Download the week 2 lesson plan as a Word document.

Download the week 2 interactive lecture as PowerPoint slides.

Download the week 2 H5P interactive lecture by clicking the “reuse” button.

Download the audio recording of the week 2 interactive lecture.

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Student Instructions

Welcome to Week 2! This module will last a week, which means you and your group should have it finished by <<date>>.

Learning Outcomes

• We will think about how business writing is different from other types of writing.
• We will learn some business communication terminology.
• We will explore our own beliefs, thoughts and feelings about our own writing.
• We will understand our own writing process and identify where we might want to make changes.
• We will practice learning online.
• We will continue to develop our classroom community.

Readings

• Chapter 1 of Business Writing For Everyone (5 pages)
• Chapter 2 of Business Writing for Everyone (8 pages)
• Optional: Speaking of Nature by Robin Wall Kimmerer

In This Module You Will…

• Engage in a short, interactive lecture about your writing beliefs and experiences.
• Do a “scavenger hunt” in your pod for business writing documents, then find some common trends.
• Watch a short video about your first assignment and begin thinking about your blog/ Coronavirus Archive.
• Begin your ‘Question of the Day‘ activities

Participation Activity: Scavenger Hunt

Instructor Notes:

For this participation activity, students will collect business writing documents. You can either use a Padlet (https://padlet.com/) or a SPLOT (which you can set up using WordPress). If neither of these are available, students could also post in a forum, but the nice thing about the Padlet/SPLOT is that they can see all the documents at once.

Student Instructions

For this activity, you’ll be working in your pods.

Step 1: Each student will find at least 1 example of business communication (emails, memos, reports, etc). You can find a lot of these documents online, such as government reports. Post your example in this Padlet. You don’t need to make an account. Simply click the + sign, then add the document with a brief description.

Step 2: With your group members, discuss what these documents have in common (organization, use of language, formatting, tone, use of visuals etc). You don’t have to read them all thoroughly. Just skim them. You may choose to have this discussion in the forum, but if you’re more comfortable with texting/BBB etc. you’re welcome to do so. Try to come up with at least 5 features of business communication. Then, think about how these business communication documents are different from essays and other academic writing. Why do you think these differences exist?

Step 3: When you’re done, 1 person from the group should post a summary of the group’s response. Make sure to answer the 3 questions:

• What did your documents have in common?
• How is business communication different from academic writing like essays?
• Why do you think these differences exist?

Bonus Forum

We’re thinking about the WHYs of business communication. This article gives us an interesting opportunity to think about information and perspectives that may not seem to fit into our mind map about business communication.

https://orionmagazine.org/article/speaking-of-nature/#.XyQ6wL0O_sI.twitter

Read the article and within a couple of days, go for a walk outside. Your walk can be in your neighbourhood, in the deep woods, or along a trail. As the article suggests, think about the nature you see as “ki/kin” instead of “it.” Is that weird, uncomfortable? Maybe it’s hard to even imagine. Think about animals and plants. Did you notice the same things as the students in the article? When you thought about these questions, what connections did you make? Were they unexpected?

Once you have read the article and have taken your walk, consider a response to two ideas in the essay. Consider what changes when you try to think about animals and plants as kin rather than an it. You could consider:

1. Do words make worlds? Where have you seen evidence of this? When you consider a tree as ki how might it change the way you write to other humans?
2. Does the passive voice – “the plant was pulled from the earth” – obscure a greater truth?
3. How can words heal relationships? Does changing the way we see plants and animals help change the way we see and communicate with each other?

Write a short paragraph about what you learned and post it in the forum.

Care/Connection

Check in with each student with a personalized response to the paragraph they submitted in week 1.

Download the week 3 lesson plan as a Word document.

Download the week 3 interactive lecture as PowerPoint slides.

Download the week 3 H5P interactive lecture by clicking the “reuse” button.

Download the week 3 interactive lecture as an audio recording.

Download the blog video with interactive H5P elements.

Download the blog video transcript as a Word document.

Download additional related resources.

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Instructor’s Note

This week’s interactive lecture begins with a story from the instructor. The goal of this story is to show vulnerability in order to invite students to share their own miscommunications. It also illustrates many of the concepts in the CMAPP model. You will likely want to swap this out with a story of your own.

Student Instructions

Welcome to Week 3! Last week, we reflected on your writing beliefs. This week, we’re going to learn some basic communication models and learn how to do audience analysis.

This week, you will:

• Watch a short video introducing the module.
• Read Chapter 3 of your textbook.
• Go through the Interactive lecture. This one will explore audience analysis from the perspective of a miscommunication.
• Keep doing Question of the Day.
• Brainstorm ideas for your blog or Coronavirus archive project and help your classmates refine their ideas.
• Bonus: use your new audience analysis skills to share something that will make your classmates happy.

Participation Activity

For this week’s participation activity, you’ll apply your audience analysis skills to your blog or Coronavirus Archive. Choose your best idea for a blog or Coronavirus archive and apply the CMAPP model to it. Write a few sentences for each step of the model. I’ll post an example in the forum.

Example:

I’m going to be creating a Coronavirus archive.

CONTEXT: The context of my project is that I’m creating a record of my time during Coronavirus for historians in the future. I suspect that they will know about what was happening in the news, so I can be valuable by sharing small moments of my life.

MESSAGE: I want to give them a peek into exactly what I was thinking, feeling and experiencing during this time. I will use descriptive words and try to make them feel like they’re right there with me.

AUDIENCE: My audience is historians of the future. My other audience is me, since I think that blogging will help me work through my feelings.

PURPOSE: My purpose is to capture my life during Coronavirus.

PRODUCT: I realize that by doing this activity, that pictures and videos will be as important as words. I am going to create a blog using WordPress so I can mix images and photos.

Instructions for signing up for a KPU Blog

https://wordpress.kpu.ca/how-to-get-started/

Bonus Forum

Use your audience analysis skills to share something that will make your classmates happy. It could be an uplifting news story, a funny GIF, a photo, a poem: anything.

What is a Blog?

<<refer to H5P video at the top of this page>>

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Additional resources you may find useful:

This resource is by Melissa Ashman and is licensed with a Creative Commons – Attribution 4.0 International License.

This resource is by Melissa Ashman and is licensed with a Creative Commons – Attribution 4.0 International License.

This resource is by John Grant and is licensed with a Creative Commons – Attribution 4.0 International License.

Download the week 4 lesson plan as a Word document

Download the ineffective assignment sample as a Word document.

Download the week 4 interactive lecture as PowerPoint slides.

Download the week 4 H5P interactive lecture by clicking the “reuse” button.

Download the week 4 interactive lecture as an audio recording.

Download additional related resources.

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Student instructions:

Welcome to Week 4! This week, you will be responsible for the following tasks:

• Read Chapter 4.
• Optional: Read “Garbage Language: Why Do Corporations Speak The Way They Do?“
• For the participation activity, pick one of two choices:
  1) Pick a mood, then write a paragraph that conveys that mood. Then, try to guess someone else’s mood.
  2) I’ve written a version of our first assignment with lots of style and tone mistakes. Working with your pod, write a paragraph that gives the writer feedback on how to improve their style and tone.
• Optional bonus forum: We’re having a Bulwar-Lytton contest to see who can write the WORST sentence. There will be a fabulous prize for the winner (a cute animal GIF).
• Hand in your first assignment.
• Complete Question of the Day.
• Optional: take a survey to let me know how I can improve the course so far.

Survey Questions

1. How would you rate the workload of this course? (By workload, I mean the amount of work you have to put into this course doing the readings, participation activities, assignments etc)
Far too much work
A little too much work
Just right
A little too light
Far too easy

2. How would you rate the difficulty of this course? By difficulty, I’m referring to how challenging the participation activities, readings and assignments are.
Far too difficult
A little too difficult
Just right
A little too easy
Far too easy

3. Please tell me about a time when you were most interested/ engaged in this course.

4. Please tell me about a time when you were the least engaged/ confused/ disinterested in this course.

5. Do you have any suggestions/ideas to improve this course?

6. Is there anything else you think I should know?

Participation Activity Option #1

This participation activity will give you practice in using words and details to create a particular feeling in the reader. To begin, pick a mood (happy, sad, lonely, angry etc). Then, go outside (socially distanced, of course!) and write down details that would reflect your mood.

For example, if I was standing in the park and I was happy, I’d see green grass, happy children, smiling faces, blossoms on trees, flowers, etc. If I was annoyed, I’d see children screaming too loud, mosquitos buzzing, dog poop, muddy grass, people not socially distancing etc.

Then, write a paragraph that doesn’t say your mood, but uses word choices, details, sentence rhythm, etc. to convey it. I’ll post an example in the forum. Please post your paragraph in the forum too. Then, see if you can guess someone else’s mood.

Participation Activity Option #2

I have written a version of your first assignment that contains a lot of style and tone errors. Click on the link above to view the assignment, then write a paragraph that gives the writer feedback about how they could improve the style and tone of their work.

Instructor note:

You can customize or change this assignment to suit your needs.

 Student instructions:

Bonus Forum

For our bonus forum, we’re going to have a Bulwer-Lytton competition. This is a competition that’s held annually where people try to write the worst sentence they can come up with. Using the style and tone mistakes we discussed in the interactive lecture, write a sentence that contains as many style and tone mistakes as possible. The “worst” sentence will win a fabulous prize (probably a cute animal GIF).

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Additional resources you may find useful: 

This resource is by John Grant and is licensed with a Creative Commons – Attribution 4.0 International License.

This resource is by John Grant and is licensed with a Creative Commons – Attribution 4.0 International License.

This resource is by Arley Cruthers and is licensed with a Creative Commons – Attribution 4.0 International License.

This resource is by Arley Cruthers and is licensed with a Creative Commons – Attribution 4.0 International License.

This resource is by Arley Cruthers and is licensed with a Creative Commons – Attribution 4.0 International License.

This resource is by Arley Cruthers and is licensed with a Creative Commons – Attribution 4.0 International License.

A link to a reading about how to handle situations where you might be emailing when angry:

Instead of emailing when angry do this [Forbes]

Download the week 5 lesson plan as a Word document.

Download the week 5 interactive lecture as PowerPoint slides.

Download the week 5 interactive lecture as an H5P file by clicking the “reuse” button.

Download the week 5 interactive lecture as an audio recording.

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Student instructions:

Welcome to Week 5! This week, we’re focusing on storytelling. While it may seem odd to focus on storytelling in a business communications course, storytelling will help you be more persuasive, think about organization in a different way, and blog more effectively.

This week, you will be responsible for the following tasks:

• Watch The Danger of A Single Story.
• Attend the weekly session or do the interactive lecture.
• This week’s participation activity will be in your group. You will each be given a collaborative writing document and will write a story together. You can do this by meeting and writing your story as a group, or you can each add a couple of paragraphs to the story. When you’re done, see if you can identify the parts of a story. Post your story in the main forum once it’s done.
• Bonus: Our reading was about the danger of a single story. For your bonus point, write about a time when someone created an overly simple story about you. How could you use your blog to tell a different story?
• If you’re blogging publicly, put a link to your blog in the Excel document, so that we can see each others’ work.

Instructor notes: 

Create a spreadsheet so students who are blogging publicly can share their blog URLs. Include a video about the midterm. The Danger of a Single Story video is not open, but it is freely accessible.

Student instructions:

Participation Activity Prompts

Use this document to write your story. You can either meet as a group and write it, or you can each add a couple of paragraphs. When you’re done, see if you can identify the parts of the story that we discussed in our lecture.

If you’re having trouble getting started, use one of these prompts.

Prompt #1: Last Thursday, I returned from work completely exhausted. I pulled into my driveway, walked up to my front door and….

Prompt #2: When I’m stressed, I like to take a walk on the beach. That day, I was walking along, listening to the sound of the waves against the shore, when I saw…

Prompt #3: Last summer, I earned some extra money by cleaning out old houses and getting them ready for sale. It was dirty, sometimes smelly work. One day, I was dusting a bookshelf in this old mansion when…

Prompt #4: When I got on the airplane, I was expecting adventure. Little did I know…

Prompt #5: The night was quiet. I had just finished brushing my teeth and was about to climb into bed when I heard a faint sound coming from outside in the garden.

Bonus Forum

For your bonus forum, reflect on a time that you experienced the dangers of a single story. How could you use your blog to tell a different story?

Or

Talk to an elder in your life and ask them to tell a story. You don’t have to write down the story, but write a paragraph about that experience. What was it like listening to the story? What did you learn?

Download the week 6 lesson plan as a Word document.

Download the week 6 interactive lecture as PowerPoint slides.

Download the week 6 H5P interactive lecture by clicking the “reuse” button.

Download the week 6 interactive lecture audio recording.

Download an additional related resource.

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Student instructions:

Welcome to Week 6! This week, we’re thinking about workplace genres like emails, memos, letters and instant messages.

This week, you will:

• Watch the intro video in the module overview section.
• Read Chapter 6.
• Do the interactive lecture or attend the weekly session.
• Working in your groups, write an email/memo/letter that responds to the scenario in your document. When you’re done, post your completed email in the forum. Then, write some feedback about another group’s email/memo/letter and post it to the forum.
• Bonus point: for your bonus point, you have two options: 1) Read this article about Dr. Bonnie Henry’s communication style. Then, write a paragraph about how you can apply what you read to your business communication practices. 2) Leave a comment on a classmate’s blog.
• If you haven’t already, watch the video about the midterm.

Participation Activity

Open the folder provided, then find your group’s name. Use the collaborative Word document to write an email/memo/letter reacting to your scenario. When you’re done, post your scenario and your email/memo/letter in the forum.

When your group is finished your email/memo/letter in the collaborative writing document, post the results in this forum. Then, respond to another group’s work with a paragraph about what you admired about their email/memo/letter and how they could improve it.

Participation Activity Scenarios

Working in your group, please create an email/ memo or letter that responds to one of the following scenarios. When you’re done, post your scenario and your email/memo/letter into the participation forum. Then, discuss another group’s work and post a paragraph offering feedback. Remember to consider both what’s working well about the group’s work and what they can improve.

Your scenario choices:

#1) In your textbook, you read the Brenda Knights narrative about the dangers of emails. You work for a company that has some of the email challenges that Ms. Knights describes. Your boss has asked you to write a short email to your colleagues with some advice about when and how to use email. Using what you learned in Brenda Knights’ narrative, write an email to your colleagues giving them advice about email use.

#2) You recently purchased a new guitar at a local music shop. One of the shop’s employees, Maria, spent over an hour helping you make your purchase. She was very knowledgeable, and was the reason that you purchased the guitar at the small local store instead of going to a larger store with more selection. You want to let Maria’s boss know about her excellent service.

#3) Your company has decided to consider allowing employees to work from home (obviously this situation takes place before the pandemic). Anyone who is interested in working from home must have a conversation with their manager to determine if their position would be appropriate for this arrangement. If the manager approves, they must submit Form 4A to their HR representative. Those who are approved to work from home will start with a 3 month trial period, where they will be required to submit a weekly log of the tasks they performed at home. Your job is to inform employees of this new opportunity and make sure they know how to apply.

#4) You volunteer on your condo’s strata (the group of residents who make decisions about the building). The strata has approved painting the outside of the building. Between April 5-10, the residents must not open their windows and must remove everything from their balconies. You don’t have email addresses for every resident, but you do have access to their physical mailboxes.

#5) You volunteer for an organization that gives out scholarships to new high school graduates based on the results of an essay writing contest. You’ve already informed the winners of the scholarship by phone, but your boss wants you to send them something in writing with all of the official details and any forms that need to be filled out to claim the scholarship.

#6) Easter is coming up in a few weeks and you work for a flower shop. Many people order lilies for Easter, but these can be toxic to pets. The florist has come up with a pet-friendly Easter bouquet. He asks you to let the customers know about the dangers of lilies and suggest that they order a non-toxic Easter bouquet instead.

Bonus Forum

For your bonus activity, you have two choices:

1) Read this article about Dr. Bonnie Henry’s communication practices. Then, write a short paragraph about how you could apply her strategies to your own business communication practices.

2) Go to the list of your classmates’ blogs and write a friendly comment on one blog.

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Additional resource you may find useful:

This resource is by John Grant and is licensed under a Creative Commons – Attribution 4.0 International license.

Download the week 7 lesson plan as a Word document.

Download an additional related resource.

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Instructor Notes:

This week does not have any interactive lesson/lecture as it’s intended to afford students an ability to catch up on their work and to ease their stress during midterm season.

Student Notes:

It’s Week 7, so we’re more than halfway through the course. Time flies! Your first blog post is due this week and I know that everyone has midterms, so I’ve decided to lighten the load. We have a bit more reading this week, so we won’t have an interactive lecture. Instead, you’ll help each other out by summarizing the readings.

This week, you will:

• Read Chapter 5 and Chapter 12.
• Pick one concept that you learned about in one of those 2 chapters. Then, either
  a) make a visual (chart, graph, infographic, etc) that teaches your classmates about the topic or
  b) Use what you learned about paragraphs to write a clear paragraph that summarizes the topic.
• Hand in your first blog post.
• Bonus point: Since we’re working on revision skills, call up someone in your pod (or another friend) and read your blog post out loud to them. Write a paragraph about how the experience felt and what you learned.
• Do the Questions of the Day.
• We won’t have an interactive lecture, but I’ll use the optional weekly synchronous lesson to hold extended office hours. Drop in, show me a draft of your blog post or ask me a question about your blog.

Participation Activity

Let’s help each other learn the readings. Read Chapter 5 and 12, then pick one concept you learned. To help your classmates learn the material, you can either:

1. Create a chart, graph, infographic or other visual that illustrates the topic. You can use free image makers like Venngage (you have to make an account) or Canva.
2. Use what you learned about paragraphs to write a clear, well-edited paragraph to explain the topic.

Bonus Forum

For the bonus point, call up someone (a member of your pod, a friend or family member) and read them one of your blog posts. Write a short paragraph about how the experience went and what you learned.

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Additional resource you may find useful:

This resource is by Melissa Ashman and is licensed under a Creative Commons – Attribution 4.0 International license.

Download this resource as a PowerPoint file.

Download the week 8 lesson plan as a Word document.

Download the week 8 interactive lecture as PowerPoint slides.

Download the week 8 H5P interactive lecture by clicking the “reuse” button.

Download the week 8 interactive lecture audio recording.

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Student Notes:

Welcome to Week 8! This week, we’re focusing on making our work better through peer review. The goal of this week is to give you the skills to both give feedback and incorporate feedback into your work. You will need these skills for your midterm.

This week, you will:

• Read Chapter 16, which is about peer review.
• Do the interactive lecture on listening, or attend the weekly session.
• Watch the midterm video.
• Work in your groups for your participation activity [see below]. Your interactive lecture is about different types of listening. When you open your group’s folder, you will see a scenario. Write a script (or make an audio/video recording) where both participants use generative listening to give and receive feedback. When you’re done, post your script in the participation activity forum.
• For your bonus activity, go to this small section on revision and pick 3 or 4 questions from the list of questions. Re-read a blog post, paying attention to those 3 or 4 questions. Then, write a short paragraph about what you learned.
• Do Question of the Day
• Optional: take a survey to let me know how I can improve the course so far.

Instructor notes:

It’s recommended that a mid-course survey be issued to assess how students are feeling and so that any adjustments can be made to the approach being taken with the course. This can also be used to help identify students who may require additional support. Below are sample survey questions:

Survey Questions

1. How would you rate the workload of this course? (By workload, I mean the amount of work you have to put into this course doing the readings, participation activities, assignments etc)
Far too much work
A little too much work
Just right
A little too light
Far too easy

2. How would you rate the difficulty of this course? By difficulty, I’m referring to how challenging the participation activities, readings and assignments are.
Far too difficult
A little too difficult
Just right
A little too easy
Far too easy

3. Please tell me about a time when you were most interested/ engaged in this course.

4. Please tell me about a time when you were the least engaged/ confused/ disinterested in this course.

5. Do you have any suggestions/ideas to improve this course?

6. Is there anything else you think I should know?

Instructor notes:

For the participation activity below, students should be divided into groups (in their pods if this approach is taken) and assigned one scenario to address this.

Student notes:

Week 8 Activity

For this activity, you will work with your group to practice giving and receiving feedback in a workplace situation. I will give you a situation, then your group will work together to create a short script where both the person giving feedback and the person receiving feedback use the generative listening skills and peer review we learned about this week.

You can write down your script using this document, or you can create a video or audio recording. When your group is done, please post your response in the participation activity forum. You can make up whatever details you would like.

Scenario #1

You are the Director of Programming for a community centre. You have decided to offer a Minecraft summer camp for kids. Your graphic designer Raj has just sent you a poster to advertise the camp, and you find it way too ‘busy’ and garish. However, you are not sure if your instincts are correct because, although you have many years of experience in your role, you are outside of the target audience for the Minecraft camp. You want to have a productive conversation about your concerns with Raj.

Scenario #2

You have recently been promoted to a managerial role and are supervising 3 employees. The first two employees do excellent work, but the third employee, Cassie, often turns in work that feels sloppy to you. For example, she recently wrote a report that was well-researched, but some parts were unfinished and it was clear she hadn’t done much proofreading. You need to sit down with Cassie to discuss the problem. Since you are new to the role, however, you are worried that your inexperience as a manager will make it difficult for you to be productive with Cassie.

Scenario #3

You own a small restaurant and have a waiter named Chad who is your “star” waiter. Customers love him because he delivers great customer service. Unfortunately, sometimes Chad achieves this customer service by being hard on other wait staff and kitchen staff. He often yells at other wait staff for minor errors. You have been approached by a group of 4 other waiters who say that if Chad doesn’t stop this behaviour, they will quit. You need to have a discussion with Chad where you discuss this problem.

Scenario #4

Now that BC is entering Phase 3, your friend Aziz is being told to come back to his office. He doesn’t want to, since he lives with his elderly parents who are immunocompromised and has a son with asthma. He has drafted an email to his employer but he’s asked you to take a look at it before he sends it. When you read the email, you notice that Aziz has done a great job of doing some research to back up why it’s not safe for him to the office and has also referred to his work plan over the past 3 months to show that he’s able to keep up with his work while at home. However, his tone is very angry. You’re not sure if this expression of anger will make his audience unwilling to listen to his message, even though you feel that it’s justified. You’re uncomfortable telling Aziz to tone it down, but you also want to increase the chance that he gets a positive response. You’re not sure what advice to give.

Scenario #5

You work for an accounting firm. You’ve asked your intern, Jaspreet, to write a blog post explaining the tax changes for 2020. Jaspreet is very knowledgeable and passionate about the subject. She has written a 2,000 word blog post that would be very interesting to another accountant, but is overwhelming for the average client. You need to talk with Jaspreet to figure out how to maintain her passion and excitement for the topic without overwhelming the reader with too much information.

Scenario #6

You have been hired as a communications coordinator for a small business. Your boss, Mira, is in her 50s and has a habit of writing her emails the way she talks and often uses ‘…’ between her sentences. For example, she might write, “Thanks…I will think about it…will get back to you when I figure out what to do and talk to some other colleagues…” Other colleagues and customers have interpreted Mira’s style of writing as being passive-aggressive and some have a hard time reading her long sentences. You’ve been tasked with editing Mira’s writing for a report, and you want to help her understand how others are interpreting these stylistic choices without offending her.

Participation Activity Final Forum

Once your group is finished, one member should post your response here.

Bonus Forum

For your bonus forum, go to this section on revision, then pick 3 – 4 questions from the list. Re-read one of your blog posts, and answer the following questions about your blog. Then, write a short paragraph about what you found out and what revision you’d like to do on your blog.

Download the week 9 lesson plan as a Word document.

Download the week 9 research scavenger hunt handout as a Word document.

Access an additional related resource.

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Student notes:

Welcome to Week 9! Let’s begin this week by reflecting on your group’s mindmap. What connections did you find between the modules? What unanswered questions do you have? What knowledge from the previous modules do you think you’ll use in this module?

This week, we’re learning about how to find and evaluate sources. This week, you will be responsible for:

• Reading Chapter 9 of your textbook
• Completing the “Sifting Through the Pandemic” micro lesson. This lesson was developed to help students evaluate sources about COVID-19 and will reinforce what you learned in the textbook. You’ll need this information for your scavenger hunt.
• With your group, complete the research scavenger hunt. When you’re done, post your response in the participation forum. The first group to get all the answers wins a fabulous prize! (It’s a GIF.)
• Bonus: this is a tough time in the semester, so for our bonus forum, go for a walk and practice the listening skills we learned last week. If you don’t want to take a walk, do some other form of self care. Then, write a few sentences about it.
• Do Question of the Day
• Optional: Next week, we’ll be talking about citation. I know that people often have questions about citation/plagiarism/source use, but sometimes it’s hard to ask. So, submit your anonymous source use questions and I’ll answer them in the next lecture.

Participation Activity Forum

With your group, complete the research scavenger hunt. Once you’re done, one group member can post your participation activity response in the forum. The first group to answer all the questions correctly is the winner.

Instructor Note:

The scavenger hunt template is included.

Bonus Forum

When the semester gets busy, it can be hard to take a break. So, for your bonus, engage in some kind of rest. Go for a walk and practice some of the listening skills we learned last week, then write a few sentences about it. (If you don’t want to take a walk, then do some other form of self care and write about it).

Anonymous Source Use Survey

Next week, we’re learning about citation, quoting and summarizing. Now’s the time to ask your questions about source use, plagiarism, citation etc. I’ll answer them in the next lecture.

What questions do you have about source use, plagiarism, citation, quoting, summarizing etc?

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Additional resource you may find useful:

Here is a quick online trivia game to assess if you can suss out examples of true versus fake news! Have fun with it. You’ll be required to watch three short videos that help you detect fake news, and then can jump right into the quiz:

https://newsliteracy.ca/fakeout/learning-the-skills/#

Download the week 10 lesson plan as a Word document.

Download the week 10 interactive lecture as PowerPoint slides.

Download the week 10 H5P interactive lecture by clicking the “reuse” button.

Download the week 10 interactive lecture audio recording.

Download additional related resources.

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Student notes:

Welcome to Week 10! Last week, we learned about how to find sources. This week, we’re learning how to quote, summarize and paraphrase sources.

This week, please:

• Read Chapter 10a. You’ll need this information for your interactive lecture.
• Engage with the interactive lecture. This week’s lecture is on ethical citation, how to cite in your blog and how to create an effective link.
• For your participation activity, find an article that offers a different perspective on something you’ve blogged about. Then, write a paragraph that responds to the article. Make sure to quote/paraphrase at least once.
• For your bonus point, edit the paragraph you wrote about the Jorge J. Rodriquez tweet and post it.
• Watch the video about the textbook makeover project or the final portfolio. You can choose one for your final project.

Participation Activity Forum

For this week’s participation activity, we’re practicing paraphrasing and summarizing. Using the research skills you learned last week, find an article that offers a different perspective on something you’ve written about in your blog. For example, if you wrote about a great vacation you had in Kelowna, find an article about someone else’s vacation in Kelowna.

Write a paragraph that responds to the article in some way. You must paraphrase or quote at least once. I’ll put an example in the forum.

Example:

In this article about pandemic parenting, Deb Perleman writes about how parents are feeling burnt out trying to parent and work at the same time. She says, “We are not burned out because life is hard this year. We are burned out because we are being rolled over by the wheels of an economy that has bafflingly declared working parents inessential.” As someone who’s currently up past midnight writing this, I definitely appreciated her honesty and her ability to think of the big picture. However, I struggled with the piece’s inability to suggest some specific solutions. If school’s not safe, and having kids at home isn’t working out, what should be done?

Bonus Point Forum

For your bonus point, post the paragraph that you wrote during the interactive lecture about this tweet:

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Additional resources you may find useful:

This resource is by John Grant and is licensed under a Creative Commons – Attribution 4.0 International License.

Video: Citing Sources

A video about three paraphrasing techniques:

How to paraphrase – 3 paraphrasing techniques [QUT]

Download the week 11 lesson plan as a Word document.

Download 10 fake resumes for the participation activity.

• Fake Resume 1
• Fake Resume 2
• Fake Resume 3
• Fake Resume 4
• Fake Resume 5
• Fake Resume 6
• Fake Resume 7
• Fake Resume 8
• Fake Resume 9
• Fake Resume 10

Download the week 11 interactive lecture as PowerPoint slides.

Download the week 11 H5P interactive lecture by clicking the “reuse” button.

Download the week 11 interactive lecture audio recording.

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Student notes:

This week, we’re thinking about persuasion. Your readings will give you a sense of general persuasive strategies, then your interactive lecture will show persuasion in action by focusing on cover letters and resumes.

This week, you will:

• Read Chapter 8 in your textbook. I’ve also included an optional reading that’s specific to cover letters and resumes.
• Complete the interactive lecture or attend the optional weekly session.
• For your participation activity, you’ll be playing the role of a hiring manager. In this participation activity folder, you’ll find 10 fake resumes for an administrative assistant position. The average hiring manager spends 6 seconds looking at a resume. In the first step, you’ll look at each resume for about 6 seconds, then decide if it’s a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ In the second step, you’ll work with your group to pick 2 candidates to hire, then write a short paragraph about how the candidates used persuasion. Post your paragraph to the participation activity forum.
• For your bonus activity, you’ll pick one resume and pretend your friend wrote it and has asked you for advice on how to improve it. Using your peer review skills, write a few paragraphs to your friend explaining what’s persuasive about their resume and what they need to improve on.
• Complete Question of the Day.

Optional reading: https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/businesswriting/part/chapter-17-communicating-for-employment/

Participation Activity Forum

This activity will be done in your group. It has two parts.

Part 1: For the first part, your group is going to get a chance to be a hiring manager. In the folder, you’ll find 10 fake resumes of people who’ve applied for a job as an administrative assistant. The average hiring manager looks at a resume for 6 seconds, so take 1 – 2 minutes to look at all 10 resumes. Working as quickly as you can, sort the resumes into ‘yes’ or ‘no.’

Part 2: As a group, discuss your top picks and select 2 people to interview. You can look more closely at the resumes that you said ‘yes’ to. Write a short paragraph about which candidates you selected to interview and why. Did everyone in the group pick the same resumes? If there were different opinions, how did you decide? What about the 2 candidates you selected persuaded you to interview them? Post this is in the participation activity forum.

Instructor note:

You can customize or change this assignment to suit your needs or have students bring in their own early drafts of their resumes.

Student notes:

Bonus Forum

Pick one of the resumes that you studied for the participation activity. Pretend that this is your friend’s resume, and they have asked you for feedback. Using your peer review skills, tell your friend what’s persuasive about their resume and how they could make it more persuasive.

Download the week 12 lesson plan as a Word document.

Download the week 12 interactive lecture as PowerPoint slides.

Download the week 12 H5P interactive lecture by clicking the “reuse” button.

Download the week 12 interactive lecture audio recording.

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Student notes:

This is our last week of class work. Next week is our big class party! This week, we’re continuing our discussion of persuasion by thinking about how to create arguments in reports and oral presentations.

This week, you’ll be responsible for the following tasks:

• Read Chapter 10b and 13. You’ll need both of these for the interactive lecture.
• Optional: Read the chapter on reports. We didn’t focus heavily on reports this semester, and you’ll need some of this knowledge for your textbook report.
• Complete the interactive lecture or attend the weekly session.
• It’s Oscar Time! This week, we’ve been learning about argument and creating effective oral presentations. Now, it’s time to combine the two at the CMNS 1140 Oscars. You have 1 minute to make the class care about something that you’re passionate about. Create a video (using your cellphone or My Media) or audio that’s no longer than a minute. You can convince the class to care about anything, and you can use any strategy (as long as it’s ethical). Next, vote for who should win the Oscar by commenting “Vote” under their post. The video with the most votes will win a $5 Tim Hortons/Starbucks gift card. We’ll announce the winners next week during our class party.
• Bonus Forum: Help out your classmates who don’t have time to read the optional reading on report writing by summarizing it.
• Check out your invitation to the CMNS 1140 class party and begin planning your talent show competition entry. Details are below.
• Work on your final project and final blog post.

Optional:  https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/businesswriting/part/chapter-11-writing-reports/

Participation Activity

The CMNS 1140 Oscars

This week, we’ve been learning about argument and creating effective oral presentations. Now, it’s time to combine the two at the CMNS 1140 Oscars. You have 1 minute to make the class care about something that you’re passionate about. Create a video (using your cellphone or My Media) or audio that’s no longer than a minute. You can convince the class to care about anything, and you can use any strategy (as long as it’s ethical).

Next, vote for who should win the Oscar by commenting “Vote” under their post. The video with the most votes will win a $5 Tim Hortons/Starbucks gift card. We’ll announce the winners next week during our class party.

Good luck!

Bonus Forum

This week, we had an optional reading about writing reports. Help your classmates out by writing a short summary of the chapter.

Download the week 13 lesson plan as a Word document.

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

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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.