Speech Class Demonstrates Newfound Talents
Laughing babies, meditation, and George W. . . . oh my! It makes one wonder just what the speech class students have been up to these days. Throughout the third quarter, Mrs. Shoe’s 7th period students have worked on mastering a variety of skills. After performing pantomimes, delivering demonstrative speeches, and reading to the elementary, they moved on to more challenging projects.
One of the first areas they tackled was the world of slang. After defining the term and discussing its place in today’s society, the students paired up to retell a favorite childhood story using slang language. Following the writing portion, students performed the stories in front of the class in order to improve their newfound paralanguage skills.
After hearing a number of interesting renditions like “The Fly Yote and the Hippin’ Hound,” “Hustlin’ Harry and Turtle T.,” and “Puss in Nikes,” the students moved on to declamation speeches.
For this activity, speech students searched for famous speeches in history, popular movie speeches, etc. They then created introductions, worked on delivery techniques, and performed them for class. The class listened intently to renditions of “I Have a Dream,” the 911 Speech, FDR’s Pearl Harbor speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” and the pre-game and halftime speeches from Friday Night Lights, to name a few. The idea was for students to focus on nonverbal delivery since the words were already provided for them.
Following the declamation speeches, the class began discussing the benefits of relaxation. As a culminating activity, they researched and brought in a number of tried and true relaxation techniques to use on their fellow students. The top vote-getters were the heavy hand, the nature walk, and the laughing babies video.
As we move into the fourth quarter, the speech students will begin to hone their research skills and prepare for their first informative speech. A number of interesting topics have been flying about the room, and Shane and Nash are already fighting over who gets to talk about the Ouija board. Stay tuned for more speech class antics coming soon.