SHAW UNIVERSITY

Department of Humanities

 PUBLIC SPEAKING: COM 210

Professor:                                    Dr. Désiré BALOUBI

E-mail addresses:                      desbaloubi@hotmail.com and dbaloubi@shawu.edu

Office Phones:                           (919) 546-8307 (Ed Building 06) & (919) 546-8254

 Office Hours: 

Required Textbook:

 Beebe, Steve A. and Susan J. Beebe.  Public Speaking: An Audience-Centered Approach, 5^th ed.

 Recommended Materials:

 Hamilton Gregory. Public Speaking for College and Career (Sixth Edition). New York,

                NY: McGraw-Hill, 2002.

 Nitcavic, R., Jaquelyn Buckrop and Joan Aitken. Fundamentals of Public    

                Communication. Ball State University: Hayden-McNeil Publishing, Inc., 1999.

 Osborn, M. and Suzanne Osborn. Public Speaking (Fifth Edition). Boston/New York:

                Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.

Famous Political Speeches

Bill Clinton Speech Archive

Selected Historic Speeches

Other Speeches

Course Description

This course is designed to help you understand the fundamentals of public speaking.  It provides you with a good opportunity to develop and/or improve upon your communication skills.  COM 210 focuses on several processes: choosing a topic, gathering information, getting started, and giving oral presentations in class.

Course Objectives

1.  Be able to select and limit speech topics in such a way that they suit your purpose

     and satisfy the needs of your audience

2.  Be able to effectively analyze your audience before, during, and after any speech you give

3.  Be able to generate, organize, and support ideas for various types of speeches

4.  Understand the essential components of a logical argument

5.  Be able to understand and practice interactive listening

6.  Be able to choose and use visual aids effectively

7.  Be able to overcome anxiety related to public speaking

Please note that all of the above objectives should be achieved in an ethical manner.  

Specialty Area Standards

Standard 5: Teachers understand the range, impact, and influence of technology, print and non-print media in constructing meaning.

Indicator 1: Teachers know how to use electronic resources for research.

Indicator 3: Teachers understand how media and technology enhance written, oral, and visual communication.    

Standard 8: Teachers encourage students to respond to different media and communications technologies.

Indicator 1: Teachers provide students with appropriate strategies that permit access to and understanding of a wide range of print and non-print texts

Indicator 2: Teachers engage students in making meaning from texts through personal response.

Indicator 3: Teachers engage students in making meaning from texts through critical response.

Standard 9: Teachers use assessment as an integral part of instruction and learning.

Indicator 1: Teachers develop a variety of formal and informal assessments appropriate to curricular goals and student needs.

Indicator 2: Teachers interpret and report assessment results clearly, accurately, and purposefully to students, administrators, parents and other audiences.

Indicator 3: Teachers encourage student self-assessment, both formal and informal.

Indicator 4: Teachers employ formative and summative assessments and use resulting data to make pedagogical decisions and to modify instruction.

Standard 10: Teachers use instruction that promotes understanding of varied uses and purposes for language.

Indicator 2: Teachers employ a variety of dialects and registers to demonstrate understanding of audience and purpose.

Attendance

Because an oral presentation involves listening and speaking, it is clear that it takes an audience and a speaker to make this happen.  ALL students are therefore expected to attend ALL class meetings.  However, there may be situations beyond control such as emergencies and health problems.  In those cases, students will be allowed to make up any graded work.  But the reasons for the absence must be documented.  Otherwise, the penalty for unjustified absence is 15 points counted off the final grade for each speech day missed.  Students will be given “zero” if, for no acceptable reasons, they are absent the days they are scheduled to deliver their own speeches.  

Student Classroom Decorum Expectations

To enhance the learning atmosphere of the classroom, students are expected to dress and behave in a fashion conducive to learning in the classroom.  More specifically, students will refrain from disruptive classroom behavior, that is, talking to classmates, disrespectful responses to teacher instructions; swearing; wearing clothes that impede academic learning such as but not limited to wearing body-revealing clothing and excessively baggy pants; hats/caps; and/or headdress.  Students will turn off telephones prior to entering the classroom.  Students who exhibit the behaviors described above, or similar behaviors, will be immediately dismissed from class at the third documented offense.  The student will be readmitted to class only following a decision by the department chair.  The student may appeal the decision of the department chair to the Dean of the College offering the course, and, subsequently, to the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, and then to the President of Shaw University.  The decision of the President will be final.  Failure to follow the procedures herein outlined will result in termination of the appeal, and revert to the decision of the department chair.

Each behavior construed by the teacher/professor as non-contributive to learning will be recorded, properly documented, and appropriately reported to the student and to the chair of the academic department offering the course.  The report will be in written form with a copy provided to both the student and the department chair.  The faculty member should retain a copy for his/her own records.

Additional student behavior codes may be found in Student Affairs.

Activities and Grading

 - Activities

The following tasks will be graded as indicated below:

1.  Presenting Summary of Reading to Whole Class =            10%

2. Video project (individual or group)                        =               25%

3.  Midterm Exam                                                             =            20%

4.  Informative Speech                                                    =             20%

5.  Final Exam: Persuasive Speech                               =              25%

-Points and corresponding letter grades

A             =                 90-100   

B             =                  80-89     

C             =                 70-79                      

D             =                  60-69                    

F              =                  0-59                        

Main Topics and Chapters to cover (Each student MUST sign up for a chapter to present orally in class. Teacher will explain Individual/group video project in class.).

See additional chapters under class schedule.

1.  Intrapersonal Processes and Listening (Ch. 4)

2.  Introducing and Concluding Speeches (Ch. 10)

3.  Selecting a Topic, Purpose, and a Central Idea (Ch. 6)

4.  Analysis of the Multicultural Audience and Occasion (Ch. 5)

5.  Data Collection: Quality Info, Critical Thinking Skills, Analyzing Websites (Ch. 7)

6.  Organizing Your Ideas, The Body of the Speech, Developing a Formal Outline1-2 (Ch. 9 & 11)

7.  Informational Presentations (1), Types of IS (2) (Ch. 15)

8.  Delivering Your Speech, Citing Sources, Support Materials (Ch. 13 & 8)

9.Visual Aids (theory), Designing & Displaying in Class (Prior to Persuasive Sp.) (Ch. 14 & 8)

10. Speaking to Persuade (Ch. 16)

11. Persuasion Skills and Strategies, Defining Ethos, Logos, and Pathos (Ch. 17)

Class Schedule

Informative Speech Evaluation Form (download)

Persuasive Speech Evaluation Form (download)