Public Speaking

Hi gang! Here are my thoughts on a few of your questions - I grouped them together. You should be on step 5 of the writing process now where you're working on your body paragraphs. Always keep in mind your MAIN IDEA about your topic as your writing your SUPPORTING DETAILS Remember to stop periodically and time yourself reading the entire speech. Your speech should be 3-5 minutes in length.

Below my answers are a couple more links to more examples of effective public speaking. ENJOY!

Questions Group 1: Usefulness of Public Speaking

Does public speaking help other aspects of learning or education? Does it help us to absorb more information more efficiently?

Is public speaking essential in everyday life?

Is public speaking important in many types of jobs? How can someone become a better public speaker?

A: Public speaking is a great skill to learn and hone for your personal, academic, and professional lives. In your personal life, good public speaking skills can help you become more comfortable voicing your opinion about things. People like to hang out/talk to people who have interesting things to say and can say them in a clear and creative way. So socially, good public speaking skills can help you make new friends and sustain your relationships as you practice talking out your problems with friends.

In your academic life, public speaking can help you with memorization and presentation. The act of memorizing a speech helps you create your own personal memorization method. While learning is not all about memorizing facts if we don't have to go searching for the answer all the time we will be more productive. Also, you'll be required to give presentations all throughout high school and university. Learning how to get your ideas out clearly and concisely is a very useful skill.

In your professional life you'll use public speaking skills on a regular basis; whether you're talking to customers, addressing your boss and colleagues, or in interview settings.

Questions Group 2: Writing and Organizing Ideas

How many points or supporting details should we have in our speech?

How should the speech be organized?

What do people look for in a speech? Generally speaking, what makes it good?

A: People like things in small packages. It's better to have a few really well developed supporting details than a whole bunch of undeveloped, disparate ideas. So, identify your MAIN IDEA about your topic then think of three SUPPORTING DETAILS you can explore in detail. Do a bit of research to back up your ideas: grab a few facts and interesting points from Wikipedia or other sources.

You should organize your speech like this:

Introduction: Catch the audience's attention and introduce your topic and MAIN IDEA about the topic

Body: Three supporting details - your best one in the middle. Relate each back to your MAIN IDEA?

Conclusion: Restate your main idea in different words and sum up what your supporting details said about your main idea - should only be a couple of sentences.

What makes a good speech? Think of some of the clips we've watched or the people you think deliver good speeches. What makes them effective/successful? The common denominator is probably enthusiasm for your MAIN IDEA. People want to listen to someone who is passionate about their subject. Find the things you are interested in about your topic and explore those, your interest will reflect in your writing and your confidence in your speaking.

Here's more videos!

Rick Mercer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmW1o6rzI7g

Chris Anderson on the brilliance of Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Zo53M0lcY

Kiran Bedi on the Power of Women

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u178W2NpTbw

Questions About Public Speaking

Hey 807!

Here's the list of questions I pulled from your diagnostics. They're anonymous and in no particular order. My next few posts will select questions that apply to where we are in the writing process. Right now we're working on brainstorming and coming up with our MAIN IDEA and SUPPORTING DETAILS. You should have those and your introduction written for Monday, April 16.

That said, here is the writing process if you'd like to work ahead:

1. Brainstorm - select topic, write three questions you have about it

2. Identify your main idea and supporting details (usually 3). ex. Main idea: Hockey is too violent. Supporting details: There are more concussions. Players are bigger and faster than ever. Negative impact on young people watching.

4. Research some interesting points that support your ideas.

3. Write your introduction. Try to avoid "Good afternoon teachers, students, etc.." Catch the attention of the audience then identify your main idea and how you will explore it.

4. Write the body. Go through your support details and include your research.

5. Write the conclusion. Restate your main idea and provide some reflective questions or ideas for the audience.

6. Edit and revise. Take a break from your speech for a day then come back to it, read it again - ALWAYS OUT LOUD - and make corrections of rearrangements where you think you need to. Then have someone else read it out loud to you and ask them their ideas.

7. Rewrite based on those corrections above.

8. Practice, and work on memorization.

9. Practice, and work on breathing and posture.

10. Do some yoga, breathe, eat a good breakfast, breathe, present

Okay, here's the questions from the diagnostics:

1. Do you need to memorize your speech? (How can you memorize a speech?)

2. Is public speaking essential in everyday life?

3. Should I include the audience? Is it okay to mess up?

4. What do people look for in a speech? Generally speaking, what makes it good?

5. Do you find it harder after doing a lot of speeches?

6. Does public speaking help other aspects of learning or education? Does it help us to absorb more information more efficiently?

7. Can we have a sheet (cue cards)?

8. Is it better to memorize your speech?

9. What's the best way to start a presentation?

10. What are some tricks to public speaking that could make standing in front of a crowd less nerve-racking?

11. How many points or supporting details should we have in our speech?

12. How do you find a place to look at so it's like you are looking at the audience but not in their eyes so it's not awkward?

13. How do you use visuals to enhance your presentation?

14. What tone of voice should you speak in? Serious/happy/enthusiastic?

15. Do we have to memorize or can we use cue cards?

16. How should the speech be organized?

17. Do you have to memorize it?

18. How can you make sure you speak fluently and at a good pace if you are nervous and speak faster when you are nervous?

19. How do you look up from your notes when talking? How do you become comfortable with the speech?

20. To give a good oral presentation, what are the most important things to remember?

21. Is public speaking important in many types of jobs? How can someone become a better public speaker?

Here's some links to great speeches!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9cGdRNMdQQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IvPIWzQcUY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-bjOJzB7LY

Easter Mass Performance

Hi choir members! Our next practice is tomorrow, Friday, March 23.

We'll be performing at the school's Easter mass on April 10th. It's short notice so we'll have to put our other songs on hold for now and bump up to two practices per week. Here's a link to the two songs we'll be singing. We'll also go over the very short pieces we'll be singing as part of the mass.

For the Hallelujah song I'd like to have someone recite a poem while we hum through the song. Please feel free to write a poem if this is something you are interested in doing. Otherwise I have some poems available. Let me know if you're interested!

Here's the songs:

Hallelujah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOLODyaMcrM

Breathe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB0wGmQMAlg
lyrics
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Breathe-lyrics-Rebecca-St-James/A1C2274AA3FB91AF48256EBB0011CC5C

RAFT Poetry Writing

click on the picture to watch the video

Spring is here! Actually, so is summer! I'll take it.

As we move into this new season we can't forget the Lenten promises we made. What did you give up and how did you replace it with an act that improves your relationship with God? Today we watched this video (click on the picture to see the video again) and started to think about how we can create a message for an audience about the miracle of Easter, Jesus' resurrection. Everyone will be writing a free-form poem within the RAFT structure below. When brainstorming ideas for your poem try to think of what makes Easter such a special time of the year. What can we learn from the miracle of Jesus' resurrection and how does that mirror the cycle of life and death that we witness in our world? What about Jesus' story inspires a renewed look at the world, at our own lives?

If you are interested, you can read your poem on stage with the choir backing you up at the upcoming Easter assembly.

Have fun writing, and remember that with free-form poetry there are no structural restrictions.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you produce!

Mr. B

Role: You

Audience: Jesus, or the staff and students

Format: Free-form poem

Topic: The miracle of Easter

Procedural Writing 3.0

The common assessment is tomorrow. Below is the review we did today. On the assessment you will be asked to read a procedural composition and assess it's effectiveness. You will also have to rearrange a procedure that has the steps out of order. Finally you will be asked to write a procedure based on a given topic - you will have some freedom to choose your specific procedure, but it will be within a given field (ex. Write the steps to cooking your favourite meal).

Look over the blog posts, read and assess the examples created in class, and visit wikihow.com in order to prepare for the assessment. To practice your writing, choose a procedure to write and use each of the following 7 points in your writing.

Get a good sleep and eat some brain food in the morning! That's a balanced breakfast that has some fruit, protein (milk, pb, egg, yogurt), and some carbs (toast, healthy cereal, bagel, oatmeal).

Here's the review:

1 - Transition words. ex. first, then, secondly, next, lastly

2- Sentences should be clear and concise. Be specific.

3- Titles and topic sentences.

4- Group steps together if they are connected. Ex. Kicking a soccer ball. Step 1: Set up. Put the ball down on the grass and step back three to four feet away from it.

5- Short, simple title. Capitalize the first letter of every word.

6- Use basic, clear illustrations.

7- Introductory sentences. Write a couple of sentences explaining why someone might want to do this thing better, how it will help them.

Procedural Writing 2.0

Today we practiced reading and writing procedural compositions. Here are the results of your work together. Great work, guys! A few more things to remember about procedural writing:

Include a title. It should be simple and explain what the writing is about. Ex. How to Fry an Egg. Remember, in a title you capitalize the first letter of every significant word (ie. do not capitalize "a", "the", "and", "it" UNLESS that word is the first in word in the title - check out some books for examples on this).

Illustrations. You will not be evaluated on if you include an illustration in your writing on tomorrow's assessment, but remember that even a small illustration can help illustrate something that seems very complex.

Introductory sentences. Write a sentence or two addressing why someone might need help with this procedure and how improving in this area will help them in the end. Ex. Keeping a clean and organized locker will help you get to your classes on time and will eliminate the frustration of having to search for a lost book or assignment. Follow these easy steps an you're school days will run much smoother.

Take a look at the examples above. Evaluate the writing. What level would you give it? Does it include the necessary forms of procedural writing. What does it do well? What would you add?

Procedural Writing

Hi FR grade 8 English students! I hope you had a nice March break. We're back at it and preparing for our common English assessment which will be held this Wednesday, March 21. We will be assessing your procedural writing skills.

Here are some things to remember about procedural writing:

Sentences should be clear and concise. That means they provide only information relevant to the topic, but they should also not be too short that they break up processes that are connected.

Use titles and topic sentences. At the beginning of a new series of steps or information include a title heading or very short topic sentence.

Group two or three steps together under one heading. Don't break up your instruction into too many steps. Put together things that are closely connected. Personally, I avoid recipes that have too many steps in them.

So remember these important points. On your common assessment you will be asked to write the procedure for something and you will also be asked to evaluate a piece of writing. Think about what makes written instructions effective or not. Open a cookbook for some examples or cruise through Wikihow.com to check out some examples. You decide how effective they are.

I'll post your examples tonight!