CMN 457: Optional Writing Assignment

Professor John Shotter

Spring 2003

I have decided to give you the possibility of including a writing assignment in your final assessment. Currently, grading is made up of four components (see tables below). If you choose to do the writing assignment, the grading will be made up of five components (see table below). But it is up to you whether you choose to do this assignment or not!:

All Exams                                       Exams plus writing assignment

1^st Exam              15%                     1^st Exam                            10%

2^nd Exam             20%                     2^nd Exam                           15%

3^rd Exam             20%                     3^rd Exam             15%

Final Exam          45%                     Final Exam                        35%

                            _____                  Writing Assignment          25%

Total                    100%                   Total                                  100%

The Optional Writing Assignment

The exercise is designed to have you make connections between aspects of IPC covered in course readings and class meetings, on the one hand, and actual episodes of IPC you observe or participate in outside of class, on the other hand. The exercise is meant to have you reflect on the content of this course and relate it to your own life and experiences.

Format:

Six pages... typed or neatly handwritten... with approx 250-300 words per page (do a word count) ... divided into three parts:

Part I (one page):

Portray an everyday event, either one that you yourself make up, take from a video or the TV, or actually observe. Outline the setting, the participants, the overall ‘plot’ of the action, and ‘mark up’ features in the episode so that later, in Part III, you will be able to refer to them easily. Your description and observations should be vivid and detailed so that anyone who was not present can clearly imagine what happened, when, how, where. Describe who was participating, what was said, how it was said, how people reacted, where people were, and what they were doing non-vocally. There is no need to make FULL use of CA notation, but it is necessary to use some notation in depicting crucial features in the episode.

Part II (one page):

Make a list of at least FIVE concepts from the course – e.g., from: accounts, CA, Tannen, Power, Sampson’s list of writers, different voices, different worlds, disability, Public Conversations – that you would like to make use of in Part III. In listing them, give both a short definition, but also a concrete example and/or a quotable quote from one of the articles.

Part III (four pages):

Write an analysis and commentary on the event portrayed in Part I, making use of the concepts listed in Part II. Do not make any moral judgments about what happened – whether it was good or bad. Avoid speculating about the psychological motivations, hidden meanings, understandings, feelings, interpretations, etc. of the participants and their actions – unless the participants communicate these themselves through IPC. Everything of importance in our approach to IPC is ‘out in the world’ between people. “Nothing is hidden” (Wittgenstein, 1953). Your job is to describe what each participant can be seen and heard as ‘doing’, turn by turn, action by action, reaction by reaction, making use of the concepts you have listed (plus any others that might occur to you at the time). Plus: describe overall, what is happening socially (and possibly culturally) in the episode. Your task in this assignment is to make links, to make connections, between the small details observable in the events and points made in the articles we have explored in class. The more cross connections you make to better I will like your assignment.

ABSOLUTE DEADLINE:

Due by Wednesday 5/14, 12.00pm – there will be a drop-box in the CMN dept office.... you may leave it there before the deadline.

If your assignment is not in the drop-box by this deadline, I will assume that you are not taking up this option!!!