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.

Oral Communications November 10 - 13

Remember, no school this Friday! Informative speeches are due this week which include a typed outline to be presented to me when you get ready to present. Total points for presentation and outline are 125 pts. I will take volunteers until no one volunteers, then I will call on students--don't miss out on volunteer points. Good luck.

Oral Communications -- November 3 - 7

We have been in the library this week working on Informative speeches that are due Monday, November 10. Students must present a typed outline to me just before they
step up to present speech. Remember, the speeches are worth 125 pts.--100 pts for content and presentation and 25 pts. for outline. Students may receive additional credit if they bring a note from home signed by parent stating that they listened to child's speech. Extra credit can also be received for volunteering. I am looking forward next week to some interesting speeches and awesome speakers. Thank you.

Oral Communications - October 27 - 31

Students in my classes, remember if you want to see the Halloween drama performances, you must purchase a ticket. All of my classes will be attending on the 31st with the exception of 4th hr. There will be no performances during 4th hr. because of lunch. Price of admission is .99 cents. You may donate the penny to the drama department to make it an even $1.00.
We are going to be getting ready to go to the library a few days next week to gather information for our informative speeches due the second week in November. Be thinking of a topic that you would like to give us information about. Remember, do not cross over into the realm of persuasive speaking and try to convince us to support something or somebody, or to change our views on some issue or to make some type of change--you'll have to save any persuasive ideas for later when we do our student congressional bills.
You will also be required to submit an outline with your persuasive speech.

Oral Communications - October 20 - 24

Busy week this week. We will complete our intrapersonal (color) speeches Monday, do a few exercises with perception and self-concept, design a logo, review for your test on Chapter 5, Intrapersonal Communication, and have the test on Friday. If you did nothing but study the
Knowledge Map you were given, you should get a 100% on the test.
I will be out on Wednesday, October 22, but back Thursday to help you review for Friday's test. I know Friday is homecoming, but the test is only 20 multiple choice questions and should not take long or be too much of a strain on you.
Hope everyone enjoys their three day weekend. I know I will.

Oral Communications October 13 - 16

Friday the 17th is a holiday for students and most teachers. The following Monday and Tuesday (October 20 and 21) will be Parent Teacher Conferences.
Monday, students will compose one minute speeches to present Tuesday. Handouts will be
given to help outline these short speeches. Presentation will be worth approximately 30 pts., 20 pts. on content, and 10 pts. on delivery. We should finish up on Wednesday and continue
learning about intrapersonal communication on Thursday and have a test the following week on
intrapersonal communication.

Oral Communications - October 6 -10

Reminders: The end of the 1st quarter is October 13--No school on October 17.
We will spend a little time this week discussing faulty reasoning, (we may have a quiz Tuesday (7th) on the faulty reasoning terms from the handouts I gave you on Chapter 4 Vocabulary. We will then move on to intrapersonal communication and shortly afterward interpersonal communication. Intrapersonal communication is a term for communicating with ourselves. It is helpful to give some thought to why we have the communication styles that we have. All that we think, do and say is centered in our own experiences, past and present. If we can open up our minds enough to comprehend that everyone else has different experiences, then we can begin to communicate in ways that are more tolerant of those differences--but we must look critically at ourselves first.