Ms. Lane's Website
"Speech is power: speech is to persuade,
to convert, to compel."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
An Overview of Public Speaking
Welcome to Public Speaking
Regardless of a student's public speaking ability upon beginning this class, our goal is for students to improve.
Students will not only be working on their presentation skills but also crafting the content of their speeches so that they are as prepared and confident as possible. We cover a range of speaking experiences so that students may gain as many tools as possible for handling the plethora of speaking opportunities a student will encounter in his or her life.
Public Speaking Classroom Expectations
Ms. Lane's EHS Virtual Classroom (YouTube)
What to Expect in Public Speaking
We start this semester course with a brief introduction of ourselves and then move to working with a partner for a presentation. We move immediately into oral interpretation because January is when the school-wide Poetry Out Loud contest occurs. We also analyze Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech" prior to the holiday weekend. Once students have had this orientation to public speaking, we build on that foundation to more sophisticated and longer speeches. Students are required to do various amounts of research for the majority of their speeches; however, students are usually permitted to choose their own topics for each speaking experience.
Skills in writing properly formated MLA-style outlines with complete source citations is also a skill on which we focus. And, time permitting, students will write a resume and do a mock job interview.
Poetry Out Loud Website (Sponsored by The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation)