Something I Learned Speech

I want you to tell a story about something that you learned.  You need to be able to clearly articulate the thing that you learned, but it’s up to you how you communicate it to your audience.  

Really, this is a speech that asks you to think hard about your audience, think hard about the thing that you learned and then create a speech that answers the question:  SO WHAT?  

Maybe you’ll start your speech by describing what you learned.  Maybe you’ll end your speech by explaining what you learned.  Maybe you’ll include stories.  Maybe you’ll structure your speech more like an informational speech.  

In any case, I *do* expect that you’ll do research and I *do* expect that the structure of your speech will emerge primarily based on the needs and interests of your audience.  

This speech will be 3 minutes long and will include 12 power point slides which must auto-advance every 15 seconds.  This structure is commonly used by the “ignite” movement.  You should click the link and watch a few of the stories. 

One way of thinking carefully about your audience is to think about the five canons of rhetoric that the Romans used in order to help them prepare well.  In our case: 

• invention = coming up with a creative way to shape your topic, 
• style = will include the flare you use to make your power point interesting as well as the structure and wording that you use in your speech, 
• arrangement = will have to do with the development, main points or "plotline" of your speech as well as the order of your slides and the relationship between your speaking and your slides, 
• memory = the ways you help your audience remember your speech and 
• delivery = has to do with the practice that you put into the speech. 

PRACTICE YOUR SPEECH TO A LIVE AUDIENCE.  There's no substitute for real practice and your mirror tells you terrible lies. 

This will give you a clear idea of HOW people use power point slides not just to illustrate the points that they are making, but to actively interplay with their spoken presentation to move the presentation forward.  Jot down ideas as you watch about HOW they make their slides work. 

You can also find a rubric that will guide my grading in the folder I have shared with you in google docs.

Oral History Project

Two of the most important values that you will encounter in the Communication Arts Department are that (1.) STORIES are one of our most valuable human resources and that (2.) LISTENING to understand is one of the best skills you can develop while in college. 

While this Oral History project will develop your skills in summarizing, researching, interviewing and planning (all very marketable skills)-- the MAIN focus of this project is to help you become BETTER LISTENERS who VALUE STORIES that other people tell (skills which are both market-friendly, and, more importantly HUMAN skills).

With the help of one of your peers, you will collect an oral history from someone that you will find and work with across the course of the semester. An Oral History is a recording of a someone’s own personal recollections about a particular time, theme, topic or place.  Oral Histories are usually archived in libraries, museums and on the internet; the oral histories you collect will be archived in these kinds of institutions, too.  This website does a fantastic job talking about the history and current practices of oral history.  This website is the assigned reading for class.  You only need to read until you get to the sixth blue box -- the one that says: "Transcribing Oral Histories."  If you want to keep reading you may (of course). And if you keep reading even further -- our assignments are most like assignments "C" or "D" -- though it won't be precisely and only that.

After researching the topic of your speech, you will record an oral history of about an hour in length on video, transcribe it and eventually develop individual speeches which will contextualize portions of the interview. 

This project will include four assignments (click on each of them for more information): 

1.) preparatory materials

2.) research preparation
3.) the collected interview
4.) the listening paper

You will find one other student and that student will act as your “assistant” during the recording of the interview -- you will also act as as the “assistant for that student during the interview they collect.  Throughout the history, the two of you will also serve as resources for each other’s projects.

Course Objectives

For students to:

1. Integrate their understanding and practice of the Christian faith with communication.
2. Engage specific critical standards for evaluating messages.
3. Understand the communication discipline generally.
4. Increase understanding of communication processes and contexts.
5. Develop communication skills interpersonally, in public speaking, and in groups.
6. Read and listen to the ideas of others with understanding and discernment.
7. Speak clearly & effectively.

The Listening Paper

The Listening Paper will ask you to reflect on both the oral history that you collected and the process of listening that you engaged in to collect the oral history.

In the first section of the paper, you should analyze the oral history to identify some key themes or ideas that emerged.  You should then make connections between those ideas and the research that you did beforehand.  You may want to connect this part of your paper with the second part of your paper.

In the second part of your paper, you should talk about what you learned about the listening process, yourself and your own listening skills.  In order to write this paper, you should first re-read your notes from our class lecture on empathic listening and then you should re-read the course textbook on listening and interviewing.  

NEXT, you should listen to the entire oral history again, and take note of the way that you asked questions:   

• Did you ask open ended questions?  
• Did you ask follow up questions to the things that your narrator said?  
• Were you using the empathic listening process that we talked about in class?  
• Did you miss any great opportunities to follow up with any of the things your narrator said?  

Please identify patterns of your listening and question asking that define your STRENGTHS as a listener (and interviewer) and your AREAS FOR GROWTH.  Give concrete specific details from this interview (including the timecode from the interview) and set some goals for your listening and interviewing skills in the future.

I will expect you to use vocabulary from course lecture and from the textbook as you analyze your own listening and interviewing skills.

Please share your paper through google docs with comm.110.malone@gmail.com

GO BACK TO THE MAIN ORAL HISTORY PAGE

The Collected Interview

The Collected Interview includes the uploaded video recording of your oral history on youtube, a “segmentation” that you will submit and a completed statement of consent from your Narrator.

In preparation for your interview, I will train you in choosing a location, setting up and operating your video  camera and microphone.  During your interview, YOU will ask questions and your ASSISTANT will operate the camera and microphone.  Your practice and communication with each other will be key to succeeding in capturing the interview successfully.  It will be up to you to SCHEDULE the interview at a time that works for your Narrator and your Assistant

 A segmentation lists the stories, ideas, and main points that the participant talked about during the interview.  This list also includes time notations so that these various parts of the interview can easily be accessed.   You will turn your segmentations into me as google docs:  comm.110.malone@gmail.com

You should turn in hard copies of your consent forms in class.

GO BACK TO MAIN ORAL HISTORY PAGE 

The Research Preparation

The Research Preparation for your oral history will help you in thinking about your participants, their experiences and the process of interviewing them.  After meeting with them to find out some of the details of their life and experience, you should do some research so that you have some background knowledge about the historical, cultural and sociological forces that have surrounded the time frame of their lives.  You should collect some academic research, you should read some first-person accounts, you should collect some literature from the popular press.  You should turn in some summary paragraphs that draw together your key findings,  a list of possible questions that you may include in your interview, and a list of works that you consulted.  Please use MLA format or APA format in this citation.  You will turn in your research via Google Docs, again sharing your document with comm.110.malone@gmail.com.  

GO BACK TO ORAL HISTORY MAIN PAGE

Exams

Exams will focus both on information from the textbook and from lecture, with more focus placed on ideas that are developed in class lecture and discussion. The test will be multiple choice, matching & true/false. The test will only include 30-33 items.

Students will be permitted to use 3x5 notecards during the test period if they turned in the review notecards on the day readings were due. Each day that reading is due -- a 3x5 notecard will be collected at the beginning of class. No notecards will be accepted later in the class period.

Study sheets will be provided one week prior to the exam for students.

Identifying a Community Need

Before you begin your search for a Community Need that you can be invested in -- let me spend a moment defining "Community Need." A community need is a problem that affects many people in the community in a similiar way. A community need is never caused by one person; these needs always have a complicated history and are rooted in multiple institutions and events. Different groups in the community are affected in different ways, but what makes it a *community* need -- is that many people are troubled and almost everyone wants to solve it (though in different ways).

I recommend that you start this process by brainstorming. What are the community needs that you already know about from your own hometown? They can be needs that exist at the neighborhood level, the city level, the county level. These issues could be related to some community institutions, community businesses or just residents. These issues might affect only older people, younger people, married people or handicapped people.

Often the problems that are most significant in our own lives -- are rooted in a much larger systemic problem that might not be obvious at first, but may actually be a problem that could be addressed in the community.

I'd recommend that you brainstorm a list of problems that you can think of without doing any research first.

Next, I'd recommend that you try to think about how other people, unlike you, who also live in your community, might answer the question: What are the biggest problems that people in the community face? What are the biggest problems that the community faces?

After you've thought hard about your own experiences and those experiences that you're aware of -- I suggest you look to some other sources. There are institutions that already exist in this community (the greater Canton area & Stark County) who only exist to address existing problems. Many of them are non-profit institutions; a few more are government branches. I suggest that you browse the links below and expand your list of problems by thinking about the work that these organizations do.

Stark County Foundation

Stark County Family Council

City Data on Canton

Census Data on Stark County

After you've thought hard about these agencies and their work, you may already have enough options. If you don't, I suggest that you read the paper. The Canton Repository and the Akron Beacon Journal (maybe the Cleveland Plain Dealer) are good; I might recommend a national paper or two, too (The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc...). Unfortunately much of the newspaper's pages these days are NOT devoted to community needs, but are, instead, devoted to surprising local events.
Make sure you focus your reading on problems that fit into the definition above.

Now that you've brainstormed a huge list of potential problems -- how do you choose the right one for you to address?

I suggest that you identify the top three-five problems that you're most interested in and spend an hour or two researching them on the web. How have other communities dealt with this problem? What does this problem look like in this community? What information and resources will aid your preparation for this presentation? Look over the assignment again before you make your choice -- which option best fits:

your gifts + the assignments demands + your classmates' interests + this community's needs.

Once you've settled on a Community Issue, send me an email proposal and if I approve it, I'll add it to the list of approved topics here on the blog. If I have some concerns, I'll email you.

When you send me your issue-proposal-email, you should clearly articulate the problem in a full sentence. In a second sentence, you should explain *why* this is a problem, even if it seems too obvious to you, I want you to explain the "harms" and the "impact" of this problem.

That's it. Just two sentences. I'll only accept these proposals through email. While these proposals are not graded, the longer you wait to turn one in, the more difficult it will be for you to find a problem. If you present a problem at the fair that I have not approved in advance, you risk the possibility that it will not meet the criteria I stated at the top of this post. If you present a problem that does not meet these criteria, your presentation will automatically have 20% deducted from the grade you earn.

Research for Your Oral History

The Research for your oral history will help you in thinking about your participants, their experiences and the process of interviewing them.  You should collect some academic research, you should read some first-person accounts, you should collect some literature from the popular press.  You should turn in a summary paragraph that draws together your key findings,  a list of questions that you may include in your interview, and a list of works that you consulted.  Please use MLA format or APA format in this citation.  You will turn in your research via Google Docs, again sharing your document with comm.110.malone@gmail.com (as well as the members of your group).  Your research is due by 8 pm on October 23rd. 

Back to the project page.

Media Literacy Speech

OVERVIEW:  The Media Literacy Speech is a 7-9 minute speech that helps your audience (students, your peers) develop stronger Media Literacy skills.

Your presentation must integrate concepts from our course, include an in-depth analysis of a particular media text, focus on media literacy, emerge from significant research and be carefully organized.

Each person will choose a media text and develop a speech that explains that text (from a media literacy perspective). Each text must be posted to the course shared google doc, must be IMPORTANT in the last two years and each speech must deal with a unique genre in that particular medium. Andrew will regularly review these topics and let you know if there is a problem.

Examples of media texts could include:

television sit-coms
tv reality shows
tv game shows
(other kinds of television shows)
magazines
video games
movies
an album
a radio show
a song
a newspaper page
a web page

Your media text must be a MASS media text, so cell phone messages, skype, AIM, email, plays and live performances by bands DON'T count.

Your media text must be an INFLUENTIAL (critically or popularly) media text from the past year (12 months).

You may want to include a CLIP or a PORTION or PICTURES of/from your media text, but any videos from your speech may not extend longer than 10% of your speaking time.

Your speech should be carefully crafted, employing all of Aristotle's proofs to engage your audience and persuade them to care about their own media literacy within this genre / medium / (type of) text.

POINTS AVAILABLE: 75 points

ASSESSMENT BASED ON::

Content - value of information, sources & focus (25),
Speaking/Presentation points (25),
Structure & Creativity of Overall Presentation (25),

TURN IN:

A full sentence outline, minimally two levels (I. A., B.). Your outline must be the CONTENT of the speech, NOT a description of what you will do in the speech.  (in other words, the subject of the sentence cannot be "I" and the verb should never be "will explain"  -- make actual claims about your actual subject.)

A works cited page including proper citations of all sources and the text you're focusing upon.

You should share all of these materials with comm.110.malone@gmail.com