updated 1/21/08

‘One day when I was twenty-three or twenty-four this sentence seemed to form in my head, without my willing it, much as sentences form when we are half-asleep, ‘Hammer* your thoughts into unity’. For days I could think of nothing else and for years I tested all I did by that sentence [...]” William Butler Yeats (Nobel Prize, 1923; cited in Frank Tuohy, Yeats, 1976, p.51 )

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SPOKEN COMMNICATION IN CLASS

RATIONALE

One of the primary goals of this state university, enshrined in the college seal, is training students to be good citizens of a democracy. A key exercise in that training is learning how to participate in a civilized discussion.

The Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University, 1998

Undergraduates Too Often Shortchanged in the Past.....

The failure of research universities seems most serious in conferring degrees upon inarticulate students. Every university graduate should understand that no idea is fully formed until it can be communicated, and that the organization required for writing and speaking is part of the thought process that enables one to understand material fully.... Many students graduate having accumulated whatever number of courses is required, but still lacking a coherent body of knowledge or any inkling as to how one sort of information might relate to others. And all too often they graduate without knowing how to think logically, write clearly, or speak coherently........

AN ACADEMIC BILL OF RIGHTS includes training in the skills necessary for oral and written communication at a level that will serve the student both within the university and in postgraduate professional and personal life.

recommendations: [1] Beginning with the freshman year, students must learn how to convey the results of their work effectively both orally and in writing. [2] Inquiry-based learning, collaborative experience, writing and speaking expectations need to characterize the whole of a research university education......the changes need to include greater expectations of writing and speaking.... [resulting in ] graduates who are proficient in both written and oral communication.

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THE ART OF LISTENING. Proficiency in oral communication includes not only speaking, but, what is far more rare and valuable, the ability to listen. During the discussion students must focus on the speaker without talking to others, without interrupting, without thinking about they want to say next. If they do have interrupting thoughts, they might well find that writing down a reminder of what they want to contribute will help them get back to concentrating on the discussion. Students who talk to others while the speaker is talking and/or encourage this rude behavior with a willing ear, will have fifteen points deducted from their class participation/attendance grade for each incident. Egregious behavior such as sleeping in class, reading materials other than ours, acting out, disrupting class, etc. will be subject to the same penalty. Students who insult, threaten, or harass others will have thirty points deducted from their grade for each incident, and be referred to the Dean of Students. Their class participation/attendance grade can thus become a negative grade.

Students prepare for class discussion by being on time, by reading the assigned reading and related Discussion Board in advance and by bringing their DB, grades, and schedule printouts, notes, and books to class (points deducted if books are not brought to class). There will be no attendance credit for the first late appearance, double the penalty for the second, triple for the third, etc. A student who comes late is also not eligible to earn any credits during the discussion.

Students also prepare by reviewing "Guidelines for Listening" in our anthology. During the discussion they listen attentively -- staying in the present moment, suspending judgment -- and help the organizer generate a meaningful discussion. They focus their sympathetic imaginations on the speaker and concentrate well enough to repeat what the speaker has just said and/or the course of the discussion to that point. (To that end they may take notes, which they may turn in at the end of class for extra credit).  After a speaker has finished speaking, anyone may be called on to to repeat what the speaker has just said and/or the course of the discussion to that point. If they can not do this, their class participation grade for that day will suffer.

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