Consider your next presentation

Now that we've begun our informative speeches, I'd like you to begin thinking about a topic for your next assignment: the persuasive speech. You will have five minutes to convince your class to join you on a quest, and the class will vote on which quests to attempt. We will form tribes and use one class period to plan the quest and one class period to accomplish it. Here's the rule: the quest must improve the campus, create awareness, or change our perspective.

For Thursday's class, watch this video by Sir Robinson. He's asking us to think differently about education, and the visuals are pretty engaging as well. Enjoy!



Have a wonderful Wednesday.

Preparing for Tuesday's Presentation

There is no class on Thursday, I'll be presenting at the SWCA Conference; however, I do want you to meet with your tribes before Informative Speeches begin on Tuesday.

Go over your outlines with each other. Take turns, and provide feedback. If you have visuals ready, be prepared to show them as you go through your outline. 

The final draft of your outline will be due on Tuesday, Feb 22 before our speeches begin.

I also want you to watch this video. In addition to the nuts and bolts of the presentation begin given, I'd like you to consider how empathy plays a role in your speech composition and presentation process.



Have a great Thursday, and I'll see you on Tuesday.

Keep on Researching ...

You now have five sources you can use. Some of them may be helpful, but please find other sources to use in your quest for information. I encourage you to interview someone, visit a location, experience your topic first hand, create something, get to really understand what makes your topic useful to you. This process will make a much more compelling speech.

For Tuesday, read Chapter 7 and 8 in your book. These chapters talk about gathering and using research material, so they should offer some useful advice for you in this stage of the speech writing process.

I also want you to watch this video (click here if the video below is not loading). This 19 year old is talking about what she found on her quest to discover information. I enjoyed listening to her make connections and asking unique questions. This is something we should all strive to do in our work.



Remember, we start presenting our speeches on Tuesday, Feb 22.

Have a great weekend.

Conducting Research

Now that you have a working copy of your outline, you should begin your journey to discovering the information you need.

For Thursdays class, we will meet in the Library. Meet me by the large screens on the opposite side of the check out desk. If you come late, or if you can't find me, we'll be in room 204D.

Remember, you need to email 5 sources to me before you leave the session on Thursday. You might want to look at your outline and figure out where you need to find more information. I hope you will use other sources beyond the library like interviews, personal experiences, and surveys.

Watch this video and think about how Nathan conducted research. Think about how his plans changed and how he had to work around unexpected situations.



See you Thursday in the Library.

Begining your quest: outlining your itinerary

I hope you had a good time meeting new people in your tribes. I want you to work together as a network, support, and accountability group as you begin, refine, and present your topics. I'm really excited to hear your journey and see what you come up with. 

For Tuesday's class, I want you to bring in a printed version of your outline. This is a rough draft. Think of it as a "to do" list. Write what you want to accomplish as an outline. As you accomplish these, you can replace the rough draft with your new information. You will be sharing these outlines with your tribes, and they will be providing feedback.

I also want you to read Chapters 9 and 10 in the book. If I were you, I'd read this before I started working on my outline. The book offers some useful advice. Feel free to look ahead to Chapter 11 if you want even more info about these outlines.

Watch this video and think about ways to map out your research. Take a broader look at your topic and see what issues come up that may be relevant to your quest for information.



Have a great weekend. I'll be traveling, so email questions to your tribe members first. If you stump them, then email me.

Moving on to Informative Speeches

I really enjoyed listening to your introductory speeches and seeing how you utilized Prezi for your presentations. Thanks for sharing your stories with the class.

Now we need to move on to another story, our Informative Speeches. Like we've discussed in class, I want you to research something that is of interest to you. What do you really want to know more about? What would you like to learn? What would you like to build? What would you like to experience?

Use this assignment to channel your interest into this class. As you begin your research, take notes on how you are going about finding, collecting, and applying the information you gather. Your informative speech will focus on your journey of discovery. Think about William in the video from Tuesday.

Your challenge will be finding a way to tell a compelling 6-minute narrative of discovery in front of the class. You can use up to 1 minute of original video/audio you captured, photos, sketches, the list goes on. Feel free to use PowerPoint or Prezi or neither. But know that the class is your audience. Keep us engaged.

For Thursday, bring your research topic idea to class, and be ready to share it with others. Bring a thumbdrive to class to get your video, or upload your videos to MySpeechLab (tutorial if needed). Watch this video and think about how the speaker focuses on his quest and less on how to actually build a toaster. If the video doesn't work below, watch it on Ted.com.



Hope your Wednesday is spectacular.