"Hillary, Yuck!"

One of my students recently commented on how I do not teach a public speaking class, I teach an English class with the added twist (dilemma) of having to deliver it orally in front of an audience. There is certainly some truth to this.

The fact is there are two areas in which a speech must be critiqued—Content AND Delivery. No one seems to object or disagree that delivery needs to be addressed in a Public Speaking class. Content is another story.

I recently had a student who delivered a speech on the importance of voting, or supposedly that was the message. The student also urged us not to vote for Hillary Clinton. I am okay, for a persuasive speech, to have a student to urge us to vote for or against a candidate. It does, however, need to be backed up with some supporting material.

In the speech, the student said, “Hillary, yuck!,” every time her name was mentioned. The student showed pictures of Hillary disfigured and pictures which made her look like the devil. The student did not mention anything about her platform, what she wants to do or has done or why people should not like her or trust her, just, “Hillary, Yuck!”

Sorry but this needs to be addressed in a critique. You cannot just make a claim like that without backing it up. The pictures, as far as I am concerned, go beyond what is considered ethical in a speech, at least in my book. Call that grading the speech as though this was an English class if you want, but the bottom line is, speeches need to be well developed and argued. They need to be based in logic, with emotion certainly playing a part. Yes, writing for the ear is different than writing for the eye but a lot of the same rules do apply.

Advances In Technology

Sometimes things do not work out exactly as you had planned. This semester, I am teaching a Thursday class during the day that ends a little after 12 noon and another one during the evening that runs from 6-9. Since I travel over 40 miles each way, I decided I would stay on campus on Thursdays. My plan was to do work for my ‘Day job’ and to be able to tap into the office computer from school.

I ran into a problem. The school computers have filters placed on them so I could not add software to do this. It pointed out the need to have a laptop even if I have a campus computer available to me. What amazes me is how small the computers have become and how well developed they are. For instance, the motorola mc70 handheld computer is about the size of a cell phone. Certainly I have watched technology in all different areas improve but it still baffles me.

I think if I end up doing a schedule like this again, I will examine these types of computers closely and get myself some kind of machine that I can carry around with me.

Tough But Fair

It is always rewarding to me when a student, who indicates that s/he thinks you are a tough graders, tells you s/he enjoys your class. Recently, before a particular class session started, and I really do not remember how it came up, one of my students told me she thought I was tough when I grade. It was not said in protest or complaint, just an honest statement.

“I’m always willing to listen to students. I have made many changes over the years based on student input,” I said. “Tell me how you feel my grading is unfair. Perhaps you have picked up on something of which I am not aware”.

“I did not say your grading was unfair,” responded the student, “I just said you were tough. You are probably more attuned to the things you should be, the things other teachers may not be. You probably grade it more accurately than I would grade myself”. The student then went on to add that she enjoyed the class and was glad she took it with me. A few of the other students who were there agreed.

Was this trying to butter me up for a good grade? Perhaps, although I really don’t think so. The student was able to tell me exactly what I said in my critique of her speech and why I said it got the grade it did. Still, I guess it is good for the ego to hear such comments and perhaps, subconsciously that plays into the way you grade.

I know it was not that long ago when I was a student (my student may disagree saying it has been ages but it really was not that long ago). There were times I took a professor because I enjoyed his/her style even though I know the individual was a tough grader. Honestly, there were other times I took a particular teacher because I knew I could get an ‘A’.

If I am building up a reputation as a tough grader who is worth taking for Public Speaking, not only can I live with that but I embrace that moniker.

Read The Comments

A student approached me after class today to complain about a grade he got on his last speech. The grade was a ‘B+’ and he told me he was disappointed because he thought he did very well on the speech. Silly me, I thought a ‘B+’ was a good grade but I now know better.

The student told me he thought his demonstration speech dealt with a topic that was more serious than the topics picked by most of the other students and he felt his grade should have reflected that.

“Okay,” I said, “Certainly the topic should play a part in what grade you get.” Then I asked, “What did I say in my critique? What comments did I make about how the speech could have been improved?”

“I don’t know,” was the response. “I only looked at the grade and got frustrated”.

Folks, if you are going to argue a grade with a teacher, at least read the comments s/he puts on your assignment. I realize some teachers just slap a grade on an assignment and do not write any comments. This would be much easier for me to do and would take a lot less time. I feel, however, that students are entitled to my thoughts and opinions, this is what I am getting paid to do. If you are going to challenge a grade, know why the instructor claims you got that grade so you know what you are challenging.

I have long felt what I would like to do when I critique a speech is to write my comments, without putting a grade on it. Upon handing it back to the students, tell them they have to comment on my comments, what they agree with and what they disagree with and hand it back to me. Only when I get it back will I put a grade on the assignment and let them know what they got. Unfortunately, that would truly require the students and the instructor (me) to put in more time than I feel should be used. Still, it is nice to think about doing.

I guess for now, I just have to tolerate those students complaining about grades even if they don’t read all my comments.

Speeches, Speeches, Speeches

I enjoy teaching but there are days when it is exhausting. In my morning class today, I sat through eight speeches and then there were another nine given in my evening class. Just sitting through that many can be exhausting. There were three other student who were supposed to speak last week but were not there at that time, who were in class today. I decided not to let them make up the speeches today. 12 speeches in one class, and 20 speeches over the course of a day is too many. In addition, there are another seven people who are supposed to speak in my morning class tomorrow.

Not only is it exhausting sitting through that many speeches in a short period of time, it is exhausting when I have to grade them as well. Certainly it will keep me busy and it is another reason I do not like when student miss speaking dates. When they make them up it takes its toll on me in terms of critiquing and grading them.

Still, while it may sound like I am complaining, I do enjoy listening to student speeches, it just can get to be tiring. I guess one of the key differences between me and the students (on the whole) is, I know I will meet my deadline and have things back to them when I told them. I wish they met my deadlines as well.

Feedback

Over the years I have made some changes in the way I teach my public speaking class. Certainly this should come as no surprise and I would be concerned about a teacher who indicates s/he has not made any changes. Some changes work well and others, after trying for a short period of time, end up being discarded.

One change that I have made that I really like is having every student comment on a speech. As each speaker concludes his or her presentation, I pause for a moment and ask each student in class to take out a 3x5 index card and write a comment on it to the speaker about his or her speech. We then move on to the next speaker and when that individual has concluded, again I pause so everyone can write the speaker a message.

The only person who does not need to write the speaker an index card is the actual speaker him or herself and the person assigned to deliver a full critique of the speech (which happens after all speeches for the day are completed), both in writing and verbally. In fact, for the first and last speech each student delivers over the course of the semester, they individual must write a comment on an index card to him or herself.

When all speakers are finished, I collect all the index cards and the written evaluations. I then type up my own comments and give the student a package containing his or her outline, my comments with the grade on it, the evaluation from the other student and all index cards. I try to sort through the cards ahead of time and arrange them in such a way that the first few and last few cards only have positive comments written about the speech. Some of the ones in the middle may also have a suggestion or two (although all should contain some positive comments about the speech). If this is a speech where the speaker needed to include a comment to him or herself, I put that last so the individual can see that we have a tendency to judge ourselves more harshly than others.

I have found this works well. The speaker gets feedback from everyone in the class and it shows how different people view things. Some of the students are very perceptive and write interesting things. I believe, on the whole, it truly has helped and continues to help students become better speakers.

Getting A Choice

Students in my classes are currently in the process of giving their second graded speech of the semester. In past years I have followed the informative speech with the demonstration speech. My thinking has been that a demonstration speech really is a type of informative speech, so it should be the easiest one to do next.

I have had some students tell me they would rather do the persuasive one next, so this semester I decided to switch it up. My plan was to have the Persuasive speech go next in all of my classes, however I did not make this change on the syllabi for the classes that meet once a week, only on my Tuesday-Thursday class.

I was just going to leave it this way and see how it went but coming back from break a couple of students told me they had gotten confused and thought the demonstration speech was next. At the time I simply told them this was incorrect, it was the persuasive one. Then I got to thinking and the following class session I announced that they could pick which speech was next, so some of them could do a persuasive speech this round while others did a demonstration speech. I did specify that whichever one was not given this time around needed to be given for the third speech.

I am not sure if this was a good move or if it will make things to confusing on me and the class. Still, at this point, I have covered the information they need to know for both persuasive and demonstration speeches, so I am open for the experiment. If it works out then I may give students the choice in future classes. If it doesn’t then the experiment will start and end with the one class this semester.