SPEECH

Improving Myself as a Student 

Brainstorming/First Outline (Journal 4)

How to become a better version of myself academically

Connecting with audience- In my speech I plan on sounding very enthusiastic right off the bat so that the audience will immediately be interested in what I am saying. My thought process here is that if I sound like I am excited about my speech, then they will be invested in what I am saying. I am also planning on using little to no filler words when I am thinking about what I am supposed to say next. These words include “uh,” “um”, “like”, and prolonged pauses. I have firsthand experience when it comes to being uninterested in speeches and I do not want my speech to be an experience like that for someone else. I also want to try to throw in a few rhetorical questions to make my audience really think about what I am saying and maybe it will end up helping them out.

Selecting the topic- When it came to picking my topic, I didn’t just want to pick the easiest one, I wanted to pick one that I felt I could actually improve on. Currently I am doing okay when it comes to my grades but I know I can and should be doing better. There are many reasons why I want to improve on this topic but the top reason is to make my mom proud. She has always been there for me and has always pushed me to do my best in everything. I want to be able to show her that even though she isn’t with me all the time anymore to be on my back about my grades, I am still getting good grades.

Outline- I will start the speech off with a question that will hopefully get the audience captivated. After I see either the head nods or shakes, I will continue to talk about how when I was younger, I was an excellent student. I was always known as one of the smarter kids in my classes but then all of a sudden in high school my grades went from As to Bs and Cs. At this point I will ask one of my friends on the football if they expected that and they will most likely say no. I will then go on to talk about how I want to get back to that level and what I will have to do to get there.

Version 1

When I was younger, I was an excellent student. I had very good grades, I really liked school, and was always focused on the task at hand whether it was in class work or homework. I always tried my hardest even if it wasn’t an important assignment. As the years went on, I started to not do as well in school as I used to. This could have been because of the countless hits to the head I have taken playing sports, or because that is something that just sometimes happens to people as they grow up, they become uninterested in school. Right around my time in middle and high school I began to see my grades slipping from As to As and Bs and then to just Bs. This was somewhat of a shock to me; I hadn’t seen those letters on my report cards before, but it didn’t motivate me. When I came to UNE I got my first C in my first semester here and yet I still wasn’t motivated to get change anything to get better grades, but now that time has come. I will be improving myself as a student for the next two years and I will be doing that multiple ways. One of these ways is to be very attentive in class and I will do this by taking notes and limiting my distractions. This will lead to me retaining more information and therefore improving my quiz and test scores. I will also do my homework as it was meant to be done, and not just as a “get me through it” part of my day. Homework is something that can really benefit me in the long run if I do it the right way. So when it comes to being a student at UNE, I want to be one of the best. 

Version 1 Reflection

When it came to my dry run of my first draft of my speech, I felt as though it went pretty well. One thing that I did that I do not think I should have done was not write an entire rough draft. What I should have done differently was make an outline of what I was planning to say so that when I got feedback it would be easier to add those changes I would want to make. Now I am planning on rewriting my speech so that it flows nicely when I put in the feedback I received. After hearing what the people in my groups had to say, I feel like I am in a very good position right now. They liked the way I compared my current self to my past self because they felt like it was very relatable. Everyone was at the point where they really liked school and doing their work, but a lot of people got to the point where they do not really care about it anymore. They said that they have been in situations like this, and they know of people who have also gone through it too. One thing that I do plan on doing with my speech is elaborating more on what I plan to do to become a better student because I talked a lot about what got me to the point that I am at now. 

Dry Run 1
https://youtu.be/QdOfBofZu9E?si=wEEgt4qBIPUzrj5d

Dry Run 1 Reflection (Journal 7 & 8)

My dry run on Tuesday went a lot better than I expected. It felt very fluid and informative about me. Something I found myself during the speech was adding things in that I did not even have written down. For instance, when I said, “make my mom proud” and “when I walk across the stage, I want to have them say those Latin words after they say my major.” I feel like those two phrases really added a lot to my speech even though they were just things that just popped into my head on the fly. The feedback I received was very good as I found out that my speech was comical as it cracked laughs for the rest of the class. This gave me a sense of relief and also a sense of connection with the rest of the class. Some other advice I got was good and will help me move towards my final production of my speech. The main piece of advice that I got was pointing out the fact that I was swaying a lot. This is something that I could feel as I was talking but for some reason it was something I could not stop. Hopefully by my final run through I will have that figured out. Another instance I had during my speech was reaching out to the audience for help. This is something that I need to make sure the person I ask (Daruan) makes sure he knows what he is supposed to say. Personally, there was one thing I want to change that no one pointed out to me and that was that there were a couple times where I was stuttering, or it did not sound like I knew what I was going to say next. All in all, I feel like I had a very solid speech for my first dry run. 

Outline

• Intro 

• -Who I am 
• -Grade 
• -Where I am from 
• -What I’m talking about and why 

• When I was younger 

• -Had great grades 
• -Liked school 
• -Was always focused on the task at hand (Homework or school work)

• Downfall 

• -Was it caused by hits to the head or just growing out of it 
• -Grades started to slip 
• -No motivation (even when I got here) 

• Improving myself 

• -Its time 
• -Over the next two years 
• -Be attentive in class (Take notes and limit distractions) 
• -Homework (Important, not a get me through it part of the day, it will benefit me) 

• Conclusion 

• -I want to be one of the best 

Finished Version

Hi everyone, my name is Bernie, I’m a sophomore here and I am from Massachusetts. When it came to deciding what I wanted to talk to you all about, I didn’t want to just pick the easiest one, I wanted to pick the one that I felt like I could really improve about myself and that landed me on bettering myself as a student. When I was younger, I was an excellent student. I had very good grades, I really liked school, and was always focused on the task at hand whether it was in class work or homework. I always tried my hardest even if it wasn’t an important assignment. As the years went on, I started to not do as well in school as I used to. This could have been because of the countless hits to the head I have taken playing sports, or because that is something that just sometimes happens to people as they grow up, they become uninterested in school. Right around my time in middle and high school I began to see my grades slipping from As to As and Bs and then to just Bs. This was somewhat of a shock to me; I hadn’t seen those letters on my report cards before, but it didn’t motivate me. When I came to UNE I got my first C in my first semester here and yet I still wasn’t motivated to get change anything to get better grades, but now that time has come. (Ask Daraun what he thinks of me as a student- “You have 8 hours of study hall”) I have to do 8 hours of study hall because my GPA isn’t where the team wants it to be so I am forced to go do homework in the forum with a coach for 8 hours a week. I will be improving myself as a student for the next two years and I will be doing that multiple ways. One of these ways is to be very attentive in class and I will do this by taking notes and limiting my distractions. This will lead to me retaining more information and therefore improving my quiz and test scores and will make my mom proud. I will also do my homework as it was meant to be done, and not just as a “get me through it” part of my day. One saying that I like is “practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.” Homework is something that can really benefit me in the long run if I do it the right way. So when it comes to being a student at UNE, I want to be one of the best. 

My Best Advice and Why It Was My Best Advice

My best advice came on the first day we shared our speeches in small groups. One of my group mates brought up the fact that they were going to be using a planner and I told him to expand on this. I felt as though if he were to expand on his planner he would give a better insight for the audience. The audience would be much more captivated and they would be more informed about his plans to improve himself academically. This was something that showed during his final run and a great way to show how he improved through the process of writing his speech.

Best Advice From Peers and Why

The best advice I received through the entire project was during the first run of my speech and was something mentioned by multiple people. This was the fact that I was swaying so much as I was speaking. I’m not sure if this was a comfort thing or nerves but it could be very distracting for an audience. This is something I hope I improved upon on my final run because it was something I practiced.

Reflection of Project As A Whole

When it came to this speech, I was not really sure how I felt about it. I did not think that it would go as fluid as I felt it was. I really liked the preparation we did in class and for homework because it made me feel ready to speak in front of the class. When I first started drafting I was worried. I wasn’t sure if it was going to be long enough, if my information would be good enough, or if I would actually be able to say it in front of the class. But as the classes went on, I got more comfortable. The peer review class period helped me a lot because I got to not only hear what other students had to say about my speech, but I also got to hear what they were going to be saying and that helped guide me to a better speech. Doing the filmed dry runs in class were also a huge help because I got real time feedback on not only the contents of my speech, but my body language. In the future I will be taking a similar approach because I think the approach, I took led to me doing a good job. All in all, I thought this project was very useful for my future as I will have to speak in front of other people at one point or another.