Critical Media Theories | Spring 2025
📜 Course Description
Expands students' professional and team communication skills and strategies in technical contexts. Integrates writing, speaking and group communication by developing and presenting technical information to different audiences. Written assignments focus on creating professional technical documents, such as proposals, memos, abstracts, reports and letters. Presentation assignments emphasize planning, preparing and delivering dynamic, informative and persuasive presentations.
Instructor: David Rheams
Office hours: By Appointment
Email: davidc.rheams@utdallas.edu
Class Website: Critical Media Theory | Spring 2025
Course Schedule: Link
Credit Hours: 3
University Policies
Learning Objectives
- Ability to enhance credibility through communication that adheres to professional and ethical norms.
- Ability to adapt to different purposes, constraints, and audiences.
- Ability to develop arguments with front loaded claims and appropriate evidence.
- Ability to use visual rhetoric to enhance message effectiveness.
- Ability to collaborate in a team to research, plan, and present information.
- Ability to research, draft, and edit documents that adhere to technical and professional standards.
Ability to prepare organized speeches and present them with appropriate verbal and nonverbal delivery.
🧰 What You'll Get Out of This Class
General Core Area 010 Communication
Description: Courses in this category focus on developing ideas and expressing them clearly, considering the effect of the message, fostering understanding, and building the skills needed to communicate persuasively. Courses involve the command of oral, aural, written, and visual literacy skills that enable people to exchange messages appropriate to the subject, occasion, and audience.
- Core Objectives: Critical Thinking (CT)–to include creative thinking, innovation, inquiry, and analysis, evaluation, and synthesis of information
- Communication (COM)-to include effective development, interpretation, and expression of ideas through written, oral, and visual communication
- Teamwork (TW)-to include the ability to consider different points of view and to work effectively with others to support a shared purpose or goal
- Personal Responsibility (PR)-to include the ability to connect choices, actions, and consequences to ethical decision-making
💡Helpful Tools
These are the writing and organization tools I will mention during the semester. They all have a free option. I’ll add to this list as we go through the semester.
- Purdue’s Online Writing Lab (OWL)
- Harvard’s Writing Center
- Academic Writing Style & Active & Passive Voice
Attendance
The class is taught async, but there is weekly work due so that I can make sure you’re on track for the semester. Think of the weekly assignments as your attendance.
Technologies & Platforms
As we've switched to an online class, here's what you'll need from a technology perspective.
- Class website: This website will have your schedule, lectures, instructions, reading materials, and everything else you need. If you're reading this, then you're in the right place.
- MS Teams: We will use MS Teams as the place for you to meet during lab, have class discussions, and talk to me! It's not perfect, but it will serve our purposes. We'll use it to give our presentations at the end of the semester.
- eLearning: We'll use eLearning to turn in your Think Pieces, Assignments, and any other class materials for a grade. However, this website is the source of truth for all dates and activities. So if you want to know when something is due, check here first.
Internet connectivity is a requirement for the course in normal times, but especially because this section will meet asynchronously in Teams. Reliable connectivity is necessary for class preparation, submission of assignments, work on group projects, and class participation.
The course uses eLearning, which you should check frequently. All assignments that are to be submitted through eLearning must be submitted via eLearning for credit. Otherwise, submission of major assignments by any other method for work that is assigned to be submitted through eLearning will not be accepted and will result in a grade of zero.) Assignments should be submitted in MS Word files (not pdf, .odt, etc.) so that grading comments and edits can be tracked.
📚 Text Books
Business and Technical Communication: A Guide to Writing Professionally, Fourth Edition by Maribeth Schlobohm and Christopher Ryan. Copyright 2023. This is an online book that can be purchased at the following site:https://he.kendallhunt.com/product/business-and-technical-communication-guide-writing-professionally-0
Please note that earlier editions of the textbook may not be used for the course, as the current edition has a number of changes from previous editions. The online book is required for completion of quizzes.
🏆 Grading & Assignments
The Assignments has all of the details and policies. We are doing a mixture of group and individual assignments this semester. Here’s the general outline:
Team Paper: Feasibility Report
Scale
- A 94%-100%
- A- 90% - 93%
- B 84% - 89%
- B- 80% - 83%
- C 70% - 79%
- D 60% - 69%
- F < 60%
😢 Plagiarism
Presenting someone else’s ideas as your own, either verbatim or recast in your own words, is a serious offense with serious consequences. In short, don't do it.