Week 14 Discussion — Humor in a Toast, or Leadership in a Group? — Traditional alternative (no AI)
Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.
Hook
A best friend's wedding toast gets the biggest laugh of the night, and a coworker's retirement toast gets an uneasy silence after one joke too many. A class project group either waits for one person to take charge or quietly shares the work. This week you learned the three criteria for a special-occasion speech, the four-beat toast, the reflective-thinking agenda, and the three families of group roles.
Your discussion question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.
Option A: Should a toast or a tribute include humor? Some people say one light, affectionate joke shows the room you know the honoree and fits a warm occasion; others say a joke at a toast always risks embarrassing the honoree or shutting out guests who do not get it, so sincerity is safer. Take a position, support it with a real toast, tribute, award speech, or farewell you have heard or given, and use this week's terms, such as occasion fit, mood or tone match, and the specific-detail principle, accurately.
Option B: Does a small group work best with one designated leader, or with leadership shared as a function? Some people say a group without one clear leader drifts and wastes time; others say the best groups spread the task and maintenance moves across every member, so no one person has to lead. Take a position, support it with a real group, team, club, or committee you have been part of, and use this week's terms, such as task roles, maintenance roles, self-centered roles, and the reflective-thinking agenda, accurately.
There is no single right answer. A wedding, a retirement lunch, a team practice, or a club meeting can each be argued well in more than one direction. Describe occasions and groups by what happened, never by a private person's name. Pick an occasion or a group you actually remember, and tell us about it.
Expectations
Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.
Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):
- Say which option you chose.
- For Option A, describe the real toast, tribute, award speech, or farewell, say whether it used humor and how the room responded, and take a position on whether humor belongs in a toast or tribute. For Option B, describe the real group, say who made the task and maintenance moves, and take a position on whether the group needed one designated leader.
- Use at least two of this week's terms (special-occasion speech, occasion fit, brevity, mood or tone match, specific-detail principle, four-beat toast, small group, team, reflective-thinking agenda, task roles, maintenance roles, self-centered roles, leadership as a function) correctly.
- Say what you would change about a toast you might give, or about how you act in your next group, and why.
- Describe occasions and groups only; never name or describe a real classmate, coworker, or family member in a way that would embarrass them.
- Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.
Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):
- Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
- A substantive reply does more than agree: name the criterion a classmate's example met or missed, point out a task or maintenance move the poster did not name, or describe an occasion or group where the poster's position would not hold. "Nice point!" on its own does not count.
What a strong post looks like (an illustrative example, attributed to no one):
I chose Option B. My lab group for a chemistry course had no named leader, and for the first week nobody started anything. Then one member asked us to list every option before we voted, and another made sure the quietest member got a turn. I think leadership worked best shared, because those task and maintenance moves came from different people. The strongest objection is that we lost a week waiting. I would answer that the delay came from skipping the first agenda step, defining the problem, not from having no leader.
Notice how it describes a real group, names the moves and the roles, uses the week's terms accurately, and answers an objection. That is the bar.
Participation rubric
This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.
| Criterion | Full credit | Partial credit | No credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quality of the initial post (4 pts) | A real, specific occasion or group, a clear position on the chosen option, and at least one reason tied to what happened in that room or group | An example is described, but the position is vague or asserted without a reason | Missing, off-topic, or no reasoning about the example |
| Use of course concepts (3 pts) | Names at least two course terms (such as mood or tone match, the specific-detail principle, maintenance roles, or leadership as a function) and uses them accurately | Uses a term loosely or with a small error, such as calling gatekeeping a task role or calling the loudest member the leader | No course terms, or used incorrectly |
| Engagement with peers (3 pts) | Two or more substantive replies that extend or challenge a classmate's reasoning | One substantive reply, or replies that only agree | No replies, or "I agree" with nothing added |
Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.
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