Communications Class (READ THE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE)

 
Purpose: This assignment gives you additional experience in speaking before your classmates via a Discussion Board Forum video thread (not more than 4 minutes long) in which you demonstrate your ability to choose appropriate informative and persuasive speech topics, to devise properly formatted planning statements for these speech topics, and to use a visual aid to present these topics and planning statements to your peers. You also must view your classmates’ speech planning report videos and then post responsive typed replies (no fewer than 3 replies) that provide substantive answers to assigned questions.

Description: Follow these instructions for this assignment:

Step 1: Read the Major Speech Project Instructions: Read the instructions for the informative speech project and for the persuasive speech project.

The informative project requires you to construct an informative speech that describes a specific career field and shows how someone can use that career field to promote what God values according to Scripture.
The persuasive project requires you to use problem/solution pattern to establish the existence of a social problem and then to propose and to justify a solution for this social problem that is a good solution, as you must show, at least partly because it promotes something that God values according to Scripture.

Step 2: Topic and Planning Statement Construction: Choose informative and persuasive speech topics that satisfy these criteria and that satisfy the textbook’s general criteria for informative and persuasive speeches. Then, referring to the speech outline templates and to the textbook for guidance, construct for the informative speech topic and also, separately, for the persuasive speech topic a general purpose statement, a specific purpose statement, and a thesis statement that relay what you intend to accomplish or the point you intend to establish in these speeches. Examples appear below:

Example: Informative Speech

           Topic:                       Accounting
           General Purpose:      To inform
           Specific Purpose:      To inform my audience about the accounting job field—its work, its pay scale, and its outlook—and to explain how an accountant can use this career to honor God by promoting truthfulness and honesty.
           Thesis:  If you have an analytical mind, desire good pay, and value job security, and if you want to honor God through your career, accounting may be a good career choice for you.

Example: Persuasive Speech

           Topic:  Childhood obesity
           General Purpose:  To persuade
           Specific Purpose:  To persuade my audience that childhood obesity is a problem and that this problem can be partly remedied, in a God-honoring way, by an increase in nutritional education programs.
           Thesis: Childhood obesity is a social problem that can be remedied, partly and in a God-honoring way, by an increase in nutritional education programs.

Step 3: Topic Explanation and Justification: Prepare a paragraph or two in which you explain why you chose the speech topics that you chose. Do so by answering the following:

For the informative speech project, why did you choose the career field that you chose?
Which God-valued quality or thing do you suppose a person in this career field could promote via his or her work in this field?
For the persuasive speech project, why did you choose the social problem that you chose?
Which God-valued outcome does your proposed solution to this problem seem likely to promote?
How can listening to speeches on these topics benefit audience members or people in general?

Step 4: Prepare a Visual Aid for Use in Your Presentation: Prepare a tangible visual aid that you will use to amplify or to supplement your words as you present your speech topic and planning statements to your peers via your video recording. The visual aid, if properly used as you speak, will visually reinforce or add meaning or impact to some or to all of your Discussion Board Forum 2 speech planning presentation video’s verbal content. Visual aid options include charts, flash cards, photographs, drawings, graphics, objects, or models, among other possibilities. Your visual aid must be neatly constructed, legible, and clearly serve its intended purpose in the minds of audience members. As you use the visual aid, both the visual aid and you must be visible to the audience on the screen at the same time.

Step 5: Record Your Presentation: Create a video presentation (not more than 4 minutes long) in which you share your speech planning information with your classmates—the informative speech topic, general purpose statement, specific purpose statement, and thesis statement and the persuasive speech topic, general purpose statement, specific purpose statement, and thesis statement. Be sure to follow this with your topic explanation and justification for both the informative speech and the persuasive speech. Also, be sure to use the visual aid, meaningfully and purposefully, as you record this presentation for your classmates.