Weekly Assignments: Here We Go Again!

Finalize your outline.

Decide if you will use an outline or note cards during your speech.

Check your materiels again and make sure you have left nothing out.

Practice and time your speech. Go over it alone, and then for a small audience and make sure no step is left out.

At the end of your demonstrative speech, be sure and ask the audience if they have any questions... and be prepared to answer them.

Weekly Assignment: Reach Your Audience

We've been discussing ways to connect with your audience. An easy way to connect to an audience is to make them feel comfortable and familiar. One way to do that is to take a universal story, and give it local details.

Pick a universal story... fairy tale, urban legend, etc. and give it local details.

For example:

Jack and Jill climbed Oak Mountain to fetch a pail of water from Peavine Falls.

It does not have to be a long drawn out story. Keep it simple and remember this will be a tool to help you involve your audience in your speeches.

This exercize will need to be turned in at the beginning of class on September 30th.

See if you can find to include and involve your audience in your upcoming Demonstrative Speech.

Weekly Assignments: Gather Your Materials

Begin getting all of your materials together. This will help you as you run through your speech again. If you have video to supplement your demonstration, today would be a good day to shoot it.

Make sure you practice your speech with a timer.

*If you do have video, let me know so I can bring in a television.

Weekly Assignment: Keep At It

Make sure you are comfortable with the subject of your Demonstrative Speech. If you are not comfortable with it, your audience will pick up on it. If you are not impressed with your speech, no one else will be either! Now is a good time to practice going through the movements of your speech.

Whatcha Think?

Is this better, girls?

Weekly Assignments: Huh?

#1- Make a list of words that are commonly mispronouced in your household. You may not even realize that you have been misprounoucing words that have been taught to you. See if you can recognize some now.

#2- Go over your outline. By now, you should have a 'skeleton' outline of what you are going to present. Begin to add some substance to it. Think of how you will fill your time.

Weekly Assignments: Let Me Know

Send me an email at jamleah@yahoo.com and let me know what you have chosen to do.

I will send you any suggestions I have to help make this speech your best to date.

Weekly Assignment: Outline the steps

Create your outline for your demonstrative speech.

Use your introduction to tell us why you chose the topic, how it relates to your life, and how it could relate to your audience.

Also use your intro to include any background or research on your topic, if it is necassary.

The body of your speech to showcase materials, show steps of how to do your topic, and how to care for the finished product.

When I gave my speech to you on how to make hair bows, I should have shown you the materials I had for the project first. Demonstrated step-by-step how to put them all together. Then told you that I keep up with them by hanging them on a ribbon in the bathroom, and when they get dirty I actually wash them in the washing machine with her clothes.

Speech # 3: Demonstration

Choose a topic that you are interested in that is 'teachable.'

Just like I chose one of my hobbies that was easy to demonstrate (making bows), try to do the same thing.

If your hobby or interest is not easily demonstrated, think of ways you can illustrate it without taking up all of your time. Take pictures of steps... bring in a finished product.

You will be graded on:

- Your outline
- Your ability to easily explain your steps
- How well you demonstrate
- Time: 5 minutes

THIS SPEECH WILL BE GIVEN ON SEPTEMBER 30TH.

Speech Day

Remember to bring in your outline.

Typed, Double Spaced, and Spell Checked!

Weekly Assignment: Let's Get It Right

We've all heard the old addage, 'practice makes perfect.' Practice also makes you comfortable!

Begin by going through your speech in your help a couple of times.

Then move to a mirror. Give you speech out loud a couple of times. Make note of areas of your speech you may feel unsure or uncertain of.

Next, get in front of someone. Your mom, your dad, your brother or sister, a friend... anyone who will sit still and listen. Get them to time you, and practice. When you are done, ask them these questions:

1- Did I keep you interested?
2- Were there any unanswered questions?
3- How was my time?

Weekly Assignments: It's That Time Again

Start practicing! Remember that if you feel unprepared, you look unprepared. Make sure that your main points are memorized and your quotes are easy to read and find on your outline. Don't hesitate to use a highlighter system if that will help you. Use different color highlighters for each quote to draw your eye quickly to your source.

This speech should have a good bit of sourcing, so you need to be familiar with the general idea of the quotes you use.

Weekly Assignment: Remember 9/11

Go to the following link: 9/11 Memorial Speech

Print out and read the speech.

Highlight for me, the most memorable part of the speech.

On a separate sheet of paper, tell me HOW Captain John Darrah, APA President, made this speech interesting. What did he use to keep your attention?

Staple your paper with your thoughts to the copy of the speech, where you highlighted the most memorable part and bring it to class with you.

Weekly Assignment: Finalize Your Outline

By this point, you should have a well thought out and researched point of view. Your outline should begin to look finalized. Go back over it and make sure that it contains buzz words that will help you remember where you are and what you want to say.

Decide if you want to use an outline to help guide you on speech day or index cards. I would say to try the index cards for one of your speeches so you know what works best for you.

Remember that, even if you decide to use index cards on speech day, you must turn in an outline.

Weekly Assignment: Keep Pluggin' Away

Make sure that you have adequate research to support your speech. Remember that your speech should be about 5 minutes long.

When you are developing your points, think about a meal. You fix a plate of food... mashed potatoes, green beans, chicken, and bread. You get nutrients from it all, but the meat of the meal provides you with protein and nutrients to help build muscle and give you energy until your next meal. That is how you should develop each individual point. Find the 'meat' and anchor your thought with that. Surround it with valuable information from your sources (veggies and sides) and you have a complete thought (or meal, so to speak!).

If you feel any of your points are weaker than the other, you may need to supplement it with additional information from your sources.

Weekly Assignment: Outline, schmoutline

Write a rough outline for your speech. This outline will more than likely change as you week through your research, so don't be worried about how it looks or sounds right now. The point is to get started.

Bring this rough outline with you to class. I would like to go over your topic selection and your outline during class time to see if you need help or direction.

Weekly Assignment: Wanna Know Something?

Begin researching your topic selection.

Use the internet, the library, magazines, and any other periodical that will help to support your speech.

You need to find 3-5 sources of information. These sources must be sited and recognized in your speech.

Read through what you find, thoroughly.

Weekly Assignment: Gotta Pick Something

Try to pinpoint what you would like your 'Reader's Digest' Speech to be on. Choose something that you have a tie to in some way. If you feel strongly about something or feel connected to it, you will give a more passionate speech. It is also easier to research a topic you enjoy speaking about.

If you play basketball, choose at topic having to do with basketball.
If you participate in pageants, choose a topic about that.
And so on and so forth.

Assignment #2

The Reader's Digest Speech

The purpose of this speech is to reduce a cumbersome amount of information to a useable body of data, then organize that data into a presentation that is meaningful to an audience.

You should pick a controversial issue (that is, one on which more than one reasonable person can disagree) and present the views of three to five experts on the subject. Choose a topic that is relevant to you and your views. Something that means something to you.

Here are some ideas for topics:

How to Handle Natural Disasters such as Hurricanes
Women in Politics
Celebrities as Role Models
Professional Athletes Payscale: Men v. Women

The views can be organized using a wide variety of means, but they should not merely be organized one expert at a time.

You will be graded on:

-your organization
-your clarity of presentation
-the completeness of the criteria and how you organize it to support your claims
-time

Visual aids are allowed but not assigned.
The time limit is 5 minutes.

THIS SPEECH WILL BE GIVEN September 16th.

EXTRA CREDIT

Watch the Republican National Convention tonight when Palin accepts the Vice Presedential Nomination.

You can watch her speech on several different channels at several different times:

CNN: 5 pm
PBS: 7 pm
ABC, CBS, NBC: 9 pm


I. Make notes of what she does right--

Is she prepared?
Are her points well laid out?
Does she maintain your attention using stories, statistics, anecdotes,
quotes, etc?

II. Make notes of what she does wrong--
Go through the notes we took yesterday and compare Palin to the 'Don'ts' and the '7 Deadly Habits of Public Speaking.'

Does she have any nervous habits that are noticable?
Does she make eye contact?
Is her speech personable?

III. What are her main points?

Is her thesis clear?

IV. Tell me the most memorable moment, in your opinion, of her speech.

Speech Day

Don't forget your outline and your tape!

Weekly Assignments: Practice Makes Perfect

Put it all together. Type your outline using format given on your class syllabus. You can choose to use a copy of your outline or note cards. Practice giving an extemporaneous speech, and not simply reading it word for word.

Weekly Assignments: Get It Down

Begin practicing my going over it in your head a few times.

Once you feel that you are starting to move forward, maybe get in front of a mirror and give the speech to yourself a few times.

Once you feel confident with that, see how your parents, siblings, and/or friends react. Listen to their feedback... ask them if they have any questions that they felt were left unanswered in your speech. See if the topic peeks their interest and you are able to hold it.