Exploring Critical Communication Approaches through Grandmama's Birthday: An Application of the Self-Reference Effect through Public and Personal Timelines

In many classroom conversations when exploring critical communication issues such as gender and race, students are often unable to identify the relevance of past events and uninterested in exploring the concepts. This activity was created as a way to help students uncover the significance of events and movements from which they feel disconnected. At its core, this activity provides students with a meaningful and personal way to explore historical events related to course concepts through a single in-class activity that utilizes the creation of overlapping public and personal timelines. By viewing this information through the lens of personal familial connections and by engaging the self-reference effect, students are provided a vehicle for making strong connections to numerous critical communication concepts. Courses: Organizational Communication, Critical Communication, Gender Communication, Introduction to Communication Theory and History, Communication and Careers, Rhetoric of Race, Rhetoric and Social Change, Research Methods, Family Communication. Objective: This activity aims to provide students with an active-learning process for making personal connections to foundational critical communication concepts and approaches.