Discussion Thread: Speech Planning Dialogue

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.

Speech Planning Steps

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 course readings’ general criteria for informative and persuasive speeches. Then, referring to the speech outline templates and to the course readings 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. 

Example: Informative Speech

Topic: Accounting

General Goal: To inform my audience about accounting

Specific Goal: I want 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 my audience to value nutrition education programs

Specific Purpose: 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 in which you explain why you chose the speech topics 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?

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: Prepare 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 in 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 . . . ) in an original Discussion post.

Please review the Discussion Assignment Instructions  Download Discussion Assignment Instructionsprior to posting. You may also click the three dots in the upper corner to Show Rubric.