One of the purposes of this speech assignment (and the next one) is to help prepare you to be kind of Malone graduate (and the kind of person) who is prepared to "serve the church, community & world."
Some classical education treated the study of rhetoric (or persuasion) as the final stage in preparing a student -- after they had grown in wisdom, it would be essential that they be schooled in entering the "public sphere" in a way that would be effective and helpful. Other classical educators included rhetorical (or persuasive) training right from the beginning and all the way through their education. They believed that if students understood how much they owed the audiences they spoke to, they would be motivated to learn well AND eventually affect the community in important ways. Regardless of whether they thought that public speaking was "frosting on the cake" or "the recipe itself" -- they agreed that a concern for the good of the community was essential to one's education and implicit within persuasive training.
We're up to the same thing in this class. I want you to start to take responsibility for the community that surrounds you. The ability to persuade people carries with it the great burden of being responsible for the welfare of those you persuade.
Through these two speeches, I want you to develop a deeper understanding of some of the problems in the community surrounding you. I also want you to start to think about the various solutions that might respond to those problems. One of the challenges in speaking about community problems is that there are so MANY things you could talk about that choosing just the right things is hard work. Another challenge? In a group the size of our class (or any other group) people disagree about causes and ideals. Talking about the problem in a way that is inclusive and invitational becomes a difficult logistical task.
No matter what kind of public communication you do later on though, through your neighborhood, your school district, your local government, in media, through your job, writing on the internet -- one of the important (yet often invisible) responsiblities that will weight that communication -- is your responsibility for your community. I hope these assignments start to help you think about that responsibility and that relationship in concrete and ultimately helpful ways.
