Its three parts PART I

1. People communicate differently in different relationships. Suppose that you loan your car to a roommate to go shopping. While the roommate is at the mall, your car is stolen. Tell each of the following people about your problem. A police officer. An insurance agent. Your spouse or best friend. How would the conversation with each person vary? To whom would you disclose the most information? The least? Why?
2. Identify your own preferred style of conflict management. What are its advantages and disadvantages? Can you think of situations in which it might be best to use one style rather than the other?
3. Compose a “Family Fighting Inventory” by making note of the amount of fighting in your family, the topics most often fought about, and topics that should never have been argued about in the first place. What communication patterns have you come to expect? In what ways are they constructive/destructive? How might you change your approach to conflict?
4. Consider ways in which you could make meetings work across culturally diverse groups. What are some of the behaviors you might value and expect of others? What are some ways to be an effective leader even when those expectations are not met? Part II
5. Make a list of the groups to which you belong. What are some explicit and implicit norms that occur in these groups? Which ones are cohesive and which ones are not? Why?
6. Task-avoidance often distracts a group and wastes valuable decision-making time. However, sometimes a divergence can help group morale. When and how might avoidance help a group? Give some specific examples.
7. How does brainstorming help groups generate solutions to a problem? Why is withholding criticism during brainstorming so important?
8. Keep track of all the media you consume for two days. Then, try to go “cold turkey” for a day and eliminate all media consumption. How much media do you consume? What needs are met by your media consumption? How difficult was it to avoid all media?
9. Broadcast commercials and print advertising can be some of the most entertaining forms of mass communication. Flip through the pages of a popular magazine and consider these questions: How quickly and easily are problems solved? Does the ad appeal to the basic human needs? How is success or beauty measured? What kind of lifestyle is promoted, and what are the implications? Give specific examples. Part III 1. Access http://www.history.com/speeches and choose a speech for analysis. Prepare an outline of the speech. Try to identify the types of information the speaker used, including any examples of testimony, literal analogies, figurative analogies, brief illustrations, extended illustrations, or statistics. 2. For the speech you outlined above, rewrite the introduction and conclusion in your own style and using a slightly different approach than what was used. 3. The stages of planning a speech were given in this module. Is the order of these steps significant? Why or why not? It what ways does selecting a purpose help you analyze the situation? How does an analysis of the situation help you focus your research? 4. Consider this module’s discussion on audience analysis. Explain how a good audience analysis helps you prepare an introduction or conclusion to a speech. Also, how would it help you identify the main points of your speech or select forms of development.