Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Tribute Speech Orders

Monday


Order Name
1
Neda
2
Lauren
3
Daniel
4
Marissa
5
Shannon
6
Mary G
7
Elia
8
Courtney
9
Norah
10
Anna

Wednesday


Order Name
1
Mohammed
2
Sean
3
Caitlin
4
Maren
5
Luke
6
Max
7
Cerena
8
Sarah
9
Amy
10
Amanda

Code of Conduct

Giving

  • Do's
    • Compliment Sandwich
    • Be authentic (esp. re: compliment sandwich)
    • Be direct
    • Offer suggestions for improvement
    • Balance your feedback - don't be all negative
    • Include your subjective experience with your feedback
    • Check your language, be self-reflexive 
    • Give feedback keeping in mind previous speech from that person
    • Respect others' ideas, beliefs, perspectives, etc.
    • Critique the work, not the person
    • Organize your feedback
    • Be aware of "filling quotas"
    • Include the "why"
  • Don'ts
    • Don't sugar coat
    • Don't summarize the content of the speech - unless you're trying to clarify
    • Don't make assumptions about intentions - ask questions
    • Don't hold back
    • Don't be aggressive
    • Don't compare people


Receiving

  • Do's
    • Understand that feedback is subjective
    • Be open-minded
    • Ask for clarification
    • Check your ego/emotions
    • Separate feedback from personal attack
    • Don't take it personally
  • Don'ts
    • Don't be biased, try to understand where feedback is coming from
    • Don't read into critiques

April 8th Blog Post

1. Tribute for my mom
2. Tribute for my cousin and his fiance
3. Tribute for myself?

In my speech I would like to use intentional pauses like Obama did in order to break up my speech and make t easier to follow for my audiences.

Sarah Tornatzky
Post 3 ideas for the Tribute speech that you have and one thing from Obama's speech that you'd like to apply.

1. Tribute to my Mom
2. Tribute to Bill Daniels, the founder of the Daniels Fund Scholarship Program
3. Eulogy for myself?

I think the intentional pauses that Obama uses are very powerful and would be a great tool for adding emphasis to portions of my tribute.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

4.9.14

Motivational Appeals
  • The difference between emotionally motivating and manipulating:
    • Motivating
      • When the emotion is sincerely shared between the speaker and the audience
      • When there is a balance between emotional and logical appeal
      • When moral issues are taken up that are centrally relevant to the argument of the speech
    • Manipulating
      • When the speaker “tacks on” an emotional veil to hook his/her audience
      • When the audience can perceive that a speaker is playing on it’s emotions
      • When a moral issue is illustrated as a means of “tokenism” - a superficial gesture meant only to gain the allegiance of certain groups and identities.



    Crafting Your Speech
    • Modes of Delivery
    • Extemporaneous - use of outline
    • Impromptu - draft first and last sentences
    • Manuscript/Scripted Speeches - less room for error
    • Memorized - most prep, but least amount of stress during the speech
    • You can blend these styles - for example if one particular sentence only works if worded in a very specific way, you can script the one sentence and include it in the outline.
    • Written versus oral - this is why it is important to practice. Written style sometimes doesn’t feel right when spoken aloud.


    Intro to Speech Ethics
    • Listening and Ethics
      • No decision a speaker makes is politically or morally neutral. When you speak, you are by default editing by choosing what to say and what not to say; you are therefore issuing value and importance to various topics.
      • Be aware of your own personal/cultural/political biases. We all have frameworks that we use to make sense of the world.

    • Determine your intentions: are your intentions to teach, or to learn?
    • Determine your vantage point: where does your cultural perspective differ from the perspective you are performing?
    • Be open to criticism
    • Predict what, if any, outcomes may be harmful, or perceived as harmful by members of the cultural perspective you are presenting
    Code of Conduct for Peer Critiques: Together, we will create a living document that can be added or amended throughout the quarter. It should act as a blueprint for the best practices in BOTH giving AND receiving feedback.

    Group Exercise: 3-4 people in each group

    • As a group, choose a person to tribute or eulogize. They can be alive, departed, real or fictional.
    • Craft a SHORT (3 min) speech that uses the following language devices listed on 173-174:
      • One use of simile
      • One use of metaphor
      • One use of personification
      • One use of hyperbole
      • One use of repetition
      • One use of a rhetorical question (a question that you answer yourself, or whose answer is self-evident)
      • Check to be sure your speech is devoid of cliches


    Monday, April 7, 2014

    Will The Real Mitt Romney Please Stand Up (feat. Eminem) - A Great Example of What We Talked About In Class!

    Hi everyone! I think that this video is a fantastic example of how easily speeches can be taken out of context and do not have a limited audience in today's digital age. This video is meant to be humorous, but it's nonetheless a great example of what we talked about today. Enjoy!

    Tribute Speech - 4.14 & 4.16

    TIME:  5 Minutes

    ASSIGNMENT:

    Please prepare a tribute speech for someone that you admire or care about, or someone you don't know but find interesting nonetheless. The context for this speech is one of the following (of your choosing): an awards ceremony, a wedding/birthday, or a funeral. You may also choose to deliver a eulogy for yourself.

    DIRECTIONS:

    Each student is to prepare a 5-minute tribute that recognizes the virtues, accomplishments and personality of the individual in question. The main objective here is to get comfortable organizing and preparing ideas. You must organize your speech in a way that is meaningful and flows in a logical way. For instance, it would be helpful to frame your speech around a uniting theme or metaphor.

    The two main purposes of this speech are: to evoke emotion and to invite your audience to reflect on the life/accomplishments of the person about whom you are speaking. Think about the various techniques we've observed in the TED talks we've watched as a class that make emotional appeals (storytelling, being vulnerable, using visuals, etc.)


    GUIDELINES:

    Pay close attention to the following when preparing your speech:

    Introduction:  attention-gaining material, thesis statement, preview.
    Thesis Statement:  Clear, specific, and directly related to your main points, perhaps through a unifying theme or metaphor
    Conclusion:  signal end of speech, summarize main points, decisive and memorable close.

    Typed outline due in class (or by email) MONDAY April 14 (even if you are presenting on the 16th).


    Sunday, April 6, 2014

    4.6.14 - Social and Ceremonial Context




    This American Life
    • “ I think if you were just walking by a stranger's tombstone and saw their name chiseled there on the rock, you'd never get this feeling.” -Ira Glass
      • Why do movies and pictures evoke more emotion than words?
        • Breaking with tradition, getting away from stuffy conventions that take us further away from celebrating who a person was
          • “The traditional funeral wasn’t powerful enough to contain peoples’ feelings”
        • There are certain elements of a person - or even of life - that cannot be captured by words
        • Your job as a tribute speaker is to capture the essence of the subject through - and between - words. Things like tone, facial expressions, pauses, body language, can bring words further towards capturing that essence.
        • In some ways, Ira Glass and This American Life are in the same situation as you: they are a radio program, they can only rely on words and sound effects to convey a series of very complex stories. What are the ways that Ira Glass infuses life into his stories?
    • Lives are made up of moments and stories. We need to evoke that level of detail
    • Ira’s story shows us that it’s hard to make someone come alive using a formula, you have to look at that person’s life


    Analyzing Speech Contexts
    • Public Sphere - Private Sphere
    • Formal v. Informal
      • This is dictated both by the setting and by the style of the speaker.
    • Monologic v. Dialogic
      • The role of the audience is conventionally passive; breaking with these conventions is an excellent way to gain your audience’s attention and make an authentic connection
      • Bobby McFerrin’s use of the audience as an intrinsic instrument in his speech created a memorable experience: 



    • Power Dynamics
    • Existing v. One-Time Community
      • Our class is in a privileged position to be able to meet and rely on a consistent community throughout the quarter. Take advantage of it.
    • Immediate audience v. Extended audience
      • With the ever-expanding public sphere of digital media, it is generally wise to anticipate exposure to an extended audience (i.e. YouTube, user video posts, etc.)
      • Mitt Romney and the “47 Percent” incident




    Social and Ceremonial Context
    • President Obama’s Eulogy for Nelson Mandela
      • It is hard to eulogize any man - to capture in words not just the facts and the dates that make a life, but the essential truth of a person - their private joys and sorrows; the quiet moments and unique qualities that illuminate someone's soul.”
      • One thing before we listen - Madiba = Mandela’s tribal name
      • Group Exercise - we will break into 7 groups. Each group will be assigned one element of Obama’s speech to look for and write down
    1. What are some instances where Obama strategically uses silences in ways that are as powerful as words if not more? Why is they effective?
    2. How does Obama use considerations of his audience’s identities (ranging from South Africans to tribes to ethnicities) to connect during his speech? Why is this effective?
    3. How does he make Mandela’s life come alive? How does he distinguish Mandela the public figure from Mandela the man?
    4. The reactions of the audience - what are they reacting to? Why?
    5. How does he call on a higher elevating wisdom/lesson from Mandela’s life? What are these lessons?
    6. How does Obama call on his own identity (as a person and as a political figure) in his speech? Why is it effective?
    7. How does Obama use emotion in his speech and voice? What emotions is he trying to convey and why is it effective?




    Motivational Appeals
    • The difference between emotionally motivating and manipulating:
      • Motivating
        • When the emotion is sincerely shared between the speaker and the audience
        • When there is a balance between emotional and logical appeal
        • When moral issues are taken up that are centrally relevant to the argument of the speech
      • Manipulating
        • When the speaker “tacks on” an emotional veil to hook his/her audience
        • When the audience can perceive that a speaker is playing on it’s emotions
        • When a moral issue is illustrated as a means of “tokenism” - a superficial gesture meant only to gain the allegiance of certain groups and identities.



    Crafting Your Speech
    • Modes of Delivery
    • Extemporaneous - use of outline
    • Impromptu - draft first and last sentences
    • Manuscript/Scripted Speeches - less room for error
    • Memorized - most prep, but least amount of stress during the speech
    • You can blend these styles - for example if one particular sentence only works if worded in a very specific way, you and script the one sentence and include it in the outline.
    • Written versus oral - this is why it is important to practice. Written style sometimes doesn’t feel right when spoken aloud.
    • Please consult Part 7 when constructing your speech for next week - it gives a great comprehensive look at effective language devices.

    Intro to Speech Ethics
    • Listening and Ethics
      • No decision a speaker makes is politically or morally neutral. When you speak, you are by default editing by choosing what to say and what not to say; you are therefore issuing value and importance to various topics.
      • Be aware of your own personal/cultural/political biases. We all have frameworks that we use to make sense of the world.
    • Determine your intentions: are your intentions to teach, or to learn?
    • Determine your vantage point: where does your cultural perspective differ from the perspective you are performing?
    • Be open to criticism
    • Predict what, if any, outcomes may be harmful, or perceived as harmful by members of the cultural perspective you are presenting


    Group Exercise
    • Groups of 2-3
    • Please discuss:
      • Potential topics for next week’s speech
      • What modes of delivery work best for you, your topic and this assignment
      • One element of President Obama’s speech that you would like to consider using in your speech