The Assignment

I so agree with Laryssa. This assignment made me have a new found respect for anyone in the teaching profession. There were times when I could not get out what I wanted. I knew in my head what I wanted to say but to put it down on paper was difficult. I wanted to be precise and did not want to confuse the students. How can I explain it to them without all the complicating and confusing words?

Another problem was actually assigning the work. How much was fair? There came a point when I was like "they are going to hate me" I felt as a student it was a fair amount of work to ask of a student but knowing how some students think, if I was to give my assignment out, there would be more then a couple of grumbles. Come to think of it, so would I! Those were the many challenges that a professor face, and it was only ONE assignment. Can you imagine a WHOLE semester? Kudos to them.

Am I the only who had trouble with the grading? I really did not know how to grade the assignment. I did know what would make a 2.o paper and a 4.0 paper but i could not find a grading policy. Whew! Who knew that this would be so hard?

Rhetoric and Assignment Instructions

An interesting observation I made when designing an assignment for my FYS class is how important rhetoric is even in instructions. I realized how difficult it must be as a teacher to create assignments with concrete learning goals and being able to explain the assignments thoroughly and concisely on paper. It is also difficult to know how to lay out the instructions for an assignment making sure that every aspect is explained and easy for the student to refer back to at a later date. I know we have all had professors who give little guidance on assignments and you are left with so many questions that you feel you will just be annoying the professor. Then there are professors that write a couple of pages explaining the assignment and evaluation criteria. I would rather have the latter because you are not left making assumptions about the professor's expectations.

Ethos...and public speaking

I agree with what was said in the chapter on speaking Ethos, logos, and pathos. It says that ethos is something that we contantly DO during a speaking situation, but it is not always something we pay attention to. For instance, what we wear is important to how we are recieved by our audience. You would never wear jeans and a tee shirt to a formal debate, and if you did, you most certainly would not be taken seriously by your audience, which in turn depletes your credibility (ethos). It is important to always pay attention to the way you present yourself as a speaker, because your credibility is essential in getting your message across to the audience. If they don't think you are credible, then your message will not be as openly and positively receieved by them.

The Importance of Dialogue

After reading the article by Nicholas Burbules entitled "Dialogue in Teaching", I got to thinking about how we use dialogue in our every day life. Not the fact that we use it, but HOW we use it to relay messages to others. Every time we send a message to someone through dialogue, we are using a mixture of the various forms mentioned by Burbules. It is impossible to only use ONE form when sending or recieving dialogue. We are either engaging in dialogue in a group where we are discussing something (dialogue in conversation) but at the same time throughout that conversation we might be trying to persuade them to think one way or another about a certain topic (dialogue as debate). It is unavoidable to use all four forms at some point. I would go so far as to say that every conversation uses all four forms by the end of it. At least, that is my observation and my opinion. I really liked this article because it really related to what I study as a communications major.