Dear speech class, from which I happily escaped with both my life and sanity yesterday:
- Informative speeches are to be given on a factual topic. I chose to debunk an urban legend (wonder why I thought it might be rather alive down here…) about Charles Drew.
You, Girl Whose Eyes Are Glued to Her Paper, chose to speak for about two minutes on, I think, why we should not be at war ever. I say I think because you appeared to be whispering to the papers in front of you. I can only thank you now for spending only two minutes up there (of your requisite 4 to 6).
- Persuasive/Actuative speeches are supposed to convince us of a particular position or move us to some end on a particular topic.
While I feel for you and your daughter, dear, your speech on your daughter getting burned by hot water was not persuasive for the simple reason that it didn’t persuade us to do anything. You stood up there and talked about what happened to her. Truly a sad tale. But that’s all you did. That action part of the Motivated Sequence seems to have utterly slipped your mind. That’s okay, though, because at least you’re not…
Woman Who Must Educate Us on The Entire Stock Market in Five Minutes. You began your final speech (motivated sequence) on why we should go to college and from there went to how we can pay for college and from there to what I am sure was at least partially informative to many people. But you missed a few things:
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Your topic was Go To College, and more specifically how to pay for it.
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You utterly missed 4 of the 5 steps in the required motivated sequence.
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Your topic was informative, not persuasive.
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Flighty! Were you trying to seem as though you had thrown this together the night before by means of a Pain Webber FAQ?
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Ifyoucouldhavesloweddownjustatouchsomeofus,includingtheprofwhohasahearingproblem,mighthavebeenabletounderstandyoubetter.
And let’s don’t forget Militant Mary, the woman who walks up to the podium ready to strangle any who disagree with her. She gives rabid, logic-free thought a bad name.
And lastly, we have another person guilty of getting up to speak and reading a FAQ. Want to know about preparing a living will (the meaning of which she got wrong)? How about donating your eyes to a worthy person? Both noble ideas except that you’re supposed to be giving persuasive speeches, not informative.
