Fall 2008
Course: CMM 213: Fundamentals of Interpersonal Communication
Instructor: R.B. Bookwalter; SH244, x62815; bookwalt@marshall.edu
Office Hours: MW 9-12; F 10-12; Tu 9-11
Text:
Stewart, John (Ed.). (2009). Bridges not walls: A book about interpersonal communication. 10th edition. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
The Course:
This course is designed to give you an opportunity to learn about your communication skills and your
relationships. Your interpersonal relationships with your family, your friends, and even your acquaintances have made you the person you are today. And no matter how good our lives are, we often encounter relationships in which an imbalance of power or affection leads to painful conflicts and/or breakups. No one is immune to these problems, but the effects of these troubles could be minimized in our lives through a more complete understanding of how relationships develop, how they are maintained, and how they affect us.
Objectives:
§ To understand IPC as a continuous, complex and collaborative process.
§ To improve awareness of one’s preferred interpersonal communication patterns.
§ To understand others and interpret their messages more accurately.
§ To communicate oneself and one’s ideas more clearly.
§ To understand the impact of one’s communication behavior on all relations.
§ To manage conflicts and differences more effectively.
Requirements:
1. Attendance and Participation are absolutely necessary. Your learning in this class is directly tied to your willingness to participate in interactions with others and to examine your patterns of communication. You cannot learn to improve your communication skills without practicing them and our class discussions are part of that practice. I will ask you to work with a small group of classmates to prepare discussion questions and guide a discussion about the week’s readings. Each group will take on this responsibility two or three times during the semester and this will figure in to your attendance and participation grade. (100 points)
2. You will write four papers relating ideas from the readings to your own experiences and relationships. I will provide assignments for several reaction papers. You will choose the four which you find most appealing and submit a paper for each of those four. Your papers will be expected to show a familiarity with the relevant readings and an ability to apply concepts to your “real life” experiences.
(4 papers @ 50 points each)
3. You will need to provide written questions, feedback and response to the readings each week. For each week of class, beginning with the week of Sept 2, you will post questions, reactions, or responses to the week’s readings on the course mailing list (via WebCT). These postings may be as brief as a couple of sentences, but they must contribute to a useful, timely dialogue about the readings. All postings should be made prior to Tuesday’s class meeting so that they can serve as discussion points in our examination of the week’s readings. (100 points)
Grading:
Grades will be computed on a straight scale against 400 possible points. 360+ = A; 320+ = B; 280+ = C; 240+ = D; less than 240 is a failing grade.
CMM 213: Fundamentals of Interpersonal Communication
Tentative Course Schedule; Fall 2008
Week of: Topic/Reading Assignment
26 Aug Introduction and Orientation to Foundations of IPC
Stewart, Introduction to the Editor . . . (p. 3)
22 Aug Defining Interpersonal Communication
Stewart, Communicating and Interpersonal Communicating (p. 15)
Sigman, Toward Study of the Consequentiality . . . of Communication (p. 52)
Scott, Fierce Conversations (p. 53)
9 Spt Defining Ourselves as Communicators
Stewart Zediker & Witteborn, Constructing Identities (p. 80)
Barrett, Maintaining the Self in Communication (p. 91)
Wood & Smith, Forming Online Identities (p. 115)
16 Spt Making Contact Verbally
Stewart & Logan, Verbal and Nonverbal Dimensions of Talk (p. 135)
Satir, Paying Attention to Words (p. 160)
Note: No Class on Th Spt 18
23 Spt Paper 1 due September 23
Making Contact Nonverbally
Knapp & Hall, Nonverbal Communication: Basic Perspectives (p. 166)
Canary, et al., Functions of Nonverbal Behavior (p. 183)
30 Spt Inhaling [Read “Inhaling & Exhaling” p. 192-93]
Stewart, Zediker & Witteborn, Ihnaling: Perception (p. 196)
Wood, It’s Only Skin Deep (p. 212)
Stewart, Zediker & Witteborn, Empathic & Dialogic Listening (p. 225)
7 Oct Exhaling
Johnson, Being Open with and to Other People (p. 253)
Patterson, et al., State my Path (p. 262)
Rosenfeld & Richman, What to Tell (p. 283)
14 Oct Family & Friends
Wood, What’s a Family Anyway? (p. 294)
Tannen, Separating Messages from Metamessages . . . (p. 303)
Duck, Our Friends, Ourselves (p. 313)
Paper 2 due October 16
21 Oct Intimate Relationships
Hopper, Gendering the Conversation (p. 336)
Wood, Gendered Standpoints on Personal Relationships (p. 358)
Cooper & Sportolari, Romance in Cyberspace (p. 365)
28 Oct Communication Walls
Stewart, Zediker & Witteborn, Deception, Betrayal & Aggression (p. 378)
Vangelisti, Messages that Hurt (p. 390)
Gibb, Defensive Communication (p. 401)
Paper 3 due October 30
CMM 213 Tentative Schedule; Fall 2008 page 2
4 Nov Conflict Management
Folger, et al., Conflict and Interaction (p. 438)
Wilmot, Communication Spirals, Paradoxes & Conundrums (p. 450)
Duck, Handling the Breakup of Relationships (p. 466)
11 Nov Bridging Cultures
Johnson, Building Relationships with Diverse Others (p. 490)
Pogrebin, The Same and Different (p. 502)
Ahmed, Talking Can Stop Hate (p. 529)
18 Nov Promoting Dialogue
Yankelovich, What makes Dialogue Unique? (p. 549)
Zediker & Stewart, Dialogue’s Basic Tension (p. 557)
Note: No Class Th Nov 20
25 Nov Thanksgiving Break
2 Dec Paper 4 due December 2
Approaches to Interpersonal Communication
Buber, Elements of the Interhuman (p. 62)
9 Dec Conclusions, Review, and Evaluation