Outlines an assignment for teaching job search skills, including writing a cover letter, resume, and interview follow-up letter. Proposes that the instructor act as interviewer, video tape each interview, and analyze each student's performance. (JAD)

Describes an assignment in which students write a business report on a company they would like to work for, thus providing motivation while they learn the technical aspects of writing a business report. (SR)

Discusses a unit on performance appraisals, including writing comments to support ratings, drawing conclusions concerning performance, and making recommendations to improve performance. Provides an assignment requiring students to complete an appraisal form. (SR)

Describes an exercise that teaches the reverse of promotion--demand reduction. Discusses persuasive strategies to reduce demand for a product. (SR)

Describes a one-class-period assignment that introduces students to the different professional journals in their major areas of study and in business communication. Notes that students learn how and where to find the journals and what they contain. (SR)

Describes adding lessons on stress management to the business communications classroom. (RS)

Describes an assignment for a business communication course in which students give an oral presentation on some aspect of business manners and etiquette, thus increasing their awareness of the impact of social graces on communication in the business setting. (SR)

Describes a project assignment for a business communication course that is the central organizing principle for the course and addresses researching, interviewing, writing and reporting topics, and the inevitable question of why this course is required. (SR)

Describes two assignments conducted during the first few days of class that introduces students to the concept of format, provides a writing sample from each student, and furthers the process of students getting to know each other and the teacher. (SR)

Describes a business communication assignment in which students participate in a formal meeting (on coursework and evaluation) and later analyze the group processes. Notes that written activities from each student include preliminary memos, minutes of the meeting, and comments on group processes. (SR)

Presents an approach to teaching various kind of business messages that helps students recognize that different situations call for different rhetorical strategies. Details a memo assignment that blurs the boundaries between message types. (HB)

Advocates the use of a portfolio approach to teaching business writing. Describes how a semester portfolio can be prepared by the student. Gives guidelines for the portfolio, suggestions for portfolio evaluation, and the benefits of such an approach. (HB)

Offers a solution to the limitations of using case studies in business communication classes that use the double-message approach, in which students write a context memorandum along with their response to the case protagonist, thus providing instructors with a social context for cases and additional dimensions that enhance the instructor's ability…

Describes a research assignment that enables students to recognize the context of a document, extract the document's message, and determine its usefulness. Suggests possible warm-up activities for this assignment. (MM)

Describes the first problem raised in an interactive case on communication taken from Dennis Moberg and David Caldwell's text "Interactive Cases in Organizational Behavior." Demonstrates a wrong and a right answer to this problem, and shows how the author developed writing assignments to supplement the solutions to the problems raised in…