Rethinking the Role of Theory in the Basic Course: Taking a \u27Practical\u27 Approach to Communication Education

This essay advances a particular form of communication theory, known as practical theory, and illustrates how it can be integrated into the basic course. A practical approach to theory involves the rational reconstruction of practices such that the events studied and the principles used to study those events co-evolve through the act of theorizing and the actual performance of communication. The essay examines some of the obstacles prohibiting the use of practical theory and provides a model and extended example for illustrating how the practical approach can be used in the basic communication course