This original teaching idea is designed for a course unit on protest communication. It consists of a performed protest speech, dubbed the "fantastical speech," and a post-speech reflective analysis. Students utilize the subversive genre of fanfiction to compose a protest speech in which, as a fictional character, they convince their…

Because strong oral communication skills have well-known academic, social, and professional benefits, they are increasingly targeted and reinforced throughout general education programs in higher education. In these efforts, public speaking assignments most often ask students to discuss information they have previously written about (e.g., theses…

James Callaghan's speech at Ruskin College, Oxford in October 1976 is widely considered a pivotal moment in modern English educational policy. Whilst it is not our intention to challenge this fundamental point, the paper will critically interrogate some long-held assumptions about the motivation that led Callaghan to deliver his speech at Ruskin…

This paper considers the process of becoming an international public intellectual, taking the case of Maria Montessori (1870-1952), the Italian physician who became an authority on education and, unusually for a woman, a public intellectual. The focus is on her experience from the age of 12 which contributed to her emergence on the international…

The Trans Studies in Education (TSiE) Speaker Series at the University of Arizona (UA) was created to serve as an intervention in response to the absence of trans voices in education; one created by and for the transgender and nonbinary (TNB) community. TSiE invites trans educators, artists, community organizers, and scholars to share their…

This is an edited transcript of the Caroline Benn Memorial Lecture, given by Ken Jones, at the request of the Socialist Education Association, in November 2020. The lecture situates Caroline's work in the context of the 'Long Revolution' of twentieth century Britain. The lecture discusses the meaning of that revolution for education; it charts the…

Multimodal learning analytics, which is collection, analysis, and report of diverse learning traces to better understand and improve the learning process, has been producing a series of interesting prototypes to analyze learning activities that were previously hard to objectively evaluate. However, none of these prototypes have been taken out of…

Storytelling plays an important role in preserving historical and cultural traditions. Research proves it is beneficial to utilize in the classroom setting as well. One college seeks to cultivate an interest in storytelling for teacher education candidates by having storytelling incorporated into their future classrooms. In two of the education…

This essay analyzes the rhetorical framing tactics of a group of disability activists to understand how they use key words, topic shifts, and other framing maneuvers to amplify marginalized voices in public debates. Focusing on a town hall meeting and a legislator update meeting between activists and lawmakers, the author uses "stasis"…

Helping students recognize the value of humanistic inquiry can be challenging, especially in required courses. This essay presents a solution: an assignment in which students were asked to pitch one of the required readings to Netflix for adaptation. Through close readings of student responses and an analysis of the "so what" component…

The doctoral defence is the oral examination of the doctoral thesis. While it is a major milestone for doctoral candidates, this event is often shrouded in mystery. In this article, I explore the doctoral defence from an international perspective. I have studied the format of the defence based on written testimonies as well as the literature on…

This essay advocates the use of "unresolved" speech assignments in introductory public speaking instruction. Unresolved speeches work to decenter persuasion in the speech class by asking students to critically explore the landscape of arguments surrounding controversial topics and issue questions without making the turn to opinion giving…

Using critical discourse analysis, I critically examined the National Communication Association's (NCA) standards for public speaking competency to determine what type of ideal speaker the standards would produce. Highlighting NCA's emphasis on "suitable" and "appropriate" forms of communication and the use of Standard American…

This article explores the role of campuses and universities in protecting free speech while providing for the needs of students adversely impacted by speaker content. A specific event at the University of Connecticut is examined as well as the university response and creation of event procedures to adequately prepare for similar events in the…

In this article, I argue that the public speaking introductory course should follow a pedagogy of preparation. A pedagogy of preparation develops within students a toolkit that has become increasingly necessary for them to become active, compassionate citizens, and to understand what social pressures impact that perception, through the moral and…