Oral Communications - November 17- December 19

Monday, November 17 will be our last day for informative speeches. Tuesday, November 18, we will begin with discussion and notes on congressional bills and parliamentary procedure, our next big project. Our classroom will present their bills much like Congress does in passing laws. But before the classroom becomes a student congress, we will have to conduct research and each student will have to draft their own bill to submit to the class to be debated and voted upon. Students will have the opportunity to choose their own issue that they feel warrants change in our present system concerning either--school policy, local policy, state law, or national law.
Students will receive points for drafting their bills, presenting their bills, and their parliamentary procedure skills which includes points for following parliamentary procedure and for participation in the debates of the various bills. Students must participate in the debates and questioning periods of their class student congress in order to do well on this project which will be worth 125 to possibly 200 points (depending on how we decide to count short debate speeches and how many extra credit points may be earned). Friday, November 21, we will begin our research by going to the computer lab every day through Tuesday, December 2. By that time students will have to have their bills typed and ready to submit to me in order for me to make a copy of every student's (within a class) bill -- so all will have a packet of any current and future bills on the floor. We will begin debate on December 3, and hopefully complete our session by December 12.
I will give out a study guide for our semester test which will be given by, or shortly before December 19, our last day of the semester and of Oral Communications for this group of students. The semester test will cover: understanding communication, verbal and nonverbal communication, intrapersonal communication, the informative speaking process, and parliamentary procedure. It will be important that students spend time studying the study guide as the semester test grade will be 20% of the semester grade.