It is widely agreed that college students do not fully participate in the political process. The most commonly cited reasons are apathy, indifference, and ignorance. This article presents an activity that aims to help students learn about communication dynamics in the context of political campaigns and develop an appreciation and confidence about…

This article describes an exercise that involves providing students with a basic understanding and demonstration of audience adaptation and then asking them to practice and evaluate the skill. In this exercise the instructor begins by providing students with background on analyzing and adapting to audiences. Then the instructor collects several…

Today's communication and information environments create an immense amount of clutter for consumers, but a well crafted advertising campaign can differentiate an organization from its competitors. Persuasion in Advertising is a critical assignment where students apply Aristotle's and Cicero's persuasive techniques to a specific advertising…

One of the frustrations with the basic public-speaking course is that there is an inevitable tendency to teach the old sender-message-context-receiver model of communication. Many of the basic texts use it, and the typical assignments--one speaker in front of an audience--certainly reinforce it. Feminists have envisioned an alternative way of…

For many students, public speaking is a communication apprehension inducing event. Others may enter the public speaking classroom as confident speakers but are restrictive in their approach to topic selection and alternative solution development. Both scenarios present a particular challenge for teachers who require students to present a variety…