Examines ways in which forms and media of communication create and are created by other cultural constructs.
- To improve your understanding of the communication process, including the theory and tools of rhetoric.
- To embrace a respectful and non-judgmental environment in which we can create, experiment, and learn with a sense of both rigor and play.
- To develop your skills as an assertive public speaker, both in terms of effectiveness of rhetoric and in terms of public presentation.
- To develop your skills as a critic of public discourse.
All readings for this class may be found on Canvas. They are from texts including:
- Poetics by Aristotle
- A Sense of Direction by William Ball
- Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
- The Actor and the Target by Declan Donellan
- Resonate by Nancy Duarte
- Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte
- Shakespeare's Advice to the Players by Peter Hall
- "True Tales and Tall Tales: The Power of Organizational Storytelling" by Bevery Kaye and Betsy Jacobson
- The Exceptional Presenter Goes Virtual by Tim Koegel
- Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process by Liz Lerman
- Freeing the Natural Voice by Kristin Linklater
- The Right to Speak by Patsy Rodenburg
- An Actor Prepares by Konstantin Stanislavsky
I very much encourage you to read these full texts beyond the assigned pages on Canvas, either during the semester or afterwards. Readings on Canvas will be posted no later than 11:59 PM on Wednesday for the following Monday’s class and by 11:59 PM on Friday for the following Wednesday’s class. If for some reason you have trouble accessing a Canvas reading, please email me immediately at avital.shira@gatech.edu.
Grading Scale
Your final grade will be assigned as a letter grade according to the following scale:
A 90-100%
B 80-89%
C 70-79%
D 60-69%
F 0-59%
According to policy, grades at Georgia Tech are interpreted as follows:
A Excellent (4 quality points per credit hour)
B Good (3 quality points per credit hour)
C Satisfactory (2 quality points per credit hour)
D Passing (1 quality point per credit hour)
F Failure (0 quality points per credit hour)
Please see the Registrar’s breakdown of the grading system for more information.
Active participation is vital to this course. For each class, you will be evaluated on active, prepared participation in:
- In-class exercises
- Discussions based on reading/viewing assignments
- Generous, thoughtful, constructive feedback in response to speech performances.
As a result, participation makes up a meaningful (17%) percentage of your overall grade.
If you are scheduled to speak publicly and you are unprepared, late, or absent, the event will not be rescheduled. If you miss a class, you will receive a “0” for that class. Three late arrivals will count as one absence; you will receive a “0” for the third of the classes to which you arrive late. If you have two unexcused absences, you must speak with me directly, because missing subsequent classes will put you in peril of failing the class.
That being said, if you are ill, we ask that you call into class and participate remotely rather than coming to class in-person. If you are ill, you may choose to give your speech remotely without penalty or swap slots through prearrangement with another student in the class. Absence from class without remote participation will be considered unexcused unless you have a doctor’s note, or it is a pre-arranged absence due to religious observance, required GT business, or accompanied by documentation from the Dean of Students’ Office. If you are absent from class due to an excused absence, you may make up participation points by writing a one-page response to the course readings due for that class, complete with citations, and submitting it to me via email at avital.shira@gatech.edu no later than April 22nd at 11:59 PM.
Students are expected to maintain the highest standards of academic integrity. All work submitted must be original and properly cited. Plagiarism, cheating, or any form of academic dishonesty will result in immediate consequences as outlined in the university's academic integrity policy.
This is a Core IMPACTS course that is part of the Arts, Humanities & Ethics area.
Core IMPACTS refers to the core curriculum, which provides students with essential knowledge in foundational academic areas. This course will help master course content, and support students’ broad academic and career goals.
This course should direct students toward a broad Orienting Question:
- How do I interpret the human experience through creative, linguistic, and philosophical works?
Completion of this course should enable students to meet the following Learning Outcome:
- Students will effectively analyze and interpret the meaning, cultural significance and ethical implications of literary/philosophical texts in English or other languages, or of works in the visual/performing arts.
Course content, activities and exercises in this course should help students develop the following Career-Ready Competencies:
- Ethical Reasoning: The ability to assess one’s own ethical values and the social context of problems, recognize ethical issues in a variety of settings, think about how different ethical perspectives might be applied to ethical dilemmas and consider the ramifications of alternative actions.
- Information Literacy: The ability to recognize when information is needed and how to locate, evaluate, effectively use, and synthesize the needed information, and appropriately credit original material.
- Intercultural Competence: The ability to develop knowledge, skills and behaviors that support effective and appropriate interaction in a variety of cultural contexts.
This course also develops the following career-ready competencies associated with Core IMPACTS:
- Critical Thinking: Making decisions and solving problems through the use of logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, and draw conclusions, or approaches to challenges.
- Time Management: Behaviors that aim at achieving an effective use of time while performing certain goal-directed activities and the ability to prioritize and structure tasks, resources, and time.
- Inquiry and Analysis: A systematic process of exploring the world through the collection and evaluating relevant evidence, and using this evidence to support informed conclusions.
- Persuasion:The use of messages that are intentionally designed to appeal to another’s reason, emotions or both in order to enact change.
- Perspective-Taking: Considering perspectives other than one’s own and allowing new information, differing opinions, and others’ experiences to impress upon one’s thinking, understanding, and appreciation of others.