Course Syllabus

San José State University
Communication Studies
COMM 96PS, Public Speaking, Section 33, Spring 2013

Instructor:	Professor Kathleen Raiff
Office location:	HGH 250
Telephone:	408-924-5393
Email:	kathleen.raiff@sjsu.edu
Office hours:	Wednesdays 10:30-11:30
Class days/time:	Mondays 10:30-11:45
Classroom:	Dudley Moorehead, Rm. 359
GE Category:	Core GE Area A1: Basic Skills, Oral Communication

Catalog Description

Principles of rhetoric applied to oral communication; selecting, analyzing, adapting, organizing and delivering ideas effectively.

Succeeding in a Seminar + Online Course

Public speaking is an intensive, skills-building course that involves collective and individual effort. You must be organized, self-motivated, and committed to engaging fully with all aspects of the class.  

This is a seminar plus online class, which means that you meet in class once a week, complete online activities and assessments (through Canvas and other technology; more information below), and present and record three major speeches on your own for public audiences. Since you have limited in-person class time, your attendance at class meetings is critical to your success in the course. f you are unable to attend a class or presentation day, you must contact your instructor as soon as possible to work out the details of your absence. In addition, your online presence and participation are vital to everyone's success in this class.

Success in this course is based on the expectation that students will spend, for each unit of credit, a minimum of forty-five hours over the length of the course (normally 3 hours per unit per week with 1 of the hours used for lecture) for instruction or preparation/studying or course related activities including but not limited to internships, labs, clinical practica. Other course structures will have equivalent workload expectations as described in the syllabus. Special projects or assignments may require additional work for the course. Careful time management will help you keep up with readings and assignments and enable you to be successful in all of your courses. You are responsible for understanding the policies and procedures about add/drops, academic renewal, and similar topics found at http://www.sjsu.edu/studentconduct.

Course Website

You will find copies of the course syllabus, readings, assignment sheets, and other resources in our Canvas course site: https://sjsu.instructure.com To locate your Canvas login name and password, follow the instructions posted here http://www.sjsu.edu/at/ec/docs/CanvasStudentTutorial_New.pdf You are responsible for regularly accessing the class website throughout the semester. I will post announcements and other important alerts about the class on the class website. You may use Canvas email to contact me or use the email address and phone number listed above.

Course Goals

Effective public speaking skills are essential for members of a democratic society.  In this course, you will develop strategies for designing well-organized, researched, extemporaneous speeches on topics of social significance adapted to a diverse audience.  The speaking engagements, in-class activities, small group discussions, and speeches allow you to practice and critique your oral communication skills as well as observe and evaluate those of others.  Readings, lectures, written assignments and class discussions serve as resources for you as you develop your public speaking abilities and become more at ease when addressing an audience.

Student Learning Outcomes

 After successfully completing this course, you will:

CLO1:   Identify and assess socially significant and intellectual topics, then compose and deliver extemporaneous oral presentations (using note cards or key-word outlines) on those topics.

CLO2:   Engage in critical and analytical listening.

CLO3:   Analyze audiences, adapt oral presentations to diverse audiences and use that information to accomplish the purpose of the speech.

CLO4:   Assume the ethical responsibilities of the public speaker, including basic understanding of the economic, legal and social issues surrounding the access and use of information.

Technology Requirements

Many assignments in this class require you to use a computer and access the internet. You must have reliable internet access to succeed in this class; lack of internet access is not an excuse for late or incomplete work. You will complete activities and quizzes online and turn in outlines and papers to the Canvas class website. I will help you learn how to effectively navigate these online environments, but you must take the initiative to problem solve and ask questions well before assignments are due. Technical difficulties, which are a fact of life in today’s world, are not an excuse for late or incomplete work. For all your assignments, leave yourself time to learn the technology so that you can successfully complete your work. If you encounter technical difficulties that you cannot solve, please contact me and/or the University Help Desk: http://www.sjsu.edu/helpdesk/. Again, leave yourself enough time to troubleshoot unexpected (and inevitable) technical problems before an assignment’s due date.

Required Texts and Readings

Textbook

Coopman, S.J., Fassett, D., & Lull, J. (2012). Communication Studies 20 (Enhanced 2^nd Ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth ISBN: 9781285116686. Available at Robert’s Bookstore and the Spartan Bookstore.

Additional Materials

One package of 4 X 6 or 3 X 5 inch index cards

One recording device for recording video and audio of your speeches, such as cell phone, camera, laptop, tablet. If you don’t own such a device, you may check out a digital camcorder from Media Services (more information at http://www.sjsu.edu/acadtech/equipment/) or a laptop from the University Help Desk (more information at http://www.sjsu.edu/helpdesk/). Alternately, make arrangements with another student in the class to record your speech. It would also be wise to perhaps have a back-up recording device on the day of your speech as well. 

Classroom Protocol

In this class, you learn to be a good speaker and a good listener.  You know it isn’t easy to deliver a speech in front of your peers, so you want to contribute to a classroom climate that helps put speakers at ease. Plan to arrive early or exactly on time for the three presentation sessions. Also, monitor your nonverbal behavior on presentation days. You don’t want to present your speech when your audience members are texting, writing notes, doing other homework, or chatting, so plan to focus all your attention on the other speakers when you’re not presenting. Be a good audience member and respectfully listen to your peers’ speeches. 

To help foster a productive learning environment, let's all work to do the following:

○   interact respectfully with others

○   embrace diverse perspectives and viewpoints

○   arrive to in-person classes and presentation days early or on time

○   wait until the in-person class or presentation session has ended to get ready to leave

○   for all in-person meetings, set mobile phones to vibrate or silent

As a general guideline: Treat others in class as you would like them to treat you.

Common courtesy and professional behavior dictate that you notify someone when you are recording him/her. You must obtain the instructor’s permission to make audio or video recordings in this class. Such permission allows the recordings to be used for your private, study purposes only. The recordings are the intellectual property of the instructor;  you have not been given any rights to reproduce or distribute the material.

Course material developed by the instructor is the intellectual property of the instructor and cannot be shared publicly without his/her approval. You may not publicly share or upload instructor generated material for this course such as exam questions, lecture notes, or homework solutions without instructor consent.

Dropping and Adding

You are responsible for understanding the policies and procedures about add/drops, academic renewal, and similar topics found at the SJSUAdvisingHub at http://www.sjsu.edu/advising/

Assignments and Grading Policy

You must complete COMM 96PS with a grade of C or better to earn Core GE credit Area A1 for the course.

With the exceptions of Weeks 1 and 10, each class week begins at 12:01AM Monday morning and ends at 11:59PM Sunday; discussions, quizzes and other online activities must be completed during this time. Some assignments are due at other times; these are noted in the online Class Schedule and on this syllabus.

Detailed information about each assignment is available on the class Canvas website https://sjsu.instructure.com.

Note about written assignments: Strive for five qualities in your writing:  (1) your writing should be compelling (i.e., it should articulate a claim, make a point, be purposeful), (2) your writing should be complete (i.e., it should address all aspects of the assignment, it should be sufficiently developed), (3) your writing should be coherent (i.e., your argument should logically progress from one paragraph to the next), (4) your writing should be concise (i.e., it should be richly developed, but not meandering or repetitive), and (5) your writing should be correct (i.e., it should be free of grammatical, typographical and source citation errors, as well as fallacious reasoning).  I will rely on these five criteria as I read and respond to your written work in this class. In addition, I have noted the word requirements for each written assignment. These are the minimum number of words for the assignment. Total minimum word requirement for this course: 2750 words.

Speeches: 500 points. Informative/Demonstrative:  A 4-5 minute speech on one or several cultural artifacts that may be objects, places, processes, and/or events or a speech that will help clarify a complex process, idea or event for your audience. Informative/Idea or Concept: A 5-7 minute informative speech on an idea or concept that has broad social relevance. Persuasive/Policy: A 6-8 minute persuasive speech designed to convince and motivate your audience to take some immediate action about an important topic of social relevance. You must submit an outline and be present for the entire speech presentation session to earn credit for a speech. (CLO1, CLO2, CLO3, CLO4)

The three major speeches will be presented in front of a public audience that you find on your own. The minimum number of your audience should be 10 people. You will videotape and upload your speech to the Canvas discussion board to be graded and peer reviewed. Finding your own audience is our attempt to make the speech setting as “real” as possible. You need to use the camera to “pan” (show) the audience before AND after the speech.

Complete-sentence Outlines: 150 points. You must turn in a 500-1000 word (not including the reference page) complete-sentence outline with a reference page for each major speaking assignment by the date and time noted on the class Calendar. You must submit an outline to earn credit for a speech. (CLO1, CLO3, CLO4)

Quizzes: 90 points.  Multiple choice and/or True False questions that will cover assigned readings and class discussion. All quizzes will be available on the class Canvas website. The textbook website (log in at academic.cengage.com/login) includes study aids and sample quizzes. (CLO1, CLO2, CLO3, CLO4)

In Class Engagements: 75 points. (CLO2, CLO3, CLO4)

Rough Draft Outlining Workshop: 30 points.  (CLO2, CLO4)

Peer Responses: 30 points. You'll complete peer critiques of three COMM 96PS speakers (minimum 250 words/each).  (CLO2)

Self-Evaluations: 30 points.  (CLO1, CLO2, CLO3, CLO4)

Online Activities: 70 points. See canvas website.

In class-Activities: 25 points.  

Formatting Instructions

Unless instructed otherwise, all written work including rough drafts should be typed, double-spaced, printed on paper, with one-inch margins all around, in standard 12-point Times New Roman font, and stapled. Please do not include a title/cover page. Citations should be formatted in accordance with APA guidelines. All files uploaded to Canvas must be in DOC, DOCX, or PDF format and are due by 11:59PM on the day due; all other file formats will not be viewed and the assignment will be considered missing.

Grading Scale

Point Range	Letter Grade
950-1000 points	A
900-949 points	A-
870-899 points	B+
840-869 points	B
800-839 points	B-
770-799 points	C+
740-769 points	C
700-739 points	C-
670-699 points	D+
640-669 points	D
600-639 points	D-
< 600 points	F

Student Resources

Communication Center

The Communication Center is located in Hugh Gillis Hall 229 and is open Monday - Thursday 10:30AM - 4:30PM February 4th - May 9th.  The Center provides support for all students interested in developing their personal and professional communication skills, and offers specialized support for those enrolled in Communication Studies courses.  Services include in-person workshops and self-paced online modules via Canvas.  Upper-division Communication Studies students staff the Center and are trained in coaching students on a variety of topics related to our department courses.  Enrollment in COMM 80 provides support for the Center.  More information can be found through the website http://commcenter.sjsu.edu/.  To add 1 unit of COMM 80, the section numbers are 01-07 and the course numbers are 20291, 20292, 20293, 22442, 22443, 27325,and 28047 respectively; no add code necessary.

Forensics

If you are enrolled in COMM 20, please join us for our intramural tournament on Friday, May 3rd. We will offer informative and persuasive speaking.  This is a great way to take what you’ve learned in class and apply it in a fun, no-risk public setting AND get one unit of upper division elective credit for it. To take advantage of this limited time offer, please sign up for a unit of COMM 191 B (course numbers 42147, 42148, 42149, 47018, 47019, 47630) to give a speech. Just add the course through your MySJSU, you do not need a permission code. There are NO meetings for the course except for participation at the Intramural Tournament on November 30. Please contact Tina.Lim@sjsu.edu with questions.

Library Liaison

The Communication Studies Department encourages vigorous and ethical research as part of information literacy for all of its students. For assistance in the library go to the King Library Reference Desk (2^nd floor; 408-808-2100) and/or utilize the CommunicationResearchGuide available at http://libguides.sjsu.edu/communication. For major research consultations contact Crystal Goldman at Crystal.Goldman@sjsu.edu with questions you may have about using the library.

Student Technology Resources

Computer labs for student use are available in the new Academic Success Center located on the 1^st floor of Clark Hall and on the 2^nd floor of the Student Union. In addition, computers are available in the Martin Luther King Library. A wide variety of audio-visual equipment is available for student checkout from Media Services located in IRC 112. These items include digital and VHS camcorders, VHS and Beta video players, 16 mm, slide, overhead, DVD, CD, and audiotape players, sound systems, wireless microphones, screens and monitors.

Learning Assistance Resource Center

The Learning Assistance Resource Center is designed to assist students in the development of their full academic potential and to motivate them to become self-directed learners. The center provides support services, such as skills assessment, individual or group tutorials, subject advising, learning assistance, summer academic preparation and basic skills development. The Learning Assistance Resource Center is located in Room 600 in the Student Services Center.

SJSU Writing Center

The SJSU Writing Center in Clark Hall 126 is staffed by professional instructors and upper-division or graduate-level writing specialists from each of the sevenSJSUcolleges. The writing specialists have met a rigorous GPA requirement, and they are well trained to assist all students at all levels within all disciplines to become better writers. More information available at sjsu.edu/writingcenter.

University Policies

Academic integrity

You must be familiar with the University’s Academic Integrity Policy available at sa.sjsu.edu/student_conduct. “Your own commitment to learning, as evidenced by your enrollment at San Jose State University and the University’s integrity policy, require you to be honest in all your academic course work. Faculty members are required to report all infractions to the office of Student Conduct and Ethical development.” I will not tolerate instances of academic dishonesty. Cheating on quizzes or plagiarism (presenting the work of another as your own, or the use of another person’s ideas without giving proper credit) will result in a failing grade and sanctions by the University. For this class, all assignments are to be completed by the individual student unless otherwise specified. “If you would like to include in your assignment any material you have submitted, or plan to submit for another class, please note that SJSU’s Academic Policy F06-1 requires approval of instructors.”Y

Academic Counseling Center for Excellence in the Social Sciences (ACCESS)

Clark Hall Room 240, 924-5363, socsci-access@sjsu.edu
Dr. Hien Do, Faculty Director, Hien.Do@sjsu.edu, 924-5461
Valerie Chapman, Academic Advisor, Valerie.Chapman@sjsu.edu, 924-5364
All COSS students and interested students are invited to stop by the Center for general education advising, help with changing majors, academic policy related questions, meeting with peer advisors, and/or attending various regularly scheduled presentations and workshops. Call or email for an appointment, or just stop by.

Campus Policy in Compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act

If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, or if you need to make special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please make an appointment with me as soon as possible, or see me during office hours. Presidential Directive 97-03 requires that students with disabilities requesting accommodations must register with the DRC (Disability Resource Center) to establish a record of their disability.

COMM 96PS-Public Speaking Class Schedule

Subject to change with fair notice. The Calendar page on the class website includes due dates and times for assignments. I will note any changes to the schedule on the class Calendar and announce them in class or via the class email system.

Week	Date	Description	Reading Assign.	Assignments
2	1/28	Introduction & Course Overview.  Assign   Engagement 1, "My Name"		Set up personal profiles on Canvas
Online			Chap.2 Chap.3	Read about Major Speech #1-Demonstration (under assignments)   Practice Engagement 1   Complete 4 Online Activities (descriptions in Canvas)
3	2/4	Engagement 1, "My Name"   Discuss Speech 1, brainstorm topics in class. Discuss purpose and topic
Online			Chap. 4	Quizzes Due 2/10 by midnight (Chap.2,3,4 )
4	2/11	Organizing & Outlining Your Speech	Chap. 8
Online				Complete 2 Online Activities (descriptions in Canvas)
5	2/18	Beginning and Ending Your  Speech	Chap. 9
Online		Work on Rough Draft Outlines		Quiz Due 2/24 by midnight (Chap 8)   Complete 2 Online Activities (descriptions in Canvas)
6	2/25	Delivery	Chap. 12
Online		Practice Your Speeches	Chap. 13	Complete 2 Online Activities (descriptions in Canvas)
SPEECH 1	3/3	Speech 1: Upload your speech to Canvas Discussion Board &   Submit your speech outline in the Assignments area		ALL FINAL OUTLINES & SPEECH UPLOADED by MIDNIGHT (Late Penalty: One letter grade per day late)
7	3/4	Informative Speaking
Online		Integrating Media/Visuals	Chap.11	Quiz on Ch. 11 due 3/10 by midnight   Self Reflection due 3/10  by Midnight   Complete 2 Online Activities (descriptions in Canvas).
8	3/11	Discuss Supporting Your Point	Chap.6
Online		Work on Engagement 2	Chap. 7	Quiz Due 3/17 by midnight (Ch.6)   Peer Response Due 3/17 by Midnight
9	3/18	Engagement 2, Supporting Your Point
Online				Quiz, ch. 7 due 3/24 by midnight   Complete 1 Online Activity (descriptions in Canvas).
10	3/25	Spring Break
11	4/1	No class-Cesar Chavez Day.	Chap. 1
Online				Quiz, ch. 12 due 4/7 by midnight   Complete 1 Online Activity (descriptions in Canvas).
12	4/8	Rough Draft Outlining Workshop   Rough Draft outlines due in class
Online		Practice Your Speeches
Speech 2	4/14	Speech 2: Upload your speech to Canvas Discussion Board &   Submit your speech outline in the Assignments area		ALL FINAL OUTLINES & SPEECH UPLOADED by MIDNIGHT (Late Penalty: One letter grade per day late)
13	4/15	Persuasive Speaking	Chap. 14
Online		Understanding Argument	Chap 15	Complete 3 Online Activities (descriptions in Canvas).   Self-Reflection 2 due  4/21 by Midnight tonight
14	4/22	Audience Analysis	Chap.10
Online		Adapting to Your Audience	Chap. 5	Quiz Due by 4/28 midnight (Chap 15, 10, 5)   Peer Responses Due by 4/28  Midnight   Complete 2 Online Activities (descriptions in Canvas).
15	4/29	Reasoning
Online		Work on Rough Draft		Complete Online Activity: Informative/Persuasive Topic Proposal Homework (under assignments) due 5/6 in class
16	5/6	Finish reasoning   Bring in informative persuasive topic homework for mix and mingle
Online		Practice Your Speeches
SPEECH 3	5/12	Speech 3: Upload your speech to Canvas Discussion Board &   Submit your speech outline in the Assignments area		ALL FINAL OUTLINES & SPEECH UPLOADED by MIDNIGHT (Late Penalty: One letter grade per day late)
17	5/13	Course Wrap Up
Final	5/21	Final		Self Reflection 3 due by Midnight Peer Critique due by Midnight