Tag: public speaking

  • Should Students Speak about Controversy in the Public Speaking Class?

    I was asked by the people at Power of Public Speaking if I would like to be a guest host on their POPs Community podcast. In thinking about what to talk about for 45 minutes or so, I thought a great topic would be why we are obligated to allow students to speak about very…

    Read More

    //

  • Who Gets to Determine the Available Arguments on an Issue?

    The ancient question of what topics are appropriate for students to speak about, debate about, or write about is evergreen. I think about this at the end and start of every teaching term. I see several approaches to this question that are well-warranted. It doesn’t mean that I agree with any of them though! The…

    Read More

    //

  • Procrasti Nation

    Ok so poking around and procrastinating, I learned that the person placed in charge of publishing the Constitutional Convention of 1787 debate transcripts was John Quincy Adams. Mr. Rhetoric himself from the 19th century was ordered to edit and publish them in 1818. This guy really loved words. I wonder if I could teach a…

    Read More

    //

  • The Problem with My Lecture Videos

    I thought I’d start out this semester by offering students a number of 10 to 12 minute videos on different topics. It did not turn out that way. Most of the videos I’ve made have been 20 minutes or more. And for my Argumentation course, the videos are always around 40 minutes. I’m not sure…

    Read More

    //

  • An Idea for Using Everyday Photos in Teaching Speech

    It’s always usually at the 1/3 of the semester mark that I start to think about the class I’d rather be teaching, rather than the one that I am actually teaching. I keep a notebook of all these ideas for future ways to organize and orient the class, but these ideas never look very good…

    Read More

    //

  • The Fallacy of the Banned Public Speaking Class Topic

    Just finished assessing the first round of student speeches for the term and the average grades were around an 88 to 90, high B to low A. This is atypical for me; most first speeches are closer to a C and slowly move up to this point over a course of four to five speeches.…

    Read More

    //

  • The First Oral Assignments are Turned In and It Seems Like a Lot of Grading

    The biggest hazard from teaching online I think is that you get huge waves of grading that have very firm time requirements. If I assign students to prepare a speech 6 minutes long, I have to listen to 40 or so 6 minute speeches. There’s nothing I can do to reduce that amount of time…

    Read More

    //

  • Grades are the Finger, Look at the Moon!

    “Finger pointing at the Moon” is a famous koan that has been rewritten and offered so many times that the search for the origin of this early teaching lesson might as well be lost. As a koan we can accept it as a case that is worth our investigation, a case that everyone must investigate…

    Read More

    //

  • I like to make videos

    This is a video I made for my online public speaking class addressing some of the things that after two formal presentations they still need to work on. The biggest problem in teaching speech and debating is the problem of performing to teacher expectations which expect students to exceed teacher expectations. This is the problem…

    Read More

    //

  • Where Does Rhetoric Begin in Courses?

    where should we start in class? With organization? Research? Developing an audience profile?   Wherever you start teaching in a speech or argumentation or debate course, that is where you are positing the start of rhetoric.  The question of a start is the establishment of ends. What is the purpose of rhetoric? Why learn and…

    Read More

    //