Art of Conversation

Writing Assignments

Format: All of your assignments must be typed, single spaced, and double sided. It is highly recommended that you save a copy on your computer AND a thumb drive (USB stick). By using the USB, you can print in the computer center and avoid worries with your own printer.  Please put your name, type of assignment, and date in the upper right hand corner. Staple multiple pages. (Small stables are in the bookstore and are not expensive.) 

Summaries of reading assignments in Intercultural Discourse and Gender Articulated:  Each week you will have several readings in each of these program activities. You will submit them in a Summary Notebook twice this quarter—please see the syllabus. They will serve as a basis for writing your synthesis essays each week, so it is important to work on them each week. You will write individual summaries of each as a way of learning the concepts and understanding theories and their application to conversation. These do not have to be written in full sentences and you can use bullets. They are for your reference, so your judgment about being brief or writing more extensively is yours. Do not plagiarize—use your own words. These should each include the following:

• Full citation of the reading using APA: here is your source: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/05/
• Paraphrase of the main argument or findings
• Write a brief explanation of the methodology or, in some cases, the theoretical context

Synthesis Essays. Each week your faculty will provide 1-2 questions which you will respond to in short (200-250 word) essays. You will also formulate a question of your own and respond to it.  Synthesis requires careful analysis of the week’s work: the readings, the lectures, and the discussions as a first step. Then you should work on finding your own connections or links between these readings.  Sometimes you will end these with additional questions to explore, but the most important part of the work is finding your own connections.  You will post these on our Moodle site, which can be found on our web page: http://acdrupal.evergreen.edu/artofconversation/Look for “Student work” on the side bar, click and then sign in. You can then post your work each week by 7pm on Thursdays.  You will also send these essays to your faculty in a Word attachment: fiksdals@evergreen.edu Project Papers. Your papers will have three sections with each heading in bold type:  Methodology and Findings and Discussion.  Use full sentences, first person, and explain your ideas clearly in two pages or less.

• Introduction: Briefly explain the research question and/or hypothesis.

• Methodology:  You will explain exactly what you did to gather your data.  Explain where you went, when you noted your data (as the conversations occurred or later?), the format you used (pen and paper, chart, etc.), how many participants were involved, and the variables that you tried to control for or that emerged as significant.  Never use the real names of you subjects.
• Findings.  You will explain the results of your project.  Make a chart to summarize, or use a format that will be clear to the reader to organize your findings.
• Discussion.  You will explain the ways in which your findings match or do not match findings of other studies reported in our texts. This may require reading some sections of Discourse Analysis in advance. Just use the index to find the concepts.

You will bring your papers to our Monday morning sessions so that you can discuss your work with other students. Often you will read your papers to others in your groups.  You will then submit these papers at the end of that morning session.  You will receive further information on each project, but here is the list with the first assignment fully explained:

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  1. For this first paper, you will write a personal essay rather than report on a project.  You can make sections if you wish, but it is not necessary.  You will write a 1-2 page paper titled My Conversational Autobiography.  Naturally, you will not be able to document many of your conversations in such a short paper; however, you should discuss at least three salient ones, and explain the ways in which these conversations influenced the way you think about conversation or language in general.  If you have some difficulty getting started, think back to first days at a new school, times when you conversed in another language, awkward conversations, and wonderful ones that established a friendship. 
  2. Project 2: You will write two one-page papers explaining two areas of research: silence and apologies. 
  3. Project 3:  You will tape record 5 stories each (with a partner if you wish) and by combining your data, you will examine the structure of the narratives. 
  4. Project 4: You will, with a partner, transcribe 15 minutes of a seminar discussion and analyze it to discover patterns of stance. You will receive DVDs with 20-30 minutes of discussion from your faculty’s databank.
  5. Project 5: Work with at least one other student.  If possible, take turns tape recording and interviewing.  You will tape record an interview with passers-by on campus about seminars.
  6. Project 6: ask 2 students who have experience in intercultural communication to discuss their experiences in conversation on audiotape for 10 minutes and analyze it. 
  7. Project 7: Videotape a conversation between 2-3 men or 2-3 women.  Select 3 minutes to analyze.  You will need about 15 minutes of conversation so that your subjects become less aware of the camcorder.

 Final Project. You will write a 5-7 page paper exploring a topic of your choice in intercultural communication or gender and language. You will base your research on one of the readings we have discussed, and find, through library database research, 4-5 articles or book chapters that are relevant to your work.  Your oral presentation should use PowerPoint and you may work with a partner. Each of you will submit an individual paper.