47 Giving Speeches

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Giving Speeches Opening Page

Start-Up Activity

To get your students thinking about making speeches, try this warm-up activity. Say you are about to present these three lighthearted awards:

  • Most Clever Joke
  • Coolest Observation
  • Best Laugh

Announce which student in your class wins the first award and what the joke was. Then ask the person to stand up to give an acceptance speech. Repeat this process with the other two awards. Then ask the award recipients what it felt like to have to give a speech without any time to prepare. 

Tell your students that the information in this chapter provides guidelines for preparing a speech. If they follow these guidelines, they can speak in front of their peers with confidence.

Think About It 

“First, learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.”

—Epictetus

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The Steps in the Process

Review the three main types of speeches:

  • An informative speech gives interesting or important facts and details about a topic. 
  • A demonstration speech shows how to do something. 
  • A persuasive speech tries to convince listeners to agree with your opinion about a topic. 
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The Steps in the Process (Continued)

To help students choose a topic for a speech, have them ask the questions under step 2. Remind them to make sure they choose a topic they enjoy or have an interest in. If their topic is too broad, have them read through step 3. 

As a final consideration for their topic choices, have students consider their audience. Here are some questions they can ask: 

  • Who will listen to my speech?
  • What do I know about my audience? 
  • How much do they know about my topic?
  • Will my topic hold their attention? 
  • How can I make them interested in my topic? 
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The Steps in the Process (Continued)

Review steps 4 and 5 of the speech process. Point out the ways students can gather information about their speech topics. Advise them to begin the research process by creating a KWL chart (see download) to discover what they know about their topic and what they want to know. After they complete their research, they can fill in the last column of the chart with what they learned. 

When students are ready to write their speeches, review the different starting strategies in step 5. Have students experiment with different strategies before choosing the best one to use. 

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The Steps in the Process (Continued)

Explain the two different strategies for outlining a speech. One way is to do a traditional outline on a piece of paper. Another way is to outline different parts on note cards.

Recommend that students use short phrases in their outlines—just enough information to remind them what to say. The only exception is for the introduction and conclusion. Recommend that they write out both of these parts. 

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The Steps in the Process (Continued)

Review steps 7–9 for giving speeches. 

Introduce the two strategies for writing a speech: creating an outline on note cards or full paper, or writing out the speech word for word. If students choose to write out their speech, recommend they follow the same drafting process as they would for an academic essay. 

When they are ready to practice their speeches, lead students through the tips. Stress the importance of practice. Each time students practice their speeches, they will become more comfortable with delivering the material. 

 

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Sample Speech

Ask for a volunteer to read the sample speech out loud in front of your class. Note the parenthetical reminders the writer used for visuals and props. Your students can use these same types of reminders with their own speeches. 

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Evaluating a Speech

Lead students through the checklist items for evaluating a speech. A download of the checklist is available below. 

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