Kristyn+W.

Call to Arms speech

For this speech we had to research and give an informational speech on a social issue. I chose breast cancer as it has affected a few people in my family, and it also interested me that everyone is at risk of getting it. I thought the content part of my speech was good as I provided statistics and information. I know that I sped through my speech but I actually practiced it a lot and it was always a few seconds over six minutes, so I probably got nervous and sped up my pace. Also, I was stuck to my visual because a lot of reminders about what I was going to talk about next were on my presentation. I stumbled on some lines in the middle mixing up the order, which threw me off track a bit too. Besides my blunders, I thought I had a good content for my speech. I felt that I had a powerful last line too, which was, “It can happen to anyone.” This may sound persuasive, but it is informative, as I found this in an expert testimony.

Book Talk Speech

This was our first half oral interpretation half speech about convincing a specific audience to read your book. Kristyn Wong This was our first book talk speech. My book was “The Secret Life of Bees” by sue monk kidd. I intentionally worked on slowing my pace and speaking with more enunciation. I felt this speech went well, or at least better than my previous speeches.

I felt that I need a little more practice on concentrating on my speech because I noticed in the video that I would fidget or shift my weight a lot. I looked down at my index card too much and that caused me to make little or no eye contact with thee audience. I think I should speak more confidently because I sound shy and nervous of what I am going to say next. A line I stumbled on was describing Lily’s life. “Lily is not your everyday average teenager.”

I felt I improved a lot on my pacing because I worked extra hard to make sure I had a clear, steady voice. I thought my best line was about describing honey. “It filled her heart with love.”

I thought that my content was wrong because I summarized the book, instead of convincing. I thought that summarizing the book would engage my specified audience to want to read it, but as I saw other people’s speeches I had second thoughts about my plan.

I think I answered the questions without any problems. I stumbled on Ryan’s question which was “How was the movie?” because I was surprised by a question not about the book itself.

I would give myself a B because I know I tried my hardest, yet I think I could have done better. Inspirational Speech

This was our first speech on a microphone in the chapel. I enjoyed this much more than the orals in the classroom because of a few reasons. First, the podium blocks out the lower half of your body, so you do not have to worry as much about fidgeting. Second, when you are up there on the mic. stand, you feel so powerful looking down at people with a strong, solid voice, it helped build my confidence of talking in a microphone. Last but not least, it helped me to fidget less because everyone was watching me up there above them, so I tended not to play with my hair or face as much as I do during orals.

I felt I had several areas of needed improvement. This included pacing, eye contact, fluency, memorizing, and general effect. My pacing was faster than I intended it to be, because every time I practiced, I eased myself, but up by the mic. I guess I wanted to get it over as quickly as possible, so I rushed a little. My eye contact was horrible, my little safety notecard was my security blanket so I kept looking down at it, but I did make eye contact with the audience for a few seconds at a time. My fluency was not very consistent. I stuttered a lot when I was searching through my brain for the right words. I should have been more fluent considering it came from the heart, so I could have just told the story a little different from my original manuscript because it was my own personal experience story. My constant stuttering was caused by my loss of the memory of my manuscript. I looked at the hint on my index card, I knew the right words, but I did not remember which order they had to come out in. The general effect I thought was not the way I planned it to be. It was not the most inspirational story I admit, but my voice I thought, was a little too perky, not the sad tone I was trying to achieve to match the mood of my story.

Although I'm pointing out all these bad points, I thought I achieved highly on a few areas such as voice control, posture, and overall performance. My voice, I thought, was a good solid volume the whole time through. I did not have to speak that loud because the microphone picked up every whisper you spoke of. My posture was nice and upright, and I tried my best not to fidget on the podium which I think I did pretty well on. I thought my overall performance for my first speech was a good start to the next speeches coming up.

I think I tried my best on this first speech and I prepared more than I ever did for an oral. Although I had more areas of needed improvement rather than achievements, I think I deserve an overall grade of a solid B.

Hands Only

First off, I do not think I prepared for this well enough, we were given two days to pull this off, the first day which was straight planning a topic. I chose to do putting on a gentle leader on a dog. I practiced at home in front of the mirror, but my introduction and conclusion were really short. That being short, my entire presentation missed the minimum time by about ten seconds. I think I did good on the hand motions and using an invisible dog and gentle leader, the speaking part was my weakness, my intro and conclusion were choppy, as well as my demo, my best line would have to be " stand with your legs open in a horse riding stance, with the dog between your legs." My original goal was to do a demo that was as if I could see the objects, but the audience could not, but it ended up having both of us not being able to picture the objects in our heads. Overall, I think I deserve solid C grade.

OI # 4 Self Assessment 10/26

This was our fourth and last oral. I finally, after three orals, found and cut the perfect chapter so that the time length was perfect. I had read it several time that week, but I got nervous and kept looking down so I should have worked better on my eye contact and memorization. I thought I improved on my pacing, voice volume, and emotion. I did not have a favorite line but I had a favorite passage. I liked the last part when she describes the even song because I could almost imagine myself there in her place. I think I could have done better, but in a way of voice control, I improved greatly since my last oral. OI # 3 Self Assessment 10/17

This was our third oral and it was easier yet difficult in many ways. It was easier because it was a personal poem, it was the third oral, and it was shorter. It was difficult because it was our personal poem, the intro, and the gestures. This being a poem that we ourselves wrote made it easier to bring life to the poem because we wrote it, so only we knew what message we wanted to send out to the audience. Usually the first oral is hard because it was my first time speaking in front of the class, the second time was a getting used to time, but the third one is when you really know what you are doing and you just fix the edges. It was shorter than a famous poet's poem, so it was easier to know really well. It was difficult writing the poem because you can't just plagiarize a poem but you have to create your own poem from the heart. The intro was hard for me because it was difficult relating that poem to my life. The gestures we were expected to do didn't go as planned for me because they came out but not naturally-- more like forced. I think I improved on the hand motions but I still need to work on my pacing of words.

OI#2 Self Assessment 9/22/09

This being my second oral, I had places of both improvement and of struggle. I thought I improved on my pace, eye contact, and body movement. I think I did well on pacing my words. To make this better, I need to work on putting life into the poem.

The first oral we did, I sped through the poem blurring sentences together. This time however, I felt that I stopped after every stanza, and paused where pauses belonged. For example: “It was many and many a year ago, pause, in a kingdom by the sea, pause.” I also improved on my physical appearance for example, I did not shift as much, and I looked up much more than before. Also, I tried to incorporate hand motions, although they could have looked much more natural.

Some areas of struggle would be putting more life into the poem I tried to put emotion in to the lines, but sometimes went out of that depressing mood. For example how I started off, I could have been more dramatic.

I think I did a job well done on pacing my words. I recited them slowly and with a good volume. For example I calmly said, “Nor-the-angels-in-heaven-above, nor-the-demons-down-under-the-sea, can-ever-dissever-my soul-from the-beautiful-Annabel-lee.”

I think I did ok, but it was hard to put life into a poem that you did not write personally from the heart.