The strike in NYC has me thinking about an assignment for a course on communication or a communication-intensive course. Students would collect the public documents, videos, publications, and press conferences related to the strike and trace the communication styles of the two sides and the press, mayor, etc. Students would identify what kinds of rhetoric each uses, its effectiveness, how different sides stop the communication flow, etc.
After a one-day conference last week in which we discussed making assignments relative to a student’s personal experience, this seems like an interesting idea. I’m sure other communities have similar public disputes they could use.
In 2002 and 2003 I taught at Baruch. One of the treasures I came across was the Schwartz Communications Institute. On a more-or-less regular basis I would drop into the Institute just to chat with whoever was there about whatever we wanted to talk about. I always found the experience enriching and is one of the things I miss.
Jill’s post is an example of rich communication I once enjoyed on a more frequest basis with the Institute.
She raises an interesting point regarding teaching communication. And it is timely inasmuch as the Graduate Program in International Transportation Management I currently direct is undergoing a curriculum review. We probably don’t do as good a job as we ought in preparing our students for communication on a global scale.
Jill’s post prompts me to add this issue to our agenda.
Thanks and happy holidays.
Jim
Reply to James Drogan
Jill’s suggestion emphasizes the need for an examination of close, careful reading. It is so important to the development of students’ communication styles for them to realize that there is meaning, for instance, in calling the strike an illegal transit strike, but that they have to interpret that to figure out what adding the word “illegal” does to a news report about the strike. The coverage of the transit strike is by no means unique in its offering of opportunities to parse language, but the real-life nature of it could provide students a good explanation of why this type of reading is so important.
Reply to Jody
About 10 years ago, Bedford published a composition and rhetoric reader called Negotiating Difference, edited by Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg, which built a writing curriculum on the analysis of primary documents around a number of significant conflicts in American history. Jill’s post reminded me of that book and made me wonder why it never went beyond a first edition.
Reply to Mikhail