essay, assignment questions
Week 2 communication notebook/Instructions
In Weeks 1, 2, and 4 you will complete an exercise that you will add to your Communication Notebook. For this quiz, you will simply verify that you have completed the Week 2 exercise (see instructions below) to earn 0.5 points. While you are on the honor system, if you do not complete these exercises each week, you will be catching up on multiple exercises in Week 5, as the four exercises are the basis of your Week 5 Communication Notebook Final Paper.
While you are on the honor system, if you do not complete these exercises each week, you will be catching up on multiple exercises in Week 4, when you submit the document to your peers for feedback. As a reminder, you will be using your four exercises as the basis of your Week 5 Communication Notebook Final Paper.
This week, you will choose from the options below to explore. When you have finished the write-up, add the content to your notebook and take the quiz.
Week 2 Exercise Instructions (choose one option):
Option 1: Violate a nonverbal cultural norm by doing one of the following:
· Stand in the wrong direction, face someone, or sit down in an elevator, bus or even while in line at a store.
· Wave to everyone as you walk down a busy street.
· Shake the hands of as many people as possible when you greet them in the morning.
As you write about the experience, answer the following questions:
· What do the norms that are usually followed in the elevator, bus or line try to establish, in terms of values or beliefs?
· How does your experiment connect to one of the elements of nonverbal communication addressed in Bevan (e.g., haptics, proxemics, paralanguage or kinesics)?
· How have you been trained to obey the nonverbal communication norms you normally follow?
Option 2: How gender might impact patterns of communication
Read Bevan on gender and communication. Then, ask two people (one male and one female) to allow you to record your conversations with them on your phone. Here are some themes you can discuss: the weather on that day, some news event you just heard about, or something going on in your or their family. Keep the conversation to 2 to 3 minutes. Then, listen to the recordings and make note of whether you hear the more masculine or feminine styles of communication outlined in Bevan.
In addition to what Bevan says, here are five features that are often found in more stereotypically “feminine” and “masculine” styles of communication:
Feminine Styles:
· Tag questions (ending statements with phrases such as “isn’t it?” or “don’t you think?”). This is thought to undermine the speaker and demonstrate a lack of confidence.
· Flowery language (phrases such as absolutely or precision of color or taste)
· Hedging statements (mitigating assertiveness, including words such as “quite” or “at that time”)
· Intensifiers (words such as absolutely or incredible)
· Bonding (searching for common ground, agreement)
Masculine Styles:
· Certainty (speaks as if from fact, rather than opinion)
· Vulgarity/profanity
· Sentence fragments/informality
· Confrontation/argumentative
· Interrupting
Did you find that you or the two people you spoke with illustrated any of these patterns of more masculine or feminine styles of communication? Write a one to two-paragraph summary of your results. Include some of the expressions you heard to demonstrate your key points.
Option 3: Stereotypes
As we have learned in Bevan, we use perceptual schemas to make sense of the world around us. These are central to communication, as they involve perception (taking in information into our minds through observing verbal and nonverbal cues), classification (putting information into categorical boxes in our minds), and then assigning meaning to those classifications, which are typically positive or negative. In this option, you will explore a broad category of schemas called “stereotypes.” To complete the task, do the following, using and citing Bevan as much as possible:
· Define stereotypes, utilizing Bevan.
· Explain how stereotypes are useful tools we use to make sense of the world and make choices.
· Identify three common stereotypes and write a sentence that draws on them.
· Explore why each stereotypical sentence can be destructive.
· List some steps we can take to mitigate the negative impacts of stereotypes
This is the form you will use to record all of your weekly exercise notes. In weeks 1, 2, 4 and 5 you will update this document with the new exercise you complete. You only have to answer three questions, through week 4. Then, in week 5, you will be required to complete questions two for each week’s exercise. You will be required to use Bevan, one course reading from the required or recommended list, and TWO course videos. See the resources box for the week 5 paper instructions for a list of videos, but you can use any from class. They should all be listed in a reference list at the end of this document and they should all comply with APA style guidelines.
Week 1: Channels of Communication
Step 1 - Describe the findings. (100 to 150 words) – Only this part is due at the end of week 1
a) How much time did each exchange take (roughly)? (1 to 2 sentences)
b) How well were the questions answered via phone or video chat? (1 to 2 sentences)
c) How well were the questions answered via email, messenger, or phone texting? (1 to 2 sentences)
d) How close did you feel to the person in the phone or video chat exchange? (1 to 2 sentences)
e) How close did you feel to the person in email, messenger, or phone texting exchange? (1 to 2 sentences)
f) Which interaction was most satisfying and why? (1 to 2 sentences)
Step 2 - Apply what you have learned during this class, especially the basic principles of effective communication, ideas of the self, or culture, to your exercise results, citing at least two course resources to support you and one can be a video. (This must be 200 to 250 words.) Due week 5.
Week 2: Please list your exercise: ___________________________
Option 3: Stereotypes
As we have learned in Bevan, we use perceptual schemas to make sense of the world around us. These are central to communication, as they involve perception (taking in information into our minds through observing verbal and nonverbal cues), classification (putting information into categorical boxes in our minds), and then assigning meaning to those classifications, which are typically positive or negative. In this option, you will explore a broad category of schemas called “stereotypes.” To complete the task, do the following, using and citing Bevan as much as possible:
· Define stereotypes, utilizing Bevan.
· Explain how stereotypes are useful tools we use to make sense of the world and make choices.
· Identify three common stereotypes and write a sentence that draws on them.
· Explore why each stereotypical sentence can be destructive.
· List some steps we can take to mitigate the negative impacts of stereotypes
Step 1 - Describe the findings. (100 to 150 words) – Due week 2
Step 2 - Apply what you have learned during this class, especially the basic principles of effective communication, ideas of the self, or culture, to your exercise results, using and citing at least two course resources to support you and one can be a video. (This must be 200 to 250 words.) Due week 5.
Week 4:
Please list your exercise: ___________________________
Step 1 - Describe the findings. (100 to 150 words) – Due week 4
Step 2 - Apply what you have learned during this class, especially the basic principles of effective communication, ideas of the self, or culture, to your exercise results, using and citing at least two course resources to support you and one can be a video. (This must be 200 to 250 words.) Due week 5.
Week 5:
Please list your exercise: ___________________________
Step 1 - Describe the findings. (100 to 150 words) – Due week 5
Step 2 - Apply what you have learned during this class, especially the basic principles of effective communication, ideas of the self, or culture, to your exercise results, using and citing at least two course resources to support you and one can be a video. (This must be 200 to 250 words.) Due week 5.