  The traditional theoretical statistics course which develops the theoretical
underpinnings of the discipline (usually following a probability course) is
undergoing near-continuous revision in the statistics community. In particular,
recent versions of this course have incorporated more and more computation. We
take a look at a different aspect of the revision - building student
communication skills in the course, in both written and verbal forms, to allow
students to demonstrate their ability to explain statistical concepts. Two
separate projects are discussed, both of which were engaged in by a class of
size 17 in Spring 2015. The first project had a computational aspect (performed
using R), a statistical theory component, and a writing component, and was
based on the historical German tank problem. The second project involved a
class presentation and written report summarizing, critiquing, and/or
explaining an article selected from The American Statistician.
