With increasing threats to democracy, we call for communication educators to renew and re-examine their commitment to advancing civic engagement in the basic course. Given recent scholarly criticism that civic engagement pedagogies falsely present democratic practice as neutral or apolitical and reinforce the status quo, we set an agenda for basic…

Based on a course that inquired into the similarities and differences between the discourse forms of argument and dialogue, this paper explores theoretical issues related to these communicative forms. The purpose of the team-taught course was for students to explore the possibility of non-polarizing public discourse. The first two sections of the…

Discusses how to teach oral communication students to handle complaints effectively and enforce rule positively. (AEA)

Outlines four lessons as supplemental lectures in beginning argumentation classes. Encourages students to develop an appreciation of the interaction between culture and communication generally and a sense of argumentation's suitability in our own culture. (JMF)

"Achieving Dialog," a model course in one-to-one communication for close relationships, is described and presented as a possible new course for the speech communication curriculum of colleges and universities. Research findings from a comprehensive evaluation of the course are summarized, and the societal need for such a course is…

In this article, the author describes how she changed her process for the oral presentation, which involved looking at its placement in the course, the pace, and the preparation. By moving the team oral presentation earlier in the course, the author hoped to solve two problems. One problem was the increased stress both students and the author…

The place of argumentation within the speech communication curriculum is the focus of this article. The article provides a rationale for an upper-level college course in the deliberation and decision making process currently taught at the University of North Carolina, and relates that rationale to broader concerns of argumentation theory. Various…

Despite a professional commitment to "teach ethics," speech communication literature and textbooks contain almost no advice or help on how to accomplish this task. An integrated teaching approach, however, can involve students more directly in the ethical issues that may arise in a persuasion course. The first element in increasing student…

A college-level Southern studies course, team-taught by a history professor and a speech communication professor and designed to integrate the study of history with the study of public address, is described in this paper. After pointing out the interrelation of public address and its historical and political context, the paper lists the topics of…

Until the late 1960s, rhetoric instruction in the United States ignored forms of rhetoric used by black Americans, although black rhetoric has existed in the United States for as long as black people have lived there. A course in black rhetoric must acknowledge the persuasive intent of all rhetoric, but note at the same time that black rhetoric…