College of Communication
Please direct all questions about the flag proposal process to the Center for the Skills & Experience Flags.
Department of Radio-Television-Film
Department of Communication Studies
RTF 368C Advanced Directing
Department of Radio-Television-Film
Please describe how students will engage in independent investigation and presentation of their own work through the course. Please explain specifically how your course engages students in the process of inquiry in your discipline.
Meisner technique meets Dogme 95 filmmaking in this advanced directing and production class. Students participate in a deep individual investigation of Meisner acting technique during the first five weeks of the semester. These exercise are designed to sharpen the student’s awareness of living truthfully “in-the-moment” as an actor. Students then produce short films during the final 10 weeks of the semester. The class is a collaboration with Theatre & Dance Professor Lucien Douglas’s 4th year BFA acting class. RTF directing students work with theatre & dance actors in the production of the short films. Please see the attached syllabus for additional details.
What kinds of projects, artifacts, presentations, or performances do your students produce as a result of engaging in this process of inquiry?
Students write, direct, produce, shoot, and edit short films using a set of restrictions inspired by the Dogme 95 “Vow of Cinematic Chastity” (detailed in the attached syllabus). The goal is to create performance-based works that emphasize simplicity and ingenuity in image and sound choices. The films are screened publicly at the RTF End-of-Semester Screenings.
Please explain what independent work students will do in this course. If students are engaged in team-based projects, explain how every student will exercise responsibility for and independence with some portion of the project.
Filmmaking is by its nature a collaborative activity but in this course each student will take on significant individual responsibility for his or her final film project. The students will work in two-person production teams. Each student will, at a minimum, write or co-write, direct or co-direct, produce or co-produce, and either shoot or edit the final film.
What pedagogical strategies do you use to prepare students to undertake the inquiry process in your course? If applicable, how does the work that students produce in this course build upon skills or knowledge they have developed in previous coursework?
Students typically come into this class with some rudimentary knowledge about working with actors. This class builds on and develops that base of knowledge. This is an intensive workshop class. I use a mixture of readings, lecture, participatory exercises, critique and discussion to accomplish the goals of the course. The readings (from Sanford Meisner’s “On Acting”) and the Meisner-based acting exercises during the first five weeks of the semester help to prepare the students for their work on the final film projects.
Please specify what percentage of the students’ grade is based on the process of inquiry as described above. Note that for a 3-hour course, at least one-third of the course grade must be based on the students’ independent investigation and presentation of their own work. (Students’ independent work must constitute one-half of the grade for 2-hour courses and all of the grade for 1-hour courses.)
This is a 3-hour course. I estimate that 50% of the grade is dependent on the process of inquiry described above. The final film is worth 35% of the semester grade. I estimate that half of the class participation/engagement in learning score (worth 30% of the semester grade) relates directly to the process of inquiry described above.
CMS 358 Communication and Personal Relationships
Department of Communication Studies
Please describe how students will engage in independent investigation and presentation of their own work through the course. Please explain specifically how your course engages students in the process of inquiry in your discipline.
This course requires students to complete at least one project involving independent inquiry. The number and type of inquiry projects vary across instructors (currently there are two instructors teaching this course, one of whom already has an approved II Flag at the instructor level). But for all inquiry projects, students must identify a research question they want to investigate, review existing literature relevant to that question, collect data, and generate a response to their initial question either in a research paper or presentation. The data students collect can be interview, observational, and/or survey data.
What kinds of projects, artifacts, presentations, or performances do your students produce as a result of engaging in this process of inquiry?
Students either write a research paper or give a class presentation in which they present their research question, explain how existing literature informs their question, describe their data collection and findings, and discuss the implications and limitations of their findings.
Please explain what independent work students will do in this course. If students are engaged in team-based projects, explain how every student will exercise responsibility for and independence with some portion of the project.
All students (across instructors) must independently identify a research question and collect data that address that question. They must analyze the data they collect, organize their findings, and write a paper that shows how the findings address their research question and contributes to extant literature. In addition to a research paper, instructors might also include a second project in which students work as a group to identify a research question, collect observational data that address the question, analyze the data, and prepare a 20-minute oral presentation together. For these projects, group members would be required to participate in every stage of the project. Students would complete anonymous peer evaluations to provide the instructor with information on each member’s participation.
What pedagogical strategies do you use to prepare students to undertake the inquiry process in your course? If applicable, how does the work that students produce in this course build upon skills or knowledge they have developed in previous coursework?
To complete the independent inquiry projects, students must use research skills they have developed in previous coursework to identify a question, collect data, and investigate prior research that is relevant to their question. Completing the projects also requires students to use their knowledge of communication theory to interpret their findings and show how their findings contribute to existing theory and research. Additional guidance regarding the research process would also be provided throughout the course.
Please specify what percentage of the students’ grade is based on the process of inquiry as described above. Note that for a 3-hour course, at least one-third of the course grade must be based on the students’ independent investigation and presentation of their own work. (Students’ independent work must constitute one-half of the grade for 2-hour courses and all of the grade for 1-hour courses.)
At least a third of students’ grades will be based on the independent inquiry projects described above. For both of the current instructors, 40% of the grade would stem from the inquiry projects.