2016–17 Catalog courses

The courses listed here are those published in Calvin College’s current academic catalog. Not all courses are offered in the current year.

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Oral Rhetoric

Students examine the principles of oral and visual rhetoric in this course, with an emphasis on guided practice in the development of effective speeches. The course leads students to understand the role of rhetoric in society, to think critically about rhetorical situations and practices, and to gain proficiency in the art of rhetoric.

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Calvin Theatre Company

Membership in this production practicum is determined annually by interview/audition. Members are actively encouraged to explore the intersection of their Christian faith and the production of high-quality pieces of theatre. In the process, they receive training in the various practical aspects of theatre through participation in one production each semester. Students may participate more than one year and are encouraged to experience as many different aspects of production as possible, both onstage and backstage. Theatre majors must complete four semester hours for the major, while minors must complete two semester hours. No more than six semester hours may count toward the requirement for graduation. Prerequisite: A cumulative GPA of 2.0 or higher

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Communication and Culture

This course examines the ways in which communication is used to create, maintain, and change culture. Students have the opportunity to apply a basic understanding of the concepts of communication and culture to a range of contemporary social issues, cultural texts, and communication practices. Emphasis is given to rhetorical and discussion methods to help students learn about analyzing and constructing oral and written arguments and to work cooperatively doing a research project for class presentation.

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Visual Rhetoric

This course is a study of the rhetoric of images, how images create meaning, and how images are used to persuade. It leads students to understand the relationship between the rhetoric of images, the various audiences for those images, and their social contexts. Students learn to critique the construction of images, the ethical use of images, and the various meanings of images.

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Introduction to Film & Media

A study of film and other moving image media as art forms and cultural phenomena, including dramatic, visual, and sonic elements, theme and focus, acting, and directorial style. Topics covered include the materials and methods of media production, the major styles and genres of moving image media, and the relationship of film and television to American and world culture. Course work includes a mandatory weekly screening (lab) and readings in the history, theory, and criticism of film and television.

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Introduction to Film & Media Lab

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Communicating With Digital Media

An introduction to the principles and practice of communicating a message to an audience through digital images (still pictures, moving pictures, and graphics) and digital sound (voice, music, ambient sound, and sound effects). Students will learn the fundamental techniques of preproduction planning, camera use, lighting, sound, and editing in order to communicate their ideas effectively, artistically, and ethically. Students also will learn to communicate their messages through digital channels, especially the Internet. The course will enable students interested in social media, public relations, advertising, journalism, corporate training, sales, e-learning, publishing, worship, and the arts to realize ideas through sound and image. Students attending advanced Media Production courses must take CAS 190.

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Intro to Video Production

An introductory course in film-style production. Instruction includes pre-production planning, scriptwriting, image capture, sound, lighting and editing. Students will produce a series of exercises and a short finished video. Equipment is provided. Prerequisite for 200 and 300 level Digital Filmmaking courses.

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Advanced Oral Rhetoric

Composition and presentation of types of speeches, participation in various types of speeches, participation in various types of discussion, readings in rhetorical theory, and criticism of selected contemporary speeches. Prerequisite: CAS 101 or equivalent.

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New Media

New Media offers students an advanced understanding of new media technologies, especially the ways in which new media have influenced human communication practices. Students will investigate cultural and rhetorical elements of online communities, virtual environments, new media technologies, digital communication strategies, and a variety of contemporary issues in the computerization of communication in work, home, church, and public discourse.

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Introduction to Performance Studies

An introduction to performance as a means of analyzing, appreciating, and celebrating life and literature. By providing training in the principles and techniques of performing before an audience, this course expands students? understanding of the relationships between text and performance, literature and human action, and written and oral forms of discourse. Genres examined include poetry, prose, non-fiction, oral history, and Biblical literature.

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Directing Co-Curricular Programs

This course explores how co-curricular programs, such as forensics and debate, are organized, administered, and implemented in schools. Students will explore the principles and rationale behind such programs and develop the instructional and assessment skills required to facilitate them. Students will participate in school settings.

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American Voices

This course examines American oratory as an art form, an influence on the American experience, and a reflection of American culture. Students will develop an understanding of oratory as an aesthetic and practical art, deepen their knowledge of the American rhetorical tradition in its historical and intellectual contexts, and learn how the art of public speaking shapes our understanding of ourselves and our world. Emphasis is given to methods of critical listening and analysis and to how oratory has been transformed by the electronic age and its focus on the image.

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Argumentation and Advocacy

A study and application of basic principles of argumentation and advocacy. This course focuses on the dynamics of oral argument?ethical dimensions, use of language, informal logic, use of evidence and appeals, structure, and interactions with other arguments. Through analysis and practice, students will learn not only how to argue within academic contexts, but how to apply argumentative reasoning to everyday communication.

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Creating Comm Arts in the Classroom

This course addresses how the communication arts, such as creative drama, reader's theater, and puppetry facilitate learning in educational settings. Students learn to analyze verbal and non-verbal communication, they engage in the strategies of rhetoric (such as organization, invention, and style) appropriate to the learning process, and they apply these skills and knowledge in school settings.

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Plays in Production

The course examines theatrical performance holistically: plays in production. The course explores not only what a play means but how a play makes meaning and communicates that meaning to an audience embedded in a specific historical or contemporary cultural context. The course charts the differences in artistic practices of the playwright, producer, actor, director and designer through dominant periods of theatrical innovation and technology, and cultural developments.

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Acting for Stage & Screen

An introduction to the art of acting through readings, discussion, class exercises, improvisations and viewing performances. Students in this course learn the modern theories and techniques of acting, gaining a deep knowledge of how to both critically assess and realize finished performances for the theatre and screen. Focus is on the physical, emotional and textual preparation, exploring the creativity of the actor and culminating in a final performance.

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Calvin Media Company

Students will participate in film, radio and television productions. Students may participate more than one semester, but no more than four semester hours may be applied toward major or graduation requirements. Permission of instructor required.

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Media Cultures

A historical study of 20th and 21st century media and their various aesthetic, cultural, global, and political contexts. The relationship between the media arts and society motivates this historical survey of print journalism, advertising, radio, television, digital media and the Internet. Topics will include globalization, media systems, media industries, and mass consumption.

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Theory and Communication

An examination of the significance and role of theory in understanding the nature of human communication. The course focuses on the fundamental elements of communication processes, the assumptions that underlie communication theory, the similarities and differences between theoretical approaches, and the means of evaluating theoretical perspectives, including a Christian critique of communication theories.

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Group Communication

Small group communication theory and practice. Students participate in group projects leading to class presentations. Topics include leadership, discussion, roles, consensus, organization, decision making, leadership, and persuasion. Standards for ethical conduct are considered throughout the course.

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Writing for Media

An introduction to the content, styles, and formats of media scripts. The course emphasizes the differences in media writing compared with more familiar forms of writing, the role of the script as text in producing media programs, the styles of writing used (journalistic, dramatic, polemical, and emotive), and the technical requirements for scripts used to focus the work of directors, actors, camera, and sound technicians, editors and mixers in creating a media product. Topics: playwriting and scriptwriting. Prerequisite: CAS 190.

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Audio Design and Aesthetics

A course in the ethical, aesthetic, technical, and organizational principles that govern the recording and post-production of dialogue, music, and effects. Prerequisite: CAS 190.

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Multi-Camera Production

An introduction to the theory and practice of studio-based video production. Various program formats are discussed and evaluated in light of particular communication principles and needs. Students gain experience with stationary video cameras, recorders, switchers and related technologies. Performance for the camera, studio lighting, audio recording and mixing principles are analyzed and demonstrated. Prerequisite: CAS 190.

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Intercultural Communication

An examination of the anthropological principles relating to cross-cultural communication. This examination requires an extensive comparison of the components of cultural systems and the nature of cultural dynamics. The areas of application include government, business, Peace Corps, development, and mission work, with special emphasis on the last two. Special topics include developing an appropriate attitude regarding indigenous cultures and the management of culture shock. Also listed as Sociology 253.

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Film & Media Criticism

The theory and practice of film and media criticism. This course develops a Reformed lens for consumers and producers of media to evaluate film and mass media on behalf of church and society. Students write audience-focused reviews and evaluate others? criticism of media such as television, film, radio, popular music, and new media technologies (including the internet, digital music, video games, and blogs).

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Documentary Film & Television

An examination of the history, aesthetics, ethics and cultural and institutional functions of documentary film and television. Course includes a mandatory weekly screening (lab).

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Doc Film & Tv Screening Lab

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Interpersonal Communication

The interpersonal communication opportunities and problems faced by Christians as they seek to live the life of faith in contemporary society. The course focuses on the theories and the practice of interpersonal communication. Topics include the elements of dyadic communication, shyness, gender, conflict management, and relational enrichment.

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Business Communication

This course will instruct students in the theories, principles and practices of business communication. Subject matter will include organizational culture, communication ethics, conflict negotiation, public presentations, appropriate uses of visual aids, listening, interviewing, and business writing. Prerequisite: CAS 101 or CAS 141, and English 101.

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Communication and Gender

Study and Christian evaluation of the relations between communication and gender, especially in interpersonal relationships, family, business, religious organizations, and educational institutions and religious settings. Alternate years, fall semester.

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Film Art & Cultures I

A study of the development of film from its inception to 1960, considering cinema as an art form in the context of culture, technology, and economics. Topics include the invention of film, silent film, the rise of the classical Hollywood style and alternatives, the coming of sound, color, and widescreen, the global influence of and resistance to Hollywood, and the most important films, directors, and movements of world film. A weekly screening lab is mandatory.

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Film & Cultures 1 Lab

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Film & Cultures II

A study of the development of film from 1960 to the present, considering film as an art form in the context of culture, technology, and economics. Topics include the European art cinema, the ?New Hollywood?, the development of the blockbuster, creative and economic influences on cinema outside the United States, the most important films, directors, and movements in film, and the impact of developing digital technologies on cinematic art. A weekly screening lab is mandatory.

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Film & Cultures II Lab

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Film and Media Theory

An introduction to the key aesthetic and cultural paradigms employed in the study of film and media. Students are introduced to the diverse ways in which media is examined and critiqued, central theoretical, ethical, and critical issues surrounding the study of the moving image media, and major theories based on cognitive, ideological, semiotic, structuralist, feminist, and cultural perspectives. Various schools of film and media criticism (e.g., formalist, auteur, genre, humanist, and religious) are considered. 285 Advertising and Public Relations (3). F, S. How and why organizations use advertising and public relations to influence various publics. The course emphasizes the historical development of advertising and public relations, as well as current issues in these industries.

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Advertising & Public Relations

How and why organizations use advertising and

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Video Production II

An intermediate level course in video production. Course includes further development of technical and creative skills, with special emphasis on the planning and production of documentaries, narrative, and art films. Prerequisite: 190.

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Film As a Narrative Art

In-depth examination of the art of narrative film, focusing each semester on one or more directors, genres, or styles of filmmaking. The course pays particular attention to narration and narrative structure, characterization, conflict, setting, and point of view and also acquaints students with literary adaptation and with the contribution of film image and sound to narrative development. The course emphasizes the development of student skills in writing about film.

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Applied Theatre

A study of the theory and practice of theatre and drama used for human reflection or to raise awareness and effect social change. Students will learn to apply the core practices of facilitating, scripting and play-building to real-world contexts, while performing community service work with local agencies. Topics of study will depend on agency partnerships, but may include cross-cultural performance, community-based drama, theatre of social justice or development or the creation of theatrical texts from oral histories or personal narratives, and as such the course may culminate in an original, devised theatre performance. May be repeated, but may not count as more than one course toward the theatre major.

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Persuasion and Propaganda

The theory and practice of persuasive communication. Topics include theory and research of persuasion, improving personal persuasive abilities, recognizing and resisting persuasive strategies, and the role of propaganda in modern society. Examples for analysis are taken from advertising, religion, sales, political campaigns, and democratic and totalitarian propaganda.

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Argumentation and Advocacy

A study and application of basic principles of argumentation and advocacy. This course focuses on the dynamics of oral argument, ethical dimensions, use of language, informal logic, use of evidence and appeals, structure, and interactions with other arguments. Through analysis and practice, students will learn not only how to argue within academic contexts, but how to apply argumentative reasoning to everyday communication.

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Directing for Stage & Screen

An introduction to the practice and theory of directing. Through readings, critical analysis of scripts, discussions, performance exercises, and critique of live and filmed performance, students develop an understanding of the directing process from the inception of the script to the final product. Students create a full directorial analysis of a script and produce several finished scenes, applying rehearsal techniques, working with actors and learning to enhance their own productions through careful criticism and thoughtful assessment of the art of directing.

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American Politics & Mass Media

A survey of the relationship between American politics and the mass communications media. The course covers the way the federal government, through its regulations and its dissemination of information, affects the operations of the media, and how the media influence the social and political values of Americans and the functioning of the political system. Also listed as Political Science 318.

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Production Design

A study of the craft and art of production design for theatre, television and film from introductory technical production practices to finished design projects. Includes reading discussions, student presentations, workshops, demonstrations and group critique of student artwork aimed toward the development of basic competence in scenic, wardrobe and lighting design. Special attention is paid to the communication of design ideas in the form of written concept descriptions and oral presentation of work as well as the visual communication tools of the artist, including the use of basic computer design and visualization technologies. 320 World and Ancient Theatre History (3). A historical and cultural study investigating a range of influential world theater traditions, including: the ancient theatres of Greece, Rome and India; the classical age of African dance and theatre; the golden ages of classical Chinese and Japanese dance-song-theatre; and the religious ritual drama of First People?s theatre in the Americas. The course will focus on a study of theatre?s early sources, considering especially the religious and ritual elements of theatrical development. In so doing, the course will examine various viewpoints such as the impact of cultural identity, religious identities, gender roles, aesthetics, the meaning of power and the meaning of play.

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World & Ancient Theatre History I

A historical and cultural study investigating a

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Western Theatre History

A historical and cultural study investigating a wide range of western theatre traditions mainly from the Renaissance to the present. The history of theatre is studied as an art, as a medium of cultural expression and communication, and as a social institution. The theatre of the past is examined both for its own artistic techniques and for the knowledge that it may shed on the cultural patterns and values of the societies in which it has served as a forum of the public imagination.

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Acting for Stage & Screen

In this course, students develop advanced performance skills including identifying and playing in different styles, detailed character analysis, and scene study. Students learn techniques for both stage and camera acting, culminating in a final performance project in each medium.

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Internship in Communication

Students work in profit or non-profit communication under the supervision of a professional. Students must work with the Career Development Office and obtain an internship prior to the start of the semester. Typical placements include public relations or advertising agencies, broadcast or cable stations, video production companies and the like. A journal and seminar participation are required. Grading is based on the professional?s evaluation, the student?s daily journal, and seminar participation. Prerequisites: Junior or senior status, 2.5 GPA, and permission of the department.

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Advanced Media Production

The intensive study and production of video in a particular style or genre. The course focus, designated by a subtitle, will alternate among various genres of style, content, and form. Thorough investigation of creative, ethical, and technical requirements will culminate in student produced projects. Prerequisite: CAS 290.

  • Course code: CAS-351
  • Semester: Spring
  • Department: Communication Arts and Sciences
  • Pre-requisites: Take 1 group (Take CAS-248 CAS-249 CAS-250 /Take CAS-248 CAS-249 CAS-290 /Invalid block level for block 36749". "
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Independent Study

Independent study of topics of interest to particular students, under the supervision of a member of the department. Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.

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Special Topics in Communication

An in-depth study of feature-length film structure, story, character development and dialogue through the creation and completion of an original feature-length screenplay over the course of the semester. Workshop format.

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Special Topics in Communication Lab

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Advance Communication Study

Communication & Public Advocacy: This course involves the study and practice of communication that aims to influence cultural, social, and political change.  Students will engage a variety of types of communication--including public speaking, journalism, documentary film, social media, advertising, popular music, and video games.

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CAS Graduate Workshop

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Practical Video Production for Teachers

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CAS Graduate Workshop

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Communications Interim

Interim course descriptions are posted online at: www.calvin.edu/go/interim/

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Communications Interim

Interim course descriptions are posted online at: www.calvin.edu/go/interim/

CODE NAME CREDITS
CAS-101 Oral Rhetoric 3
CAS-120 Calvin Theatre Company 1
CAS-140 Communication and Culture 3
CAS-141 Visual Rhetoric 3
CAS-145 Introduction to Film & Media 4
CAS-145L Introduction to Film & Media Lab 0
CAS-180 Communicating With Digital Media 3
CAS-190 Intro to Video Production 4
CAS-200 Advanced Oral Rhetoric 4
CAS-201 New Media 3
CAS-203 Introduction to Performance Studies 3
CAS-204 Directing Co-Curricular Programs 1
CAS-205 American Voices 3
CAS-211 Argumentation and Advocacy 3
CAS-214 Creating Comm Arts in the Classroom 3
CAS-217 Plays in Production 3
CAS-218 Acting for Stage & Screen 3
CAS-222 Calvin Media Company 1
CAS-230 Media Cultures 3
CAS-238 Theory and Communication 3
CAS-240 Group Communication 3
CAS-248 Writing for Media 3
CAS-249 Audio Design and Aesthetics 3
CAS-250 Multi-Camera Production 3
CAS-253 Intercultural Communication 3
CAS-254 Film & Media Criticism 3
CAS-255 Documentary Film & Television 4
CAS-255L Doc Film & Tv Screening Lab 0
CAS-260 Interpersonal Communication 3
CAS-262 Business Communication 3
CAS-270 Communication and Gender 3
CAS-281 Film Art & Cultures I 4
CAS-281L Film & Cultures 1 Lab 0
CAS-282 Film & Cultures II 4
CAS-282L Film & Cultures II Lab 0
CAS-284 Film and Media Theory 3
CAS-285 Advertising & Public Relations 3
CAS-290 Video Production II 3
CAS-296 Film As a Narrative Art 3
CAS-303 Applied Theatre 3
CAS-305 Persuasion and Propaganda 3
CAS-311 Argumentation and Advocacy 3
CAS-316 Directing for Stage & Screen 4
CAS-318 American Politics & Mass Media 3
CAS-319 Production Design 4
CAS-320 World & Ancient Theatre History I 3
CAS-321 Western Theatre History 3
CAS-323 Acting for Stage & Screen 3
CAS-346 Internship in Communication 3
CAS-351 Advanced Media Production 3
CAS-390 Independent Study 1
CAS-395 Special Topics in Communication 3
CAS-395L Special Topics in Communication Lab 0
CAS-399 Advance Communication Study 3
CAS-601 CAS Graduate Workshop 3
CAS-603 Practical Video Production for Teachers 2
CAS-610 CAS Graduate Workshop 2
CAS-W43 Communications Interim 3
CAS-W60 Communications Interim 3
https://calvin.edu/academics/departments-programs/communication-arts-sciences/academics/courses/
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