Thursday, March 29, 2012

Public Speaking Class

by Ellie (Class of 2013)

One of my favorite classes at the moment, which happens to be a semester class, is public speaking. So far we have written and delivered a few different speeches – an introduction speech for another girl in our class, a speech to demonstrate a task (for example, my friend Audrey demonstrated how to tack up a horse), and a speech that covered a current event in only 45 seconds. Not only do we write and deliver speeches, but we also cultivate skills such as connecting with an audience and delivering eloquent speeches. This week we worked on reading poetry. First we chose any poem from a book in the library and studied its punctuation and meaning before reading it aloud to the class. After that, we all opened a different poetry book and read whatever poem was on the page we opened to without studying it beforehand. It was a good way to use our newly acquired oration skills and try some improv! We even snapped instead of clapping after each girl read. I think it’s fantastic that public speaking is a required course because, as my teacher Mrs. Davis said on the first day of class, everyone will have to stand up and speak in front of a group people some time in life!