Unit 1: Understanding Communication
and Culture

Exploration of Personal Identity
6/7 weeks

Definitions of identity:
What are you like?
Who are you? What do we/you need to
know?

Self-concept and self-image (click for exercises)

Chapter 3 AS Communication and Culture: The Essential Introduction (Bennett & Slater)
Or
Chapter 1 "Between Ourselves" (Dimbleby and Burton)

Introduce students to your Virtual Learning Environment (Moodle, Learnwise, Blackboard etc) – check everyone can log on. If you don’t have a VLE in your institution, set up a group on the Communication and Culture Social Networking site

Direct students to Forum where teacher has set up discussion thread for each teaching group.  Teacher should do first posting – introducing themselves and leaving a photo.

HOMEWORK
Each person to post a personal profile and photo (if poss) by next week introducing themselves 50-100 words.   Find three other people (from the postings) who have similar interests to you or whom you like the look of and post on the “First Impressions” thread, what attracted you to them – their photo, their writing style etc?

Unit 1: Understanding Communication
and Culture

Culture
6/7 weeks

What is Culture?
What is culture/sub-cultures: definitions - do exercise - click here or use the Culture Show animated display of video clips with famous people defining culture.


The high culture, popular culture debate.

Reinforcement of culture as a relative, contested concept

1. Play iPod playlist with different music styles and ask students to describe or categorise what they hear in terms of the quotes they have – use quotes as headings and put number of piece of music underneath

2. Use the online poster site, Glogster. Get your students to make a collage of what they think culture is and different images and definitions of high and popular culture - example here. They can comment on each other's 'Glogs' online, afterwards.

Follow up from homework – Discuss  profiles and what students have chosen to reveal about themselves.

Introduce idea of Self disclosure - read pages 64 - 67 (Bennett & Slater). Use powerpoint to demonstrate how Johari works. Get students to draw three windows and adapt it for three different relationships - close family member, best friend, casual acquaintance.

First Impressions thread – discuss the impact people’s profiles have had on others.

Self Esteem exercises - click here
Lifeline exercise – click here for sample
Read pages 58-60 in AS Comm and Culture.

We care more about some people’s impressions than others – significant others, role models, reference groups (Facebook)

Activity - Look at Langer and Dweck diagram (click here for slide) and get students to make up their own example.

Self Maintenance Strategies – how do we maintain our sense of self?  Gergen and Gergen

HOMEWORK – each person to leave a link to their Facebook, My Space or Bebo site on their profile on the VLE.  Each person to review two people’s profiles and compare their Comm and Culture

WHY is Culture a contested term? WHAT MIGHT AFFECT YOUR VIEW OF CULTURE?
Class, gender, ethnicity

3. British culture – list some traditions, customs, ways of life

4. Youth culture – list some things which make up youth culture

How would men and women view or participate in these things differently?
Gender items, ethnicity

Agents of cultural transmission: family;
school; mass media; religion; education; peers - use powerpoint - tie in with identity on other half of course.

Begin reading articles on culture and students to make a powerpoint slideshow of their responses to the questions.  Give out laptops.

Different Faces thread – discuss how people have changed their self presentation to suit different contexts and audiences in Facebook/Bebo/MySpace compared to the academic social networking site.

Roles – what are they?  Why do we play them?

Make link with Profiles, first impressions and self presentation.

Identity and self-presentation; personae and masks, Staging (context) a performance; personal style (individual identity)

ACTIVITY - Introduce Goffman
Goffman regarding self-presentation as impression management or as a performance.  He used the analogy of the theatre to describe how we play our social roles.  To test out this analogy, let’s see how far it fits a selection of roles. 

Fill in the A4 copy of the chart below which your teacher will give you. (partly completed example here). Feedback and discuss how well the theatre analogy works for different occupational roles (e.g doesn't work as well for Member of Parliament (M.P) why not?). Would it work for social roles?

Look at the diagram of the self and roles-click here.  Some of it has been filled in for you.  Fill in the rest of the spaces (on the A4 copy your teacher will give you) to map out all your roles and how they are performed. How do performed acts change with different audiences?

STAGING
Consider your own roles in different ‘stages’ or settings. How does your ‘performance’ change in the following settings - fill in the chart.

Goffman Reading References: Page 76-82  AS Comm and Culture

SAMPLE EXAM QUESTION
We are often advised to think carefully about our self-presentation in formal situations like interviews. Write about the ways in which one of the following elements of self concept
affect our performance in such situations.
• Self-esteem
Mirror Self
• Ideal self

Finish reading articles on culture and students to make a powerpoint slideshow of their responses to the questions.  Give out laptops.

Discussion re articles – pick out key comments.

Cultural texts, cultural practices and their value.

What is Art?

GROUPWORK (need laptops or computers) – Assign groups to high culture or low culture argument.   Ask them to review Banksy’s art www.banksy.co.uk on his website, and then construct an argument for their view of culture in relation to Banksy  - is he an artist or a vandal? Should his work be cleaned off buildings and should he be punished or should we value what he produces?

Review points of view on whiteboard - see sample comments from previous student work

Cultural Practices

Collect some pictures of cultural practices - see examples on website - lighting candles in Catholic churches, cock-fighting, fairgrounds, Morris dancing etc.

Get groups to research how these practices originated, who practised them (peasants, nobility etc) and what they signify or mean nowadays.

Language: Verbal and non verbal communication

Part of our SELF and how we PRESENT to others  is to create a ‘mask’  through verbal and non-verbal communication.

Differences between verbal and non-verbal communication:

ACTIVITY
Try miming three short messages to your partner using no verbal communication (words) at all – you cannot mouth or act out words.

1. Meet you after this lesson in the foyer at 4.00
2. Freedom is essential to human happiness
3. Last year I had much shorter hair than this year.

Which messages were difficult to convey without words (language/verbal comm.) and why?

What are the characteristics of each method of communication – verbal (language) and non-verbal? Finish the statements below on a piece of paper.

Non-verbal communication can……
Verbal communication/language can
Non-verbal communication cannot …..
Verbal communication cannot…….

Compare your list of statements with this chart

ACTIVITY
Find a partner and then another pair of people.  Decide between you which pair will read pages 35-53 of AS Communication and Culture: The Essential Introduction,  the sections on paralanguage, physical appearance and which pair will read sections on body movement and proxemics or touching and eye movement. 
Once you have allocated a section to each person, read your section and then write down a definition of your category and a list of factors which affect the use of that category e.g proximity is the distance between people.  Factors which affect its use are status……..etc

Present your findings in two powerpoint slides – in bullet points.

HOMEWORK – Read the section on Functions of NVC starting on page 48 of textbook, ready to discuss next lesson.

How we use NVC in
different contexts, situations, places.

ACTIVITY ONE
Still working in your groups of FOUR
Devise an observation chart (click here for sample) to observe the categories of NVC you have learnt about so far – bodily contact, proximity, appearance, posture and gesture.

Leave space on your chart to look at these categories in two different context in college e.g the foyer, the canteen, the Ritazzo café, the library etc.  Choose contrasting contexts and observe for 10 mins in each setting.

ACTIVITY TWO
Read this student investigation into the use of NVC on MSN.  Have a look at the powerpoint presentation the student used to illustrate their findings. How are non-verbal elements conveyed?   Do they work as well as gestures, clothing etc?

Make some screen captures of some of your MSN conversations and find the features which replace the following:

Clothing and physical appearance
Smiling and eye contact (feedback)
Tone of voice or emphasis
Volume

HOMEWORK
Do misunderstandings ever develop?  Do boys and girls use different methods of communicating their identity, expression etc?

SAMPLE EXAM QUESTION
Personal communication is much influenced by the gender of both senders and receivers. Consider gender’s specific influence on one of the following:
• Body Language
• Paralanguage
• Appearance

What cultural texts and products do I engage with? (Student mini-presentation)

Go on the website below and read some of the views of other young people about various aspects of culture in Nottingham.
www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/blast/

Choose an aspect of culture – film, art, performance, a festival etc which is happening in Nottingham in the next week and write your own review, like the ones you have read.

Alternatively, make a presentation about it - with music, pictures and words.

Introduction  to Language
Recap on Definition of Language and differences between NVC and Language

Language and Social Differences

Formal/informal;sociolect/dialects/idiolect Outline what social differences are – age, class, gender, race etc  

Use Language and Identity Powerpoint on Resources page.

Language and Gender.
Give out Language and Gender handout.  Get students into gender specific groups – all boys in one group (s), all girls in another.
What do boys talk about in all boy groups?  What do girls talk about?

Reading Images and Texts

Task 1

Make a list of all the different kinds of 'texts' you can think of which you come across in your everyday life - they can include written and visual information.

Task 2

Look at the product image on this link What kind of text is this? How is it a product of it's culture - click here
It's a media text - to contextualise texts always ask these questions (S.P.A.T)

Subject
Purpose
Audience
Text Type

Write down four questions which would make me describe the product for you e.g "What colour is it?'
Write down four questions which would make me analyse the text e.g "Why is the colour red used?"

The first four questions are called LOWER ORDER questions - we don't want to use these on the textual analysis paper so avoid questions beginning with 'what', 'when' or 'where'.

The second four questions are called HIGHER ORDER questions - these are the sorts of questions you should use - they usually start with the words 'HOW' and 'WHY'.

Look at the text on this link.. Click on the image to get a full size image. The purpose of this next task is to determine how this text communicates with us?

What questions do we need to ask about this text, in order to answer the question above and ANALYSE the text? Only use questions starting with HOW or WHY.

Come up with four questions which will help us to understand what is happening in the text.

HOMEWORK

Collect examples of different kinds of texts - bus tickets, posters, receipts, sweet wrappers etc and bring to the next lesson.

Socialisation: acquisition of gender
identities.

Use Identity powerpoint.

What is socialisation?  Students to write definition.

Exercises 2.15 and 2.17  from “Culture and Identity” Warren Kidd on Gender Identity.

Articles on Masculinity and Femininity – click here

Identities in other cultures – video material from National Geographic site.

IN GROUPS OF FOUR

Using examples of texts from around your house, in your handbag etc . Stick them down on the sugar paper. Label each text with the genre. Then write around each text what you can tell us about each text and how it is communicating, using the questions we developed in earlier exercises.

Ask them to jot down similiarities and differences.  Reinforce that the similarities are the CONVENTIONS.
Give back the stuff to original owners and do exercise below.

Give out a set of leaflets from the drawer to each group.  Ask them to name the type of text, then ask them to group the leaflets according to GENRE.

Genre

Texts belong to different categories, types or genres and provide a context for the message we receive. When you are asked to interpret or decode a message, part of what helps you do so is the context (what sort of text it is). If you are analysing or decoding a magazine article, you recognise the conventions of a magazine article - the language, the way of laying it out, the use of certain kinds of image. If you are watching a film, you recognise key elements (read this article about font styles used in different film posters )which identify it as science fiction or horror and this helps you to understand the narrative.

Select three magazines aimed at women and girls . Look at the covers of these magazines. Remember the questions which helped us understand the previous text - ask yourself those questions about these texts.

•  What similarities do you notice between these three texts? Write them down.

•  What differences are there? Why are there these differences?

Group communication
POWERPOINT
Groups we belong to and why.

Introduce case study of a teenage subculture and set up groups to work on it over next few weeks (discussion forum for each group)  – Presentations in week beg 1st Dec

Functions and goals of groups

 Introduce PARADIGM and SYNTAGM in Module 2 booklet.
Discuss the sets (paradigms) of clothes and words in booklet. Ask them what they are sets of……

REINFORCE main paradigms are VERBAL, NON-VERBAL and VISUAL.

Give them some other paradigm titles (sets) and ask them to cut out some words, pictures etc in those sets, from magazines (place on paper but don’t stick on.  Then use some of them to make up some syntagms or texts with a message.

Bathroom
Women
Sport

Do exercises on paradigms, making up different syntagms.
Look at The Lurve Cards text and discuss paradigms.  

HOMEWORK
The Lurve Cards exam question
Remind students to use the Analysing Texts grid.
Collect homework on PARADIGM and SYNTAGM. 

Group Task - Handout

Discussion of group task – roles, group dynamics

Group identity and cohesion; group
Dynamics - POWERPOINT

Quiz on terminology so far
What is the formula or acronym for beginning to look at a text?
What do these letters stand for?
What is the word used to describe categories of texts?
What are CONVENTIONS of a text?
Give me an example of a paradigm?
What is a SYNTAGM?

Approaches to analysing communication
Introduce process and exchange.
Idea of texts having sender and receiver – use texts used for Conventions homework – ask who sender and receiver are.
Does this tell us anything about the text or message itself?

Week 9

Introduction to Semiotics
Point at things in room and ask for its ‘sign’.  Ask what the relationship is between the sign and the object
Introduce de Saussure – linguist.  SIGNIFIER and SIGNIFIED. Read page 13 of booklet.
Write down meanings of words

Look at these words. Write down what they mean to you. Compare what you have written down to a friend. Check the meaning given in the dictionary. What did you find?

harridan
libel
meridian
picket

Discuss different definitions people have come up with.

HOMEWORK
Read pages 14 and 15 of Module 2 booklet

C.S Peirce
Use Semiotic powerpoint to explain Icon, Index and Symbol. 

What kind of text uses iconic signs?  What kind of audiences do iconic signs work best with?

Unit 2: Individual and Contemporary Culture
Launch of coursework portfolio 2 weeks

• The demands of the coursework portfolio - ideas for topics, means of presentation etc.

Introduce the idea of the 'webfolio' - work will be submitted in digital or electronic form.

• Section A: First reading
Each topic

Language and Personal Identity
Good Taste/Bad Taste
Jahsonic - definition of Taste
Popular and High Culture: An Analysis And Evaluation
Of Taste Revised by Herbert J. Gans
Body Image/Self Esteem
Body Image - what is it?
Article on Men, Body Image and Lads mags
Male Body Image by John Updike

• Selecting topics for readings
• Formulating titles

INDIVIDUALLY - Spot the Symbol exercise - page of logos for students to guess

Read the example on guns.

GROUP EXERCISE - THREES

Give out some big pieces of paper. Ask them to divide into four columns headed PICTURE, ICON, INDEX, SYMBOL.  
Give them some magazines.  Ask them to cut out pictures of things and stick them in the PICTURE column.  Next to each picture they should complete the ICON, INDEX and SYMBOL columns as far as they can – e.g ICON of a rose, INDEX of nature, SYMBOL of romance etc. 

HOMEWORK –C.S Peirce suggested that it was useful to differentiate between the ways in which signs function as icon, index and symbol. Examine the ways in which signs function differently on the leaflet for Magna (Science Adventure Centre).

Have a look at this article about the significance of the London Underground symbol.

Unit 2: Individual and Contemporary Culture
Launch of coursework portfolio 2 weeks

• Conduct student tutorials for First Readings
• Student research and notemaking
• 500 word investigation

Give back Magna homework (sample answer timed to arrive on VLE 9/10/07)

Introduce Barthes’ Levels of Signification.
Discuss Red Indian example.

Students to attempt Mulan exercise in pairs.

Read the poem and look at drawing.   Discuss the choices (paradigm) the video designer could have chosen from and what the final choice tells us about beliefs (IDEOLOGY)
TASK – Use Levels of Signification on Finishing Touches text.   Add new information to Analysing Texts Grid.

Representation
Read through explanation of Representation page 20 of booklet.
Introduce a friend in a negative and positive way

Take some photos of yourself – which is the truest reperesentation of you - see sample

Unit 2: Individual and Contemporary Culture

Submission of 1000 word exploration
Launch Section B: Individual Presentation. (4 weeks)

“My culture: who am I in context?
Exploring Personal and Cultural Identity”

• Selection of two of the four key concepts
• Selection of format
• Produce audio and visual elements
• Finalise presentation and submit