailed techniques in the writing of history, criticism, and other qualitative methods.
A workshop in criticism. Focus on this course was on the life of a critic: Critical logic, specific strategies in writing, and developing critical sensitivities are the focus.
COMM 758B: Special Topics in Rhetorical Theory: Kenneth Burke
A special topics course focused on one of the great humanists of the Twentieth Century who has been particularly influential on the field of rhetorical studies.