Report on a Pilot Project Which Combined Speech Communication and English Composition Instruction.

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College Curriculum; College English; Core Curriculum; Course Descriptions; Curriculum Development; Drama; Freshman Composition; Higher Education; Integrated Activities; Integrated Curriculum; Interdisciplinary Approach; Nonfiction; Oral Interpretation; Poetry; Required Courses; Rhetoric; Short Stories; Speech Communication; Speech Curriculum; Speech Instruction; Teaching Methods; Writing Instruction

In reorganizing its core curriculum, Duquesne University (Pennsylvania) created a course that combined the required freshman composition and speech communication courses. A two-term pilot course offered eight hours of credit, meeting for one hour three times a week and for a two hour lab once a week. Oral readings were assigned in order to help improve students' speech communication skills. Homework readings came from "A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers," edited by Lee A. Jacobus, and dealt with rhetorical analysis and the topics of definition, comparison, relationship, and circumstance. Writing assignments were based on four general principles also applicable to oral presentations: (1) essays must have a clearly defined purpose, (2) effective essays are governed by an implicit inner logic that arises out of their subject and purpose, (3) effective essays use rhetorical signposts to make the inner logic explicit, and (4) the process of communication involves every aspect of the final document. The latter half of the course served as an introduction to literature, organized according to modes of expression--lyric, dramatic, and narrative--rather than by literary genre. The course successfully integrated communication and language skills, as indicated by students' essays and discussion groups. (SRT)

1987

ED279046