Adaora Udoji

Successfully communicating is a critical skill not only for a graduate thesis, but also in
the career that will follow. It boils down to this question: Are you persuading,
influencing, or communicating your thoughts and ideas effectively, to any audience be
it three people or three hundred? In this class we will systematically work our way
through a four-step method to improve your ability to connect with your audience. We
will explore the science that explains why stories work. We will tackle a basic
framework for what a story is, using a process and foundation to develop any talk or
presentation. Now that we have what you are going to say, we will also focus on how
you say it, along with strategies to give you confidence to be your best self when
speaking in front of a crowd. This is a particularly good class to take in preparation for
your thesis in the Spring. This seminar examines and deconstructs verbal storytelling
as a discipline in its own right. It is an exploration of speaking and storytelling as a
fundamental building block of human evolution and innovation. We will look at the
learnings from ancient times through modern scientific research—looking at theories
attempting to explain what happens physiologically and psychologically when we are
moved by a spoken narrative. This is a contextual approach that will focus on both the
theory and the application in the marketplace of developing and delivering narrative as
it relates to presenting oneself, a product or a service. As such, we seek to understand
what drives current trends toward narrative education and storytelling as a competitive
advantage in learning, communicating, persuading and influencing. Students will also
contribute to designing a collaborative verbal communication template for the class and
for the Final Project: a presentation that applies some of the concepts learned to
themselves or their projects, products, ventures and/or service concepts.