Goals: ** To develop your ability to identify an issue of
civic importance to people you know.
** To increase your understanding of your community and
its concerns.
** To provide experience in explaining issues to
members of the class by providing the
context for an issue and the views of
citizens in your community. ** To become more comfortable speaking to your
classmates.
For this assignment, you will need to identify an
issue, problem, desire or concern held by some, many or all of the
members of your home community. You might think of this as a way to
introduce us to your community by discussing what people in your
hometown care about and why.
Some examples of topics:
-
Local food banks are seeing more and more
requests from families but need more food to give.
-
Community leaders are
seeking to attract new businesses to the city in order to increase
employment opportunities
-
Young people have few
job opportunities and leave town after H.S. or college.
-
Arts and other
programs are being cut from
schools due to lack of funds.
-
A major local employer recently closed
hurting the economy of the town.
-
Immigration has
raised concerns among some citizens.
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Crime (or
drugs or
gun violence) remains a
concern with no solutions.
-
Taxes are rising and yet
are
insufficient to support
___
needs.
(fill in the blank)
-
Adequate [health care, child daycare,
nutrition, etc.] is in short supply.
-
School quality is being questioned.
-
A new community resource is/has been created
(e.g. a
building, activity, business, charitable event)
that is changing lives
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Key Elements of a good "Community
Concerns" speech
-
The opening lines need
to grab our attention
-
Following the opening lines, we need a clear
statement of the main-point of your speech, the thesis.
The statement, presented early in the speech should be an
assertion
(typically a declarative sentence that MAKES A POINT and does so
through the use of support material that illustrates and proves
the point. The phrasingof the example topics above
are thesis statements.
-
A good "community concerns" speech will
probably include three main points: 1) a clear explanation
of what the concern is; 2) a discussion of the context,
that is why people in your community have this concern
(signiicance of the concern); and 3) What is happening now in
terms of responses to the concern.
-
Each point should have some supporting
material that illustrates your main point and helps the class
"see" what you mean,. This material might include a
story
(used well by several students in the 6 Word Profile),
quotations from your friends, family, newspapers, etc. that
support your points, as well as
facts,
statistics and descriptions that illustrate
your ideas.
-
The speech should end with a closing line
that reinforces the main point (thesis) of your presentation and
gives us a clear sense of ending to the speech.
Ways to go about constructing
this speech:
-
Based on your knowledge of your home
community, think of one or more issues that some people at home
care about.
-
Contact one or more people at home who might
be able to discuss with you the issue you thought of or who
might suggest a different topic for you to describe. Ask
them to explain the concern to you as they understand it.
If you are in person or on the phone, take some notes. See
if you can get some quotations or a story about the issue that
you can use in your presentation.
-
Keep in mind, 2-3 minutes is not much time.
You don't need a large amount of information. The
important thing is to be sure those of us in class can
understand what people in your home town are concerned about and
why. Context setting, therefore, is the key.
-
Once you have the appropriate information,
create an outline of your presentation that includes all of the
"key elements" mentioned above. Then prepare a notecard
(5" x8") with your speech outline to use in giving your
presentation in class.
-
Practice your presentation several times (at least
4-5) so that you know
you will be confident and not way too short (under two minutes) or way
too long (over three and
a half minutes).
-
Do
not, under any circumstances, write out what you intend to say
word-for-word and attempt to read it to us. Just tell us about yourself in a
conversational way.
-
Be prepared to present your Community Concerns speech on the day assigned.
-
As an alternative, you
may redefine "community" as a different group, larger or
smaller, than your hometown (e.g. neighborhood, region, state,
etc.).
Evaluation:
Grades will be based solely on how well you accomplish the "Key
Elements" listed above (excellent, good, fair,
poor, missing). I will give you letter
grades. If you read your speech rather than talking to us
conversationally, that will hurt your grade. This grade will serve as the
"Introduction and Community Speeches" portion of your
course grade assuming you completed the 6 Word Profile.
Due: September 7, 9, or 12 (in class)
as assigned.
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