Interpersonal Communication Case Study: Extension Request for Business Project

Problem 1: Decision-making for Email to Authority Figure

These problems involve two separate situations where the student will use language and genre choice to change the nature of an act of interpersonal communication and situate another form of communication within a different audience. 

 

The student will write to a person in authority and ask for an extension on a business project. The student must then decide what form of professional communication to use; how to address the authority figure; and exact word choice in composing their message to explain the situation and their request in a professional tone. See the full case study written below for the exact details of the situation.
 
Note: the students will be assuming a role different than their own identity and projecting it into an imagined workplace. Be sure to consider if your imagined persona and situation should be dealt with by moving towards the power figure or away from the power figure.  
In addition to the written component, the student will also hand in a brief author's note explaining their choices of no more than 100 words. If the author's note is missing, then the assignment as a whole will not be graded.

You work as a social media marketer at a brand management company in downtown Toronto with two other people you know from your college days at Conestoga. The three of you often work in teams in order to complete tasks on-time, since each one of you has your own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to completing the work.  
 
This week, you and your co-worker Eisha must head to London, Ontario (two hours away) in order to attend a family wedding. Your coworker, Brandon, reminds you both that the most recent project you were tasked with a month ago is due on Monday. He has done his part and so have you, but Eisha has lagged behind (partly due to the upcoming wedding). Brandon does not think he can complete Eisha's part, since he is not as skilled in her area of expertise. Neither one of you can miss the wedding. You think that you can help Eisha complete her part on the bus back to Toronto after the wedding, but it would make the assignment late, and that is even if you can get your laptop to connect to wifi on the bus.  
 
All three of you decide it is best to write to your boss in order to ask for an extension on the project. Your boss's name is Gavin Dupont and he has owned the company for ten years after inheriting it from his father. He has a doctorate in computer science, and often knows the very technical aspects of computers and social media, but does not really understand the marketing side of your job or your teams' tasks. He is often quiet and does not have a friendly reputation, but he is known to be fair if he is given a good reason for why something must be done a certain way, even if he does not understand it himself. 

 Problem 1

Student task: You must decide which of the three of you it is best to write Gaven for the extension; what type of communication form it should take; and how long the extension should be. You must also decide on the overall content of the communication itself.  You will also hand in an author's note explaining your choices. Be sure to consult the rubric for more specific grading criteria.  

 

Take this passage from the essay "On Friendship" by the 16th century philosopher Michel de Montaigne and rewrite it for a modern day Western Millennial audience.  

 Problem 2

You are allowed to change the sentence structure, most words, and references as long as the passage retains its overall meaning. In this sense, whatever paragraph you submit should still be about friendship between men, but now with a target audience rooted in this changed generational and cultural status (modern day Western Millennials)