Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Education Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Arts and Humanities

Western Michigan University

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

Communication education

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Education

Pursuing Inclusion And Justice While Affirming The Mental Health Of Marginalized Students, Tyshee E. Sonnier, Claire J. Stevenson, Joshua H. Miller Oct 2022

Pursuing Inclusion And Justice While Affirming The Mental Health Of Marginalized Students, Tyshee E. Sonnier, Claire J. Stevenson, Joshua H. Miller

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

This article provides best practices that instructors can use to affirm and support marginalized students’ mental health with a specific focus on students of color. Recently, campuses have witnessed renewed calls for diversity and inclusion in the wake of anti-Black violence. Advocates have called for needed structural changes. To build upon these calls for change, this article provides instructors with tools they can use in the interim to navigate questions of diversity, inclusion, and justice in the classroom. The essay centers the mental health needs of students from marginalized populations to hedge against the possibility that efforts to foster inclusion, …


Using Freewriting In Public Speaking Courses To Remedy Student Apathy: An Unconventional Solution To A Common Problem, Flora Keshishian Jan 2018

Using Freewriting In Public Speaking Courses To Remedy Student Apathy: An Unconventional Solution To A Common Problem, Flora Keshishian

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

Student apathy—a lack of motivation or mental presence in the classroom—is common in many academic institutions and courses of study. In Public Speaking courses, speech anxiety can be a factor that contributes to student apathy. To solve this problem, I suggest implementing an unconventional approach—in-class unguided longhand freewriting—that requires students to write nonstop about anything that comes to mind, without censoring or editing, during the first five minutes of each class session. I base this recommendation on my own observations of the students’ body language during the freewriting period, as well as my qualitative analysis of 95 students’ written feedback …