This syllabus is subject to change and the student is responsible for keeping current with those changes
Week 1: Class introductions – Small Group Activity
Week 2: " Guide to Visual Analysis" and "Reading Film," Reading the News."Discuss readings
Week 3: Tape and observe a news program. In what ways do the three modes of communication, visual, verbal, and written, work together to make a successful news program? Begin to draft a three-page analysis on their observations. Begin Annotated
Bibliography and Quick Reference Guide.
Week 4: Workshop and revise paper. Bring in the tape of the news program you used for your essay, show a portion of program and present your findings to the class. Finish
"Reading the News" readings.
Week 5: Find essays and information which focuses on the ways the three modes of communication are practiced in school. Is there a mode that is privileged over others?
What might be some of the reasons for this? Is there a mode that is more effective? To the class? To you?
Week 6: Continue to search articles. Get in groups to create a very short PowerPoint presentation on a group topic of interest. Groups present it to the class. Discuss the ways in which using a technology, such as PowerPoint, changes how information is received by, and communicated to, the audience. Also, analyze how effective you were as an individual and your group as a whole.
Week 7: Read the "Perspectives" selections. Begin to draft an essay comparing the readings to their experiences as students.
Week 8: Finish the readings and discuss. Conduct the fieldwork exercise and present findings to class.
Week 9: Bring in examples of advertisements, and based on "Suggestions for Reading
Advertising," (handouts) evaluate and analyze your advertisements. Which mode of communication do the ads privilege? Why do you think this is so? If the ads were to privilege a different mode, would the message of the ad change? Would its effectiveness change? Would the audience receive it differently?
Week 10: Read "Visual Essay" handouts, then discuss. Do your own "ad rewrite" and present to class. Compare the power of visual communication to that of verbal and written. (comparative analysis paper).

Week 11: Continue the readings. Conduct Web-based research and find images on a particular catastrophe. What do the images convey that cannot be communicated through verbal or written means (Try to capture the image through writing, through speaking)?
Present images to class.
Week 12: Begin to work in groups on "Mining the Archive" exercise. How has visual communication changed over the years, and in what ways? Create a report detailing your findings.
Week 13: Discuss oral communication (from minstrels to Lake Woebegone). Stand up and share a favorite story with the class. Discuss and share experiences of orally hearing a story versus reading one focusing on the major differences between the two.
Week 14: Students gamers, share with the class the ways in which narrative functions in video games. What are some of the similarities and differences between the narratives found in books, films, and video games?
Week 15: Write a final essay on the three modes of communication. What have you learned about how they function? Have you found one mode to be privileged over another in our culture? If so, how does this affect the way we communicate to each other?
Does this have a positive or negative affect on our society? In what ways?
Week 16: Dead Week
Week 17: Finals