Week 13: Celebrating our learning

Download the week 13 lesson plan as a Word document.

Download the paragraph handout for the business communications Olympics as a Word document.

Student notes:

Congratulations!! We’ve reached the end of the semester. I am so grateful for your hard work, creativity and insight. Now, it’s time to look back on what we learned. This week, we’ll have our wrap-up party, where there will be fabulous prizes for the talent show (and <<name of instructor>> embarrassing <<pronoun>>self!), some dance party hangouts, and some other surprises.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN! Work with your pod to make your final mind map for Module 5. Remember: the goal of the mind map is to help you deepen your learning by inviting you to make connections between different elements of the course. You should find connections between the 4 elements of the course (Brenda Knights narratives, readings, interactive lecture, activities/ assignments) and between Module 1-5.

As an optional “reading,” I’ve uploaded a video called “Everything is a Remix.” This is an entertaining video about how everything from Apple to Star Wars came from remixing. It’s optional viewing, but it ties together many of the things we’ve been thinking about during the course.

For your participation activity, you’ll be writing a letter to a future CMNS 1140 student, offering some advice for how to do well in the course. If you give me permission, I’ll share your responses with next semester’s students. And for your bonus activity, acknowledge the hard word of your group members by sharing one thing you admire about each one of them.

As a reminder, here are the upcoming due dates:

• Storytelling video or Cover letter/ resume: <<date>>. (Remember: you can drop either a blog post or this assignment).
• Textbook report or final portfolio: <<date>>.

Thank you again for your contributions to CMNS 1140. Keep in touch, and stay safe!

Readings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJPERZDfyWc

Participation Activity

To reflect what you learned (and help out next semester’s class), write a letter to a student who’s new to CMNS 1140. Give them some advice about what they need to know to be successful in the course.

Bonus Activity

Share something that you admire about each of your group members.

Instructor’s Note

 For Week 13, you may choose to have a synchronous party to celebrate your learning. You can give students control over the party, but the following lesson plan contains activities that you could potentially include:

Activity: Talent Show

To celebrate our success and the community you’ve built, hold a business communication talent show. Tell students about the talent show in advance so that they can plan. Students can work in groups or individually to share something that relates to business communication. It could be a paragraph from their blog that they’re proud of, or they could make up a parody song, etc. There will be a prize (I use gift cards) for winning entry (as voted on by the class).

Activity: Business Communication Olympics

To review the course materials, hold a Business Communication Olympics.

This will have 3 rounds:

• QuizMaster
  Business Communication Pictionary
• Paragraph Revision-o-rama

You can do the Olympics in groups or individually. Depending on whether you’re doing it individually or in a group, come up with a scoring system that awards a maximum of 5 points to a group/individual per round. Suggested scoring system:

• QuizMaster: 5 points for 1st, 3 points for 2nd, 1 point for 3rd.
• Business Communication Pictionary: 1 point for the correct answer, 1 point if someone guesses your correct answer. Play to a max of 5 points.
• Paragraph Revision-o-rama: 5 points to 1st team to correctly organize the paragraph, 3 to the 2nd, 1 to the 3rd.

Round #1: QuizMaster

Using the quiz platform of your choice (you can also make one in Powerpoint), host a quiz where students are scored on their percentage of correct answers. You can also give 1 point to the first person to type in the correct answer.

Quiz

What are the 3 parts of the writing process?

• Ethos, Pathos, Logos
• Writing, writing, more writing
• Prewriting, writing, revision
• Outlining, planning, brainstorming

What is pathos?

• Using emotion to persuade someone
• Using logic to persuade someone
• Using reputation to persuade someone

What is an email frame?

• Forgetting to send an email
• Telling the reader why you’re writing
• Framing someone for murder through email
• Signing an email ‘sincerely yours.’

We use quotation marks to show that…

• The words were written by someone else
• The words were written by you.
• The words aren’t true
• The words are sarcastic

In the phrase “Read the information security policy for more information,” the link should be put on:

• Read
• Information security policy
• More information

CMAPP stands for

• See this map?
• Call, Message, Amaze, Persuade, Poll
• Context, Message, Audience, Purpose, Product
• Calm, Measured, Analytical, Polite, Prepared

Which of the following sentences is in passive voice?

• The course was taken by the students.
• I took a course this semester.
• The students took the course
• This semester, I took a course.

Round 2: Business Communication Pictionary

Using the multi-user whiteboard in BigBlueButton (Zoom etc), play Pictionary. Tell students that you will be giving them a word (through the private chat function). They have to draw the word, without spelling it out. If someone guesses their word, they get 1 point. The person who guessed also gets 1 point. Play to a maximum of 5 points. You will likely have to do an example of this. I use the word ‘email’ to do so. Here are some words you can use:

1. Email
2. Writing process
3. Report
4. Communication
5. persuasion
6. Question of the Day
7. Run on sentence
8. Audience analysis
9. Paragraph
10. Ethos
11. Citation
12. Blogging

Round 3: Paragraph Revision-O-Rama

In this activity, students will receive a paragraph that is badly organized.  The badly organized paragraph is contained in the handout for this module. Sentences are numbered, so that students can simply state the correct order of the sentences (1,5, 4, 3 etc) to show their answer, rather than having to copy and paste the entire paragraph. The first person/group to do it is the winner.