Upper-division Writing Requirement Review Form(5/4/09)

I. General Education Review – Upper-division Writing Requirement

Dept/Program
Subject / Communication Studies / Course # (i.e. ANTH 455) or sequence / COMM413
Course(s) Title / Communication and Conflict-Writing
Description of the requirement if it is not a single course
Communication Studies has several writing-intensive courses that may be used by Communication Studies majors to fulfill the Upper-Division Writing Requirement. We are requesting that a new course, COMM 413, be added to the list of COMM courses that satisfy Upper-Division Writing. An experimental version of this course, COMM 395, will be taught Spring, 2011. We are submitting a separate request to make COMM 395 a permanent course (COMM 413) as of the 2011 catalog.
The information provided in this request reiterates the separate justification submitted for one-time approval of COMM 395 as an Upper-Division Writing course.
II. Endorsement/Approvals
Complete the form and obtain signatures before submitting to Faculty Senate Office.
Please type / print name / Signature / Date
Instructor / Alan Sillars
Phone / Email / X4463
/ 9/13/10
Program Chair / Steven Schwarze / 9/13/10
III Overview of the Course Purpose/ Description
This course examines the nature of human conflict with special attention to communication processes that escalate, manage, and mediate disputes. The course addresses such topics as the basic elements and nature of conflict, conflict styles, strategies, and patterns, subjective and discursive framing of conflict, power and resistance, interest-based negotiation, and conflict mediation. The concepts and theories discussed in the course are broadly applicable to different types of conflict, including interpersonal, political, environmental, organizational, and family conflicts.
The content of COMM 413 (Communication and Conflict-Writing) is equivalent to COMM 412 (Communication and Conflict); however, COMM 413 is a writing intensive class designed to fulfill the Upper Division Writing Requirement of UM’s general education requirements. Credit is not allowed for both COMM 413 and COMM 412.
IV Learning Outcomes:Explain how each of the following learning outcomes will be achieved.
Student learning outcomes :
Identify and pursue more sophisticated questions for academic inquiry / Students generate their own questions for investigation in the conflict case study by applying and extending theoretical material covered in the class. The questions are synthesized in the central thesis for the case study, justified by the report’s rationale, and developed through the observations and conclusions in the report.
Find, evaluate, analyze, and synthesize information effectively from diverse sources (see / Students conduct a conflict case study in which they locate documents describing conflict from the perspective of the principal parties and analyze these texts based on theoretical concepts in the conflict literature. The research paper integrates research involving academic books and journals with students’ own structured observations.
Manage multiple perspectives as appropriate / The research paper requires that students manage and clearly distinguish multiple perspectives, including contrasting perspectives of principal parties in conflict, third-party perspectives (e.g., news reports, historical accounts), theoretical perspectives, and the students’ own observations, inferences, and speculations.
Recognize the purposes and needs of discipline-specific audiences and adopt the academic voice necessary for the chosen discipline / Instructions for the paper specify that it should be written in a voice appropriate to a report of a research project directed to thosewho study conflict management (students, professors, practitioners). The qualities of appropriate voice will be reinforced through in-class writing workshops and writing critiques.
Use multiple drafts, revision, and editing in conducting inquiry and preparing written work / The major research paper will be submitted in stages, with instructor and peer critiques on initial drafts. The final paper requires revision based on instructor critiques.
Follow the conventions of citation, documentation, and formal presentation appropriate to that discipline / The paper requires citation of sources and other formatting in APA style.
Develop competence in information technology and digital literacy (link) / Students will be required to utilize UM library data bases, such as ComAbstracts and Communication and Mass Media Complete, when conducting their literature review. They will also be introduced to Web resources for the study of conflict and alternative dispute resolution (e.g., Conflict Research Consortium, Campus Conflict Resolution Resource Project).
V. Writing Course Requirements Check list
Is enrollment capped at 25 students?
If not, list maximum course enrollment. Explain how outcomes will be adequately met for this number of students. Justify the request for variance. / X Yes  No
Are outcomes listed in the course syllabus? If not, how will students be informed of course expectations? / X Yes  No
Are detailed requirements for all written assignments including criteria for evaluation in the course syllabus? If not how and when will students be informed of written assignments? Please attach one example of instructions for written assignment. / X Yes  No
There is a detailed description of the major research paper in the syllabus. Additional detail is provided in a separate handout (attached). Guidelines for the paper will be reinforced in class throughout the semester. Other writing assignments (reaction papers, writing self-assessment and peer critiques) will be explained in class.
Briefly explain how students are provided with tools and strategies for effective writing and editing in the major. / Students will read and apply sections of Lunsford (2005), The everyday writer. In-class writing workshops will be used to indentify principles of effective writing and common writing errors. Students will conduct a writing self-assessment and perform peer critiques. The instructor will critique drafts of the major research paper, applying writing principles discussed in class and in the writing textbook.
Which written assignments include revision in response to instructor’s feedback? / Students are required to revise the major research paper (a conflict case study) based on instructor feedback.
Are expectations for Information Literacy listed in the course syllabus? If not, how will students be informed of course expectations? /  Yes X No
Written guidelines for the conflict case study indicate that students should review relevant background literature, relying on academic books and articles. During class, the instructor will discuss differences between research literaturewritten for an academic audience versus popular literature targeted to a mass audience. The instructor will reinforce this distinction by discussing examples of sources and their appropriate uses and limitations. The instructor will also demonstratelibrary data bases that are most useful for accessing academic research on communication and conflict. The major research paperwill develop students’ skill at integrating outside sources with the students’ own observations and analysis, based on an original case study.
VI. Writing Assignments: Please describe course assignments. Students should be required to individually compose at least 20 pages of writing for assessment. At least 50% of the course grade should be based on students’ performance on writing assignments. Clear expression, quality, and accuracy of content are considered an integral part of the grade on any writing assignment.
Formal Graded Assignments / Conflict case study drafts (8-12 pages)
Conflict case study revision (8-12 pages)
Reaction papers (4 papers, each 2-3 pages)
Writing self-assessment (4-6 pages)
Informal Ungraded Assignments / Peer critiques – students will use a template to critique drafts submitted by other students
VII. Syllabus:Paste syllabus below or attach and send digital copy with form.  The syllabus should clearly describe how the above criteria are satisfied. For assistance on syllabus preparation see:

Paste syllabus here.

SYLLABUS, COMM 413, COMMUNICATION AND CONFLICT-WRITING

PROFESSOR: Alan Sillars

Office: LA 345

Office hours:

email:

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Conflict is a common feature of personal, professional and public life that has a variety of potential consequences. Although conflict can be a disruptive force, it can also lead to innovation, improved adjustment, and better decisions. By studying conflict, we hope to gain competency at managing conflicts and to move them in a productive direction.

This course examines the intricacies of human conflict with special attention to communication processes that escalate, manage, and mediate disputes. We will cover such topics as the basic elements and nature of conflict, conflict styles, strategies, and patterns, subjective and discursive framing of conflict, power and resistance, interest-based negotiation, and conflict mediation. The concepts and theories discussed in the course are broadly applicable to different types of conflict. We will analyze examples of interpersonal, political, environmental, organizational, and family conflicts. Both theory and application are stressed, with an emphasis on their inter-relationship.

The content of COMM 413 (Communication and Conflict-Writing) is equivalent to COMM 412 (Communication and Conflict); however, COMM 413 is a writing intensive class designed to fulfill the Upper Division Writing Requirement of UM’s general education requirements. Credit is not allowed for both COMM 413 and COMM 412. If you have already taken COMM 412 or are now taking that class, you are not eligible to enroll in COMM 413.

We will work to enhance writing proficiency through in-class workshops focused on principles of effective writing and identification of common writing errors. Peer critiques and a writing self-assessment will help students identify writing strengths and areas for improvement. You will submit five papers for the course, including four short reaction papers that respond to assigned readings and a major research paper consisting of a conflict case study. You will submit portions of the case study in stages over the course of the semester and revise the paper based on instructor and peer feedback. Papers will be graded based on writing as well as content.

WRITING OBJECTIVES

By the end of the semester, students should achieve the following learning outcomes for upper-division writing courses:

  • Identify and pursue more sophisticated questions for academic inquiry
  • Find, evaluate, analyze, and synthesize information effectively from diverse sources
  • Manage multiple perspectives as appropriate
  • Recognize the purposes and needs of discipline-specific audiences and adopt the academicvoice necessary for the chosen discipline
  • Use multiple drafts, revision, and editing in conducting inquiry and preparing written work
  • Follow the conventions of citation, documentation, and formal presentation appropriate tothat discipline
  • Develop competence in information technology and digital literacy

TEXTS

  • Wilmot, W.W. & Hocker, J.L. (2005). Interpersonalconflict(7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
  • Fisher, E., Ury, W., & Patton, B. (1991). Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in(2nd ed.). Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.
  • Lunsford, A. A. (2005). The Everyday Writer, (3rd Edition). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS

Electronic Reserve (Mansfield Library)

  • Sillars, A. Roberts, L., Dun, T., & Leonard, K. (2001). Stepping into the stream of thought: Cognition during marital conflict. In V. Manusov & J. H. Harvey (Eds.), Attribution, communication behavior, and close relationships (pp. 193-210). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Rogan, R.G. (forthcoming). A terrorist’s messages to the world: A frame analysis of Osama bin Laden’s fatwas. In Donohue, W.A., Kauffman, S.,& Rogan, R.G. (Eds),Framing in Negotiation: State of the art. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
  • Lutgen-Sandvik, P. (2006). Take this job and…: Quitting and other forms of resistance to workplace bullying. Communication Monographs, 73, 406-433.

Web Readings

  • Rosenberg, S. Face. Beyond intractability. G. Burgess & H. Burgess (Eds.), Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted February, 2004 to

REQUIREMENTS

Exams

There will be two exams over the lectures and readings. The exams will be a combination of objective and short essay questions. The second exam will be noncumulative.

Conflict case study

You will write a paper analyzing a conflict that is in the public domain, for example, a conflict that is portrayed in the news, on the internet, in historical documents, or in literature. The conflict can be real or fictional and either historical or contemporary, provided that you can locate sufficient material to conduct an in-depth analysis. To conduct the analysis, you will need written texts (for example, letters, blog posts, speeches, news reports) that give background on the conflict and also provide first person accounts of the conflict from the perspective of the principal parties. One of the goals of the paper is to analyze how people subjectively and discursively frame conflict, so you need statements from parties who are directly involved in the conflict describing the situation in their own words. Third party analysis (such as news reports, historical analysis, or editorials by third parties) may be useful as background but you will also need first person accounts to conduct the analysis.

The paper may take the form of either: 1) a frame analysis in which you identify subjective and discursive frames in a conflict and analyze their implications (see the Rogan reading as a model), or 2) a conflict assessmentfocusing on particular aspects of conflict (e.g., power, goals, culture) that seem important to the case that you are analyzing (see Wilmot and Hocker’s Conflict Assessment Guide for ideas). Some examples of suitable material for either analysis include: 1) documents or web pages produced by organizations involved in a local environmental conflict; 2) speeches, interviews, and other public statements by political figures involved in international disputes; 3) a novel that provides a complex account of family conflict, 4) counter-institutional web sites that vent employee and customer dissatisfactions (e.g., targetsucks.com, radioshacksucks.biz, walmartsucks.org); 5) public testimony at meetings (such as City Council meetings) that involve conflicts over land use or neighborhood planning; 6) blogs and other web posts that air conflicts involving celebrities, sports figures and/or their fans; or 7) news stories that reveal differences in media framing of conflict (e.g., stories about Middle East conflicts by U.S. vs. Middle Eastern news sources).

There are other possibilities and I will consider creative ideas but keep in mind that this is not a self-analysis paper, so the conflict should not be one that you have personally experienced or that involves your own circle of acquaintances. In addition, you must work from written texts. Movies and television shows do not provide sufficient material, unless supplanted with transcripts and other documents. In most cases, you cannot conduct your own interviews with disputing parties without first obtaining approval from UM’s Institutional Review Board.

Other ideas and guidelines for the research paper will be covered in class.

Attendance, participation, and class preparation

Class attendance and participation are essential because much of the course content will be presented through class discussions and activities, including writing workshops. More than three absences will result in a grade reduction, with the number of points deducted based on the number of absences over three. In addition, you have to be in class on days when reaction papers are due to get credit, since the reaction papers are designed to stimulate class discussion of the readings. Of course, I will show flexibility toward someone who misses days for reasons that are truly unavoidable, such as an extended illness or family emergency. Please email me if such a situation arises.

Before reaction papers are due, I will distribute a set of questions about the reading that you might consider and write about. Please come to class prepared to discuss the questions and the content of your reaction paper. There will also be a few mini-assignments (peer critiques and a writing self assessment) that require some out-of-class preparation.

Grading

Grades will be assigned using the +/- system on the following basis:

Exam 1100 points

Exam 2100 points

Conflict case study – draft introduction and background 50 points

Conflict case study – draft analysis, results, conclusion 75 points

Conflict case study -- completed, revised 75 points

Reaction papers (4) 60 points

Peer critiques and writing self-assessment 40 points

500 total possible

DATES AND DEADLINES

FebruarySubmit a brief description of your plans for the conflict

case study, including the texts that you plan to analyze.

MarchSubmit draft of conflict case study, initial sections

(introduction and background).

MarchExam 1

AprilSubmit draft of case study, remaining sections (analysis,

results, conclusion).

MayCompleted, revised conflict case study paper due

May Exam 2

READING SCHEDULE

Exam 1:Wilmot & Hocker, chapters 1-3,5,7,10

Sillars

Rogan

Exam 2:Wilmot & Hocker, chapters 4,8,9

Fisher, Ury, & Patton, chapters 1-5

Lutgen-Sandvik

Rosenberg

I will notify you in advance and give you questions to consider before the days when we will discuss specific readings and when reaction papers are due.

Academic Misconduct:

Academic misconduct includes cheating on exams, plagiarism, interfering with the work of another student, and fabrication of research. Plagiarism entails using the words or ideas of another source without giving appropriate credit to the source. See Lunsford’s The Everyday Writerfor guidelines about plagiarism and ways to avoid it. Depending on the severity of the violation, plagiarism or other misconduct will result in an “F” on the assignment, failure of the course, and/or recommendation of a University sanction.

CONFLICT CASE STUDY

Analysis Guidelines

  1. Text
  2. Your “texts” consist of written material that you analyze for the case study (a play, web blog, personal or organizational web pages, etc.).
  3. The texts should be of sufficient length and complexity to allow you to analyze the conflict in depth.
  4. The texts should provide first-person accounts of conflict. This means that the texts include statements by people who are directly involved in the conflict (e.g., employees protesting the actions of their employer, representatives of organizations involved in environmental disputes, political figures involved in national or international conflicts, individuals expressing conflict on the web, literary figures embroiled in conflict).
  5. Good texts for analysis should reveal the perspectives of disputing parties about: 1) their own role in the conflict; 2) the role played by the other party or parties to the dispute; 3) the relationship between the conflicting parties; and 3) how they view the conflict as a whole – what the issues are and what the overall story (history of events) looks like.
  6. It is generally best to have texts that portray multiple sides to a dispute (e.g., what employees say about a contentious policy versus what the company says).
  1. To conduct the analysis:
  1. Start with a set of general “codes” (categories) that represent important basic distinctions that you will use in your analysis.
  1. For a frame analysis, use the frame categories from the Rogan reading – whole story frames, identity/self-presentation frames, characterization frames, conflict management frames, relationship frames, moral judgment frames. If some of these categories are more important than others in your text, then narrow it down (e.g., focus only on whole story frames, self frames, characterization frames, and relationship frames).
  1. For a conflict assessment, your codes should reflect concepts that are the central focus of the paper. For example, if you wish to analyze types and levels of conflict, you might distinguish content, relationship, identity, and process goals, using Wilmot and Hocker’s Conflict Assessment Guide, or act-based issues, value-based issues, interest-based issues, and nonrealistic issues,based on Wehr’s Conflict Map.
  1. Read through your texts and mark examples where the text reveals something about any of the codes that you began with. For example, if a particular statement suggests a whole story frame, underline the passage and write “HS” (or another abbreviation) in the margin. If you doing a conflict assessment and one of your codes is power assertion, mark “PA” next to any passage that you think reveals something relevant to the code.
  1. Also record short phrases (secondary codes) that reveal more specifically the content of the text that you have marked. These phrases should identify specific frames or themes under the general categories. For example, if you were analyzing employee complaints about Radio Shack for power relations, you might write “RS is a bully” or “bully” next to any “PA” code that suggests that Radio Shack bullies its employees.
  1. You can start assigning secondary codes either when you first mark the original codes or later as you go back through the text.
  2. You can also review and revise these secondary codes as you code more of the text. For example, perhaps the “bully” theme noted above did not occur to you initially but as you code the text you find several similar examples. At this point, you can go back and remark any examples that suggest the “bully” theme. (This is easier to do if you code the texts electronically using a word processing program.)
  3. Look for secondary codes (specific frames or themes) that represent a cluster of similar examples from the text; for example, several statements about the organization bullying its employees.
  1. Once you have finished coding your text, look for overall trends in the kinds of examples you have identified and begin to summarize these trends.
  1. Think about the implications suggested by your analysis: What is the overall story of this conflict from the perspective of the different parties? How does the perceived imbalance of power contribute to the conflict? What does your analysis suggest about the depth of the conflict and potential for constructive management? Note that these questions are just examples. There is no set of stock questions here you should address about the implications. Talk about the implications that are important given the focus of your analysis.

ORGANIZATION AND STYLE