Speaking Out for Change: Advocacy Communication Across Contexts

Student Learning Outcomes, Goals, Objectives:

Students successfully completing this course will be able to:

• Demonstrate appropriate and ethical oral communication messages for given contexts and communicators to increase knowledge, foster understanding, and/or promote change.
• Analyze and evaluate messages according to context, audience, intent, and other principles of oral communication, to contribute to the ongoing development of knowledge and relationship.
• Construct and sustain a research-supported public argument
• Demonstrate effective oral delivery through verbal, nonverbal, and structural strategies
• Give, receive, and apply feedback to develop communicative practice
• Reflect on and assess personal communicative growth through evidence-based self-evaluation

Course Grading Information:

Activity/Performance Measure	Percentage/Points
Practices (18 in-class activities, 3 lowest scores dropped)	150 points
Performance #1: Stake-Your-Claim	50 points
Performance #2: Advocacy Presentation	100 points
Performance #3: Final Revised Speech	125 points
The Critic’s Review - Part 1: The Reflection	75 points
The Critic’s Review - Part 2: The Grade Proposal	50 points

Grading Scale

Percentage	Letter Grade
93.0 and above	A
90.0 – 92.9	A-
87.0 – 89.9	B+
83.0 – 86.9	B
80.0 – 82.9	B-
77.0 – 79.9	C+
73.0 – 76.9	C
70.0 – 72.9	C-
67.0 – 69.9	D+
63.0 – 66.9	D
60.0 – 62.9	D-
Below 60.0	F

Attendance/Participation:

This course is built on the premise that communication is learned by doing it with other people. There is no lecture to catch up on, no textbook chapter that substitutes for the experience of being in the room. When you are absent, you are not missing content, you are missing the course itself.

Regular attendance is expected. Because practices are peer-dependent, an absence means your partner or group is also affected. Please take that seriously.

You must complete at least 10 of 18 practices to be eligible to pass this course.

Absences beyond 6 will result in automatic failure of the course, regardless of performance elsewhere.

The course is designed with flexibility built in. Three practices are dropped from your final total, and that drop policy is your buffer for illness, emergencies, and the occasional off day.

There is no distinction between excused and unexcused absences for the purposes of this policy. If you are navigating a medical issue, a family emergency, or a documented accommodation that affects attendance, contact me directly and we will work something out. The policy exists to protect the learning community, not to punish hardship.

Arriving more than 10 minutes late counts as a half-absence. Two instances of significant tardiness equal one absence. Arriving after a peer has begun a presentation is disruptive to that student’s performance and will be addressed individually.

Participation in this course is not measured by how often you raise your hand. It is measured by the quality of your presence (i.e., Are you giving your full attention when a peer is speaking? Is your feedback specific and honest? Are you doing the work of the room even on days when the work is uncomfortable?)

Participation is assessed through:

• Completion of practices
• Peer feedback cards (the quality of the feedback you give is part of your practice record)
• My observation notes (your engagement, not performance)

I am not interested in policing your presence. I am interested in protecting the conditions that make this course work. The attendance policy exists because your absence has a cost to your peers, not just to you. The participation framework exists because engagement is a communicative act. Everything in this section is in service of the same goal: creating a room where the work is real, the feedback is honest, and the growth is yours to keep.

Course Materials Purchased by the Students:

• One (1) pack of 4x6 index cards (at least 100 count) which will be used for peer feedback throughout the semester. Lined or unlined, your preference.
• One folder or binder for your course folder. Physical is strongly preferred. This is where every artifact of your semester lives.