Unit Two: Oral Knowledge

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It's time to look closely at how speaking and listening have been central to civilization. It's time to study oral knowledge.

Obviously much of the folk knowledge that was the focus of our first unit combines with speaking and listening. We will find that the various knowledge media and institutions we are studying this semester overlap extensively, even if they sometimes end up competing with or excluding each other. I'm glad we focused on the kinds of learning that take place in person, through observation, and through interaction with the physical and material world.

We now move out one layer of abstraction into the world of speaking and listening. During the next five class periods (through October 6, 2011) we will study oral knowledge according to the following broad categories:

1. Language (Sept 22)
2. Story & Song (Sept 27)
3. Religion (Sept 29)
4. Education (Oct 4)
5. Rhetoric (Oct 6)

Each of these broad areas provides us an opportunity to revisit history (learning outcome #1); see the development of knowledge institutions based around oral tradition (learning outcome #2); and recognize how oral knowledge has qualities that set it apart from folk knowledge, written, or printed knowledge (learning outcome #3). 

Along the way, we are going to be giving you fresh opportunities to sharpen your own knowledge skills (learning outcome #4) -- in part by continuing to use blogging for group learning, by bringing in an orally-oriented communications medium from the digital age (Skype), and also by developing social learning skills that depend upon oral interaction, not just writing (learning outcome #5).

What follows is a brief orientation to the topic of oral knowledge, with details about how we are going to structure our learning for this unit.

Oral Knowledge: Communal Communication

One of the main things to learn about oral knowledge is that it emphasizes the communal part of communication. In contrast to written or printed knowledge, oral knowledge (until telephones) had to be in person, and tended to be associated with groups. So, we are going to emphasize group work and oral interaction, even though we will continue writing up blog posts.

Blogging for Unit Two

• Assigned Focus (group)
  You will continue your blogging schedule, posting once weekly and commenting five times per week. However, in this unit your group is going to be assigned one of the five general topics for the unit. This is to be the main focus of your research, blogging, and oral discussion.
• Assigned Historical Culture (individual)
  In order to diversify learning across the major civilizations of the past, each student will be assigned a specific historical culture to investigate. These are individual, not group assignments. Within a given group, each student will represent a different civilization as they together address the group's assigned common focus.
• Required Post Formats
  During this unit, we are going to require two types of post format. More info on these to come:
  1) a book-based post
  THIS DOES NOT MEAN A "BOOK REPORT." We want you to continue to address the main issues of our course, and specifically the issue of oral knowledge within the culture you've been assigned. However, your ideas need to be informed by the primary texts (if they exist) that show evidence of oral culture. You're not reporting on a book; you are using some text that comes from your individually assigned civilization to address issues our course focuses on. If you wish to consult secondary texts (criticism, history, analysis, or introductions) you should feel free to do so, but those should be secondary to the use of primary texts. Please quote directly from your primary text to illustrate points you are making about oral culture. For example, if I were assigned Greece, I could quote sections of the Iliad in which the warriors were having speaking contests. If I were assigned the Germanic civilization of the Anglo-Saxons, I could quote from Beowulf where bards are depicted composing and passing on epic stories of battles.
  2) an oral interview-based post
  We want you to use the oral medium for knowledge as  you continue to explore either your individually assigned civilization or the thematic focus assigned to your group (or both). This means finding and speaking with an expert or someone who can inform or illustrate the culture or the theme you wish to explore. For example, you could interview an author or professor in Native American studies if you were assigned the Hopi civilization. Or, if you were exploring the theme of song and story, you could interview an actor or a singer (provided you tied this in with history somehow and did not merely do a feature interview about that person). We want you to move beyond interviewing fellow students, family members, or friends. Consider professors, specialists, professionals, and other experts in either your assigned civilization or group focus.
• Group Post
  Each group is going to be responsible for creating and providing a post to the instructors' blog based on their assigned focus. Ideally, this will be an amalgam of the independent research done by individuals. This must take the format of a group video which you record and post to YouTube, providing the instructors with the embed code for your group's video. Length should be about 5 minutes, and by no means reaching 10 minutes.

Group and individual assignments are listed here.

We instructors will be making "seed posts" devoted to each of the five main topics. Hopefully this will provide you starting points for sub-topics and resources to help you in your group and individual reading and research. However, you need not wait for, or even follow, our leads on these topics. But this will give a place where the class in general can ask questions about the general topics.

(Updated 9/22 to include details about the required post formats)