The C’s have arrived!
Students enrolled in C courses will be expected to make at least one five-minute oral presentation.
Communication-focused courses offer W alternative
Departments now have a new way to help their undergraduates fulfill one of the W course requirements. In May the faculty senate approved an option that allows students to substitute a communication-focused course for one of the two required W courses. Known as “C” courses, these classes include both writing assignments and oral presentations and may also feature the use of electronic communication. Required work for a C course might include giving a class presentation, creating a Web site on relevant subject matter, or recording a video podcast from a student-written script.
One of the first supporters of the C course idea was J. Martyn Gunn, dean of undergraduate programs and associate provost for academic services.
“There is no doubt that writing skills are extremely important,” says Gunn, “but equally important is the ability to speak about your ideas, findings, and scholarship.” The C course alternative, Gunn says, “will compliment the W requirement in many disciplines.”
Other faculty members share Gunn’s belief in the need for this new emphasis.
“Writing is a critical skill, but writing takes place in all kinds of formats today,” says Holly Gaede, a senior lecturer in the Department of Chemistry who recently joined the W Course Advisory Committee. “We need to prepare our students for the kinds of communication that will be required of them in their professional settings. Furthermore, our students will need to learn to speak to others in and out of their disciplines in both informal and formal settings. Providing them with training and practice in these skills will be invaluable to them.”
When this new option was first proposed, some faculty expressed concern that it would shortchange writing instruction. University Writing Center Executive Director Valerie Balester feels that’s definitely not the case.
“Whether students are preparing a speech or writing a research paper, their basic concerns are the same: they have to select and organize information and then make it accessible and meaningful to their audience, whether that audience is reading or listening,” says. Dr. Balester. “Even in new formats, they are still grappling with age-old rhetorical issues of audience and purpose. ”
Balester, in fact, thinks the oral component of C courses may actually enhance writing skills rather than detract from them: “As writing instructors, we try to impress on our students the need to consider their intended audience, but that can be a fairly abstract concept when you’re writing a paper. When delivering a speech in front of your classmates, though, the idea of audience is tangible. Students have to think about whether they believe what they’re saying in front of their peers.”
Over the next year, the University Writing Center will be developing resources related to oral communication to help support both C course instructors and their students.
Instructors interested in proposing a C course should go to the writing center’s Web site, where they’ll find the materials for putting together a successful proposal, including the rubric the W Course Advisory Committee will use in evaluating prospective courses.
The committee welcomes both new courses designed specifically to meet these requirements and existing courses that have been adapted. Successful C course proposals must provide students with instruction in how to communicate effectively, as well as formative feedback on work in progress.
