Purpose: This assignment requires you to show your peers and instructor that you have the ability to read and to follow basic speech preparation instructions. You must do so by creating an audible, video recorded report (not more than 4 minutes long) in which you show that you, after reading posted instructional materials, have chosen appropriate topics and goal statements for the informative and your persuasive speeches that are due later in the course. You also must reply to your peers’ speech planning report videos by posting constructive feedback to 3 or more peers.
Description: Present your basic speech planning content to your classmates by sharing it in a video recorded oral presentation, uploading this to YouTube as an unlisted video, and then posting a thread containing the video’s URL:
Preparing Your Content
Preparation Step 1: Read the Major Speech Project Instructions: Read the instructions for the informative speech project and for the persuasive speech project. Detailed instructions for these appear in the Course Content area, but the most basic requirement for these upcoming presentations is this:
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.
Save Some Time! Why not choose one of the communication job fields that appears in the “Communication as a Vocation” section of your readings? This includes lots of quotable information. Using it could save valuable time that research otherwise requires.
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.
Preparation 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 goal statement, a specific goal statement, and a thesis statement that relay what you intend to accomplish or the point you intend to establish in these speeches.
Example: Informative Speech
Topic: Accounting
General Purpose: To inform my audience about the accounting vocation
Specific Purpose: I wish 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 Goal: To persuade my audience to embrace nutritional education
Specific Goal: I want 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.
Preparation Step 3: Topic Explanation and Justification: Prepare a paragraph or two (for content planning purposes only—you’ll be presenting this information as part of your oral report) in which you explain why you chose your speech topics. 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?
How can a speech on this topic benefit your classmates?
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 a speech on this topic benefit your classmates?
Preparation Step 4: Create a Visual Aid for Use in Your Presentation: Prepare a visual aid for your oral presentation—one that will add meaning or impact to it. Use the visual aid only at the point in the speech when it is thematically relevant.
The visual aid, if properly used as you speak, will visually reinforce or add meaning or impact to a part or to all of your video’s verbal content for this module: week’s Discussion.
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.
Recording, Uploading, and Posting the Oral Presentation Link as a Discussion Thread
Presentation Step 1: Present Your Planning Information to Peers via a Recorded Video Report: Create an audible video recorded presentation (not more than 4 minutes long) in which you, with some help from your visual aid, share your speech planning information with your classmates—the informative speech topic, general goal statement, specific goal statement, and thesis sentence and then the persuasive speech topic, general goal statement, specific goal statement, and thesis sentence. Be sure to follow this with your topic explanation and justification for both the informative speech and the persuasive speech. Be sure to use the visual aid, meaningfully and purposefully when it’s relevant to what you’re saying, as you record this presentation for your classmates.
Presentation Step 2: Post the Presentation to Your Peers: After creating your video, either create a YouTube site, upload the file as an unlisted video, and then copy and paste the video’s URL to the Discussion, so your professor and classmates can access and view it. Do so by uploading it directly to the designated Discussion as a file attachment, or copy and paste the video’s URL (i.e., its web address, in your browser’s address bar, that usually begins with https://youtube . . . ) in an original Discussion post..
Peer Response Steps
Post written replies to 3 or more of your classmates’ Speech Planning videos. In your replies, you must do one or more of the following:
Identify something in the classmate’s speech plan that the classmate, as he or she prepares for the speech projects themselves later in the course, might need to modify or to re-think in order to avoid a point reduction;
Present a topic-related question or two that the classmate probably should address in his or her speeches that address these specific topics for these specific purposes;
Identify a specific published expert source or two from which the classmate could draw potentially helpful supportive information for use in his or her speeches on these topics; or
Suggest topic-related visual aids that the classmate might consider using in his or her speech presentations on these topics.
Grading Criteria: Attention to detail and accuracy are important in this assignment. Pay attention to what the informative and the persuasive speech assignments require and to what properly constructed purpose and thesis statements require. You will need to include this planning information later in your major speech outlines, so this is a great opportunity to get started on the construction of the outlines.
It’s been my observation over the years that students who chose topics that interested them found it easier (or at least more rewarding) to prepare for and present their speeches than if the topics were not as interesting to the students. So look for topics about which you can be passionate, but be sure that they meet the assignment instructions for each.
Informative Speech Topic (from the instructions): This assignment requires you to research and to present an informative speech about a job field that you already practice or that you may wish to enter someday and how someone can use it as a platform for promoting something God values in the world.
Persuasive Speech Topic (from the instructions): This assignment requires you to research a global, national, regional, state or local problem that apparently exists because humans in general or a specific group of humans are neglecting their duty to promote the things God values in this world.
Other Topic Criteria (from the instructions): Your topic must satisfy not only the preceding criteria, but also the topic selection criteria set forth in the Alban text and the prescriptions of the Liberty University Online Honor Code. Among other things, this means you must do the following:
Topic Appropriateness: Avoid any topic that leads you to portray legally or ethically questionable texts or behaviors in a favorable light. This includes but is not limited to theses that advance sexually promiscuous activity, the use of illegal substances, or other behaviors that Liberty University’s statement of values prohibits. Questions about the appropriateness of topics, sources, etc. should be directed to your professor early in the speech-planning process.
Topic Originality: Your speech topics MUST be researched, selected, and delivered primarily for this course and not primarily for, or in conjunction with, a presentation for a church group, a Sunday School class, a social group, or any other small group. You may not give a speech that serves a double purpose.
You will want to read over both speech instructions carefully as you prepare for this assignment ( Course Content > Syllabus and Assignment Instructions > Assignment Instructions: Speeches).
Last Completed Projects
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