As you begin to think about what kinds of assignments and activities you want to design for your course, it is important to consider the question: “What counts as a competent communicator in my course or discipline?” Communication competence has been defined in a number of different ways within the communication discipline. Although there are numerous models of communication competence, many share similar assumptions, four of which are important here. First, communication competence is measured in some degree by the achievement of a communicator’s goals. Second, competence must not only focus on individual achievement of goals, but also is dependent on whether the communicator is interacting in ways that are effective and appropriate to the social relationship (Spitzberg, 1988). That means maintaining an awareness of an appreciation for the goals and objectives of the other parties to the communication event: The other member of a dyad, the other members of a group, the audience for a public presentation. Third, communication competence is also dependent on the constraints of the social context in which the communication is occurring. Finally, although we often judge competence solely by looking at the actual behavior displayed, as noted earlier, many scholars suggest competence is not only about the skills of communication, but also about the motivation a communicator has toward particular communication events and the knowledge a communicator has about how to act within that situation (Spitzberg & Cupach, 1984).
The dynamics of competence show through in common experiences. First, consider a typical interaction you might have when buying a car. Your goal might be to get a used car for a less-than-bluebook price. One measure of communication competence is whether you actually purchase the car for your price. Yet, a more full measure of communication competence would also consider the extent to which you used strategies that were effective and appropriate to the relational and situational context. You might get the car for the price you wanted but not use strategies that were necessarily appropriate for the situation. If you communicate in a way that leaves a bad impression, for example, you might not be able to return to this dealership and expect good service on your car. Or, you might eventually get the car for the price you want but it might take you a number of different strategies to be effective with a particular salesperson. In this case, you would not be considered as competent as someone who was able to use more appropriate and effective interactions. Part of being successful in this situation is having the knowledge about what it means to negotiate for a used car and the motivation to engage in the interaction fully. The most competent buyer, then, is the one who not only achieves his or her goals, but who does so with the knowledge and skills appropriate to the relationship and situation.
In a different example, imagine a doctor interacting with a patient. It is paramount that the patient understands the conditions requiring a particular treatment or medication, and the importance of taking the medication as prescribed. The communicative competence of the doctor might be measured in terms of the level of understanding of the patient—but we also know that simply understanding does not necessarily mean compliance. The doctor must take into consideration the concerns and issues (the objectives, if you will) of the patient. Can the patient afford the medication? Are there mitigating factors that will make it difficult or impossible for the patient to enact the treatment plan? In this case, as with our used car example, part of being successful is having the knowledge about what it means to clearly articulate the problems and the ways to address those problems, and also to listen carefully to the needs and concerns of the other party in this interaction, having the motivation to engage fully in the interaction. The most competent communicator, then, is the one who not only achieves his or her goals, but who does so with the knowledge and skills appropriate to the relationship and situation.
Moving back to the classroom, helping your students become competent might not only involve the behavioral aspects, but also the knowledge and motivation aspects relevant to the situation and relationship. As you design graded formal communication assignments or ungraded, more informal, communication activities, it is important to consider the important skills, motivation, and knowledge involved in being successful within the communication activity—to consider how you want students to communicate well in these situations that you design.
Communication as a Situated Activity
Clearly, being successful as a competent communicator can vary across contexts, disciplines, and courses—and it should. Much as writing-in-the-disciplines scholarship argues against a one-size-fits-all approach to writing, we believe communication is a situated, disciplinary activity. We do not advocate for generic communication instruction being dropped in your courses and curricula. Your students need to learn to communicate within your discipline (Dannels, 2001) and within the norms, values, and expectations that your discipline holds. For example, what kinds of questions are valued and expected in the humanities? What form should those questions take? How do these question forms differ from those asked in physics? In sociology? In composition? Should questions lead to answers that are quantitative? Should questions be focused on discerning evidence, or upon expanding vision? Are narrative answers appropriate? How appropriate are anecdotes or testimonials? How new—or old—should evidence be that is provided in answers to questions in order to be deemed legitimate? How do the rules of evidence differ in history from graphic arts, economics, anthropology, or mathematics? Is discussion tightly organized in your discipline? Or, is there an expectation that creativity flows from wide-ranging tangential forays? Are agendas crucial to success? Or, are agendas seen as something that unnecessarily curtail creativity? What evidence is appropriate to sound credible as a speaker in political science? Engineering? Religious studies? Art? Should evidence have been gathered using the scientific method in order to be acceptable? Furthermore, what about organizational structures? Argumentative forms? Professional standards? Additionally, how are expectations for oral communication similar to and/or different from expectations for written communication in your discipline? Are there other forms of communication competence that are valued in addition to writing and speaking? How do all expectations for varied modalities and competencies intertwine? Although these variations in communication competence often go unaddressed, they do exist, and students have to manage them. In this book, we advocate for teaching students how to understand those variations so that they can work within them. Many faculty members tend to assume that students will somehow discern what the variations are. The astute students will. However, many students will never understand that there are criteria being applied that are not just arbitrarily chosen by their professor but are part of a larger cultural system. In a parallel example, students may learn how to write a lab report in an introductory chemistry course and, in doing so, may implicitly learn to differentiate that writing from more creative pursuits. The cultural norms surrounding writing in the sciences are well documented, but such norms are not always clearly conveyed to students.
What does this mean for us as teachers? We need to think proactively about what these rules are for our students—whether in small-group discussions, interactions to facilitate close readings of texts, presentations to illustrate professionalism, or teamwork aimed at advocacy of a particular political agenda—and help students learn to think proactively about them as well. We cannot possibly map all of the elements in any given situation that point to the specific behaviors that will inevitably be competent in that situation (see Pearson & Daniels, 1988). Rather, we need to work with students to help them learn how to discern the characteristics of all situations—academic, professional, interpersonal, civic—that they encounter. We need to help them understand communication within the disciplines, rather than communication as a generic skill that works in the same way in every situation. We also need to help them figure out how to learn what the rules are. Instead of charting a map of competence, we must look at how such maps are constructed and teach students how to discern the nature of that construction. We cannot separate what we are teaching—and what we are asking of our students—from the contexts within which they are functioning. Communicative competence implies knowledge of cultural, social, and interpersonal rules that will facilitate the negotiation of meaning among the participants. Part of our task it to help students gain this knowledge so that they can enact behaviors that are appropriate and successful in their various communication situations.
2 A Strategic Framework for Communication in the Disciplines
The question now is simply—Where do you start?
First, we acknowledge the constraints under which you are