Generating Speech Topics Part 2

I am building on my activity from last year and spending more time on working with students to generate speech topics. I really want to encourage them to not just Google "speech topics" and do something that is meaningful to them.

They will answer the following questions individually that I wrote and then answer questions posed by their peers.

Then they will submit (if they want to) the answers in class. I will be their recorder. After each question we will discuss how their answers can be turned into a persuasive speech topic.

A side benefit to this thus far has been that their answers are really telling and informative and will help me connect to them as students.

January 4, 2017

1. What do you see yourself doing in ten years?
2. What are the three most challenging aspects of being a teenager?
3. What are the three best parts of being a teenager?
4. What are the three best parts of living in Israel?
5. What are the three worst parts of living in Israel?
6. What three things do you like most about this school?
7. What three things do you like least about this school?
8. If you could pick any five classes to take and not have to worry about requirements or anything else, what would they be?
9. What are the three best parts of social media?
10. What are the three worst parts of social media?
11. If you could change three things in the world, what would they be?
12. What are three things that your parents don’t know about you?
13. What three things make a good parent?
14. What three things make a good teacher?
15. What three things make a bad teacher?
16. What three news items concerned you over the past two weeks?
17. If you had five million dollars to give away, what three charitable groups would you give it to?
18. If you could go three places anywhere in the world, where would you go?
19. If you could advise Mr. Trump on three things, what would they be?
20. Where is your happy place?
21. Who or what three people/things get on your nerves and why?
22. What three things are not fair and why?
23. What three things make a good friend?
24. What three things make a bad friend?
25. What is your ideal job? Student Generated:
26. What are three things that make someone truly happy?
27. If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be?
28. If you could be anywhere right now, where would it be, and why?
29. What makes up a good school?
30. If you could change one thing that happened in 2016, what would it be?
31. If you were stranded on a deserted island what is one thing or who is one person that you would bring?
32. What is one of your biggest life regrets?  
33. What are three reasons you like about music?
34. Who are three people that you miss often?

Giving them what they need

Teachers are trained to create units, to set learning outcomes, and to follow the objectives of a curriculum. There is a perceived and sometimes mandated rush to cover topics. What I am finding is that sometimes though, I’m sacrificing depth for breadth and when I do, no one is benefitting, specifically not the students.

This is something I fret about, but it was confirmed recently when a student wrote on an evaluation that, “sometimes the teacher cuts a discussion short just to get to the next topic.”

Students write all sorts of comments on evaluations. Some I take to heart and some I take with a grain of salt. But this, along with my own professional inventory, I really took to heart.

For example, right now my students are working on their speeches for the school’s annual speech contest. I wanted to cut this unit very short. My excuse was that speech writing was covered in 9^th grade and will be covered again in 11^th and 12^th grades.  I wanted them to write their speeches, get comments from me, practice, and deliver.

However, they wanted more. They requested guided brainstorming and time to revise. Some asked to conference with me. They used and desired time for peer feedback and practice. Some students were ahead of others and hoped to spend their time on practicing vs. revising.

So, I listened and gave them the time.

The first question I asked at the beginning of my English classes today was what do you need so that you can successfully deliver a speech during the next class?

They were a bit surprised by the question. It's not a typical question asked by a teacher to a student. We usually tell t hem what they "need." However, it didn't take long for them to communicate their exact needs. 

Was every student on task all of the time? No, they never are, but are you ever on task for 80 minutes?  But I did my best to monitor their progress and ask questions to get them back on track. 

So as I find myself stressing out over the fact that my lesson plans from last year show that we were already reading Macbeth and that this year we are “behind,” I will remind myself that there really is no such thing as behind. I am not teaching for the state. There is no 10^th Grade English test that my students have to pass.   I have some autonomy in determining the pace. For this, I feel very fortunate and so are my students.

…..

Postscript: Their speeches were great and much improved from the first to the second drafts. It was time well spent.

The Art of Brainstorming Speech Topics

One of the most challenging aspects of an assignment for some students is coming up with an idea. The adage that I subscribe to and teach is to “write what you know.” Currently, my students are working on speeches. Coming up with a topic is challenging because, as one of my students said, “There’s just so much you can do.”

There is a misnomer that a proper brainstorming session involves students shouting out stream of consciousness thoughts, whatever first comes to mind.  This method typically doesn’t produce the best ideas and is challenging to control.

To brainstorm ideas for a speech, I ask students to take a personal inventory of sorts. Individually, each student has to answer a series of questions in a Google Document titled: “What do You Care About?”  After they have answered the questions, students may share their answers with the class. From the answers we generate a Google Document where they can further review possible speech topics. All three sections of 10^th Grade English contribute to the document.

After they answer the questions, I use the bull’s eye diagram to further explain why the exercise is important in the brainstorming process. For a typical teenager, the most important and central part of the bull’s eye in the self, next the family, then school, followed by other communities, and lastly “greater society” or the world. I hypothesize to them that their speeches will be easier to write, more authentic and compelling the closer it would fit to the center of the bull’s eye. This hypothesis isn’t absolute. Some student can take any topic, delve into it, and write a good speech. However, when students “write what they know” they may find the elusive “flow” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes about. According to Csikszentmihalyi, being in state of flow will help students produce better work and enjoy learning.

 

 

Persuasive Speech Topic Brainstorming Session: What do you Care About?

• What are the three most important things to you about your family?
• What are three things about your family you wish you could change?
• What are three things about this school that you really like?
• What are three things about this school that you wish you could change?
• What are three things everyone should know how to do?
• What are three things people take for granted?
• If you had an unlimited amount of money, to whom/which groups would you donate money?
• If you had to choose to take one class, all day, every day, what class would it be?
• Where are three places everyone should visit once in their life?
• What are three common misunderstandings adults have about teenagers?
• What are the three biggest problems facing the world today?