Stories We Tell Course Pairing
Introduction to Communication: Finding Ways to Document and Tell Our Stories (CM203T)
The focus of this course is a broad overview of the mass media and an analysis from the viewpoints of practitioner, critic, and consumer. Students will explore the media through readings, written exercises, self-reflective essays, field experiences and a student project that researches and analyzes an aspect of the mass media.From poetry to journal writing, students will find ways to document, analyze, and critique their stories.Faculty Biography
Dr. Whitehead is Associate Professor of Communication and African and African American
Studies at Loyola University Maryland; the Founding Executive Director of The Emilie
Frances Davis Center for Education, Research, and Culture; a K-12 Master Teacher in
African American History; an award-winning curriculum writer and lesson plan developer;
an award-winning former Baltimore City middle school teacher; and, a three-time New
York Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker. She received her Ph.D. from the University
of Maryland, Baltimore County in the Language, Literacy, and Culture program, her
M.A. from the University of Notre Dame, Indiana in International Peace Studies, her
graduate degree in Advanced Documentary and Narrative Filmmaking from the New York
Film Academy, and her B.A. from Lincoln University, PA. From 2013-2015, Whitehead
was selected to participate in the White House's Black History Month Panel co-sponsored
by President Obama and the Association for the Study of African American Life and
History ASALH. Her most recent book, Notes from a Colored Girl: The Civil War Pocket
Diaries of Emilie Frances Davis (USC Press, 2014), received the 2015 Darlene Clark
Hine Book Award 2. She is the Letters to My Black Sons: Raising Boys in a Post-Racial
America (Apprentice House, 2015). Her forthcoming book, The Emancipation Proclamation:
Race Relations on the Eve of Reconstruction (Routledge) is due out January 2017. For
more information, please visit http://kayewisewhitehead.com.
Effective Writing: Moving the World with Your Words (WR100DT)
In small-group workshops and through writing exercises designed to make you a self-sufficient
thinker, you will examine how writers gain their authority; how they try to move you
with their written words (their stories); and how you can move others with words of
your own. You will read essays on provocative topics—especially about gender and
racial issues--that will complicate your thinking and help strengthen your ability
to uncover the codes, cues, and clues that are embedded in everything from advertisements
to sophisticated arguments.
Through such readings, our in-class discussions, and your writing assignments, you will develop an awareness of, sensitivity toward, and respect for the differences of race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, culture, sexual orientation, religion, age, and disabilities. By the end of the course you will surprise yourself not only by how well—and how much—you write but also by how well you can analyze the many assumptions and misdirections that manipulate most people. There will be no exams, no easy answers, no tidy lessons.
Through such readings, our in-class discussions, and your writing assignments, you will develop an awareness of, sensitivity toward, and respect for the differences of race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, culture, sexual orientation, religion, age, and disabilities. By the end of the course you will surprise yourself not only by how well—and how much—you write but also by how well you can analyze the many assumptions and misdirections that manipulate most people. There will be no exams, no easy answers, no tidy lessons.
Faculty Biography
Dr. Ron Tanner is an award-winning writer who has taught at Loyola for 24 years. He
and his wife live in a Victorian house that was once a fraternity. They run www.houselove.org, a DIY website with a national readership. In his spare time, Ron travels the country
in his camper van, giving talks on old house restoration. Also, he leads Jazz Caravan,
a local jazz band, and directs two on-going documentary projects: the Marshall Island
Story Project and Preservation America.
Mentor Biography
Colleen is entering her 14th year at Loyola University Maryland in Student-Athlete
Support Services. She previous worked at Temple University as an Academic Coordinator
for the Athletic Department and prior to that she was a graduate student mentor for
the Villanova University Athletic Department. She has a Bachelor's degree in Community
Health Education from Purdue University, where she was a member of the swim team.
She has a Master's degree from Villanova University in Counseling and Human Services
and she is currently pursuing a PhD in Higher Education Administration at Morgan State
University.