Public Speaking [Tuesday, January 15, 2013]

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"Good morning," Josh said, sipping from his nice, hot cup of coffee (thank you, Donna Natalie!) as he leaned against his desk at the front of the classroom. "Today we'll get started learning about the basic categories of speeches. I don't mean short or long, or interesting and stupefying, those though certainly are ways to remember speeches. There are four general groupings, with some overlap between categories: informative, persuasive, demonstrative, and special occasion. You can't be very persuasive if you you're not also demonstrating your grasp of information."

He began walking between the aisles as he talked. "An informative speech is basically a lecture. Every class you attend here, I hope, is intended to teach you something."

Or provide entertainment for the teacher, but Josh hadn't seen Jaye again yet.

"An informative speech is different from a how-to speech or a persuasive speech because it is only intended to provide information. You leave it up to your audience to decide for themselves what to do with the information; you're not trying to persuade them to think like you do, nor are you specifically teaching them how to do something. You're only concerned with providing information for your audience on a particular topic.

"Informative speeches are useful as an introduction to some topic that is unfamiliar to your audience, which is why audience research pays off. You wouldn't want to lecture on how a bill becomes a law to members of Congress."

Josh paused. "Well, to their staffs, at least. Some of the members of Congress are amazingly stupid and might not know. Anyway, one of the most important things to include in an informative speech is, of course, information. You will want to do research on facts and statistics, to make that your speech has something interesting to give the audience. Those facts and statistics will probably be best communicated with visual aids, such as charts, graphs, illustrations, and so forth, because providing information both aurally and visually means you have a better chance of people remembering it, but for the love of God, don't subject us all to death by Powerpoint, the Pentagon's favorite legal torture method."

Josh continued to lecture about informative speeches, showing the students how to get their audience involved through asking questions, and providing examples, and warning them about avoiding the pitfalls of seeming like a giant know-it-all by providing too much information.

"President Bartlet enjoyed trivia," he said, "and during debate prep for re-election he would get down into the weeds of specific legislative initiatives that the average voter, frankly, had never heard of. Your goal is to provide information without making your audience feel stupid for not knowing it to begin with or to be so specific their eyes glaze over. So next week, come in with one visual aid and a speech prepared about the last twenty years of history in your home dimension. Your speech should be at least ten minutes long."

"Today, though, we're going to do some audience research through extemporaneous speeches. No need to thank me," he added, walking around with a jar full of pieces of paper. "You each get a topic, then a full minute to think of what you're going to say. You only have to talk for three minutes." He held up a stop watch. "I'll be timing you."

He smiled. "And after that, our press secretary for the day is--" he ran his finger down the attendance sheet, "--Peter Wiggin. Congratulations. And Mr. Luthor, you impressed me so much that you can be my second assistant along with the lovely...." she wouldn't bring him coffee unless he remembered her name, "...Natalie."

Industrial Arts, Tuesday

[not_a_whiner]

"Welcome back," Kaidan said.

They were in the Danger Shop again, same set-up as last time: machinery along the walls, workbenches for all the students, and at the front, Kaidan with a circular saw lying in front of him. (Okay, maybe the circular saw was new.) "I know some of you more experienced kids might not get too excited about this," he said, "But these next three weeks we're going to kick off with woodworking. The next two weeks, you're going to be working on a project of your own - you can use the blueprints we've got to make a small entertainment cart or a storage unit, or you can spend the week looking for another project you'd like to tackle."

"First, though, we're going to be talking about safety measures," he continued. "I hope you've all dressed for the class - no loose clothes, and if you have any jewelry on it, take it off. It's a safety hazard." He walked around the class, dropping leaflets on each workbench. "Today, I'm going to demonstrate how to use certain equipment safely," he said. "To start with, I'm going to need all of you to put on your safety glasses. Then you can all come up to the front of the class."

"This is a circular saw," he said, once he'd returned to the front and all the students had followed. "Most of the time while you're here, you're going to be using those table saws over there, but a lot of the principles are the same. For example, you're going to want to saw against the motion - you want it to cut into the material, not with it." He turned the saw on and talked them through sawing a plank in half, trying to find a middle ground between educating the newbies and not boring the guys with more experience.

"Okay," he said, once he was done. "You've got two choices today. You can go around the shop and acquaint yourself with the various woodworking tools. There's a handout with safety measure for each tool, and if it's your first time working with it, ask me to come explain it to you. If you think you can already handle these things, you can start working on your project. But only if you are absolutely sure you know how these machines work - and even then I'm gonna be by every now and again to make sure you don't push it. Safety is the most important part of this process."

He hung back for a moment, then added: "I've also noticed not everyone's partnered up for the battlebot assignment yet," he said. "You've got until next week to find someone, then I want to know who's with who, all right?"