Chapter1. If you were going to conduct research, what outcome would you want to gain from your research? Are you more interested in understanding, prediction/control, or creating social change? What is the value of each of these approaches?
Chapter 2. What role do you think the study of rhetoric can play in today's social world? The political context?
Chapter 3A. What is the role of the oral tradition in today's society?
Chapter 3b-Is it the form of the media or its content that most deeply influences us?
Chapter 4a. Select an important person in your life and pay attention to your communication climate. How do you and this other person demonstrate recognition, acknowledgement, and endorsement?
Chapter 4b. Reflect on one of your important friendships and trace its development through Rawlins' six stages. How was it affected by important transitions in your life, sexual attraction, and diversity?
Chapter 5a. What are the differences between the terms "team" and "group?" Write down a team you have been a part of and a group you have been a part of. In what ways were they effective or not effective?
Chapter 5b. How were/are decisions made in your family? Has the process changed over time? What kinds of communication surround the decision making
Chapter 6a. Think of an organization you have worked in. What theoretical perspective did the organization take towards its workers? What was it like working within the boundaries of that perspective?
Chapter 6b Explain ethical communication in organizations. What are the challenges? What are the benefits?
Chapter 7a- What are some ways that you see to support Hofstede's claim that the U.S. is the most individualistic society? Are there ways in which we display attributes of collectivism?
Chapter 7b- Describe a situation in which you attempted to diverge or converge your communication with others? What did you do? What were you attempting to accomplish by doing so? What was the result?
Chapter 7c - What are some examples of representation and symbolic annihilation you can locate and analyze in contemporary texts of popular culture?
Chapter 8a- What are some ways that your gender was communicated or taught to you by your parents? Other family members? Your school? Friends? Church?
Chapter 8b What ways do you break traditional gender roles?