When you plan your lesson for your Language Arts classes, you need to have your curriculum guide by your side. Contrary to what most people think, you should never let the textbook be your guide. Let's take a look at a common objective in Language Arts:
"Students will make personal connections to the text and share their ideas in a variety of ways."
This objective leaves the door wide open for a whole host of possibilities. You might have three Grade 1 or Grade 5 classes in the same school and the objective is the same. The expectations are different for each grade level and the three teachers can teach completely different lessons and still achieve that objective.
What part does writing and speaking play in achieving this objective? Students are expected to communicate in various ways - through role-play, thinking out loud, small and large group discussion and by writing. Connecting with the text invites the students to give their own interpretation of what they read. They can use small group discussions and speak their minds by discussing the text with a group of classmates. This is often the strategy most teachers use in the higher grades where you have students that tend to be too shy to speak out in class.
Although discussion is common in the Primary classroom, quite often the teacher has to draw out the student responses by asking questions, such as:
This type of questioning helps to invite the children to speak out in class. The teacher accepts all answers and often records them on the board or chart paper. While young children cannot do a lot of writing, they can still express their opinions by drawing a picture related to the text and write a sentence explaining the picture.
Open-ended questions are the norm in elementary, junior high and high school classes, as the types of writing and speaking take on a more formal mode. The types of expectations are also varied, so a formal connection does not have to take place with every text. Speaking can take the form of just stating an opinion, class discussion or a formal debate.
Using these techniques you can use literature to teach proper conventions in writing and speaking without the drill and practice techniques often used in schools.
A Simple Guide to Writing (and Giving) a Speech
Nearly as dreaded as snakes and spiders, public speaking ranks high in causing fear in many of us.
Your Topic: is this speech about something already know? Put them randomly around the page with circles or boxes drawn around each thought. Then draw lines to link the thoughts together in a meaningful way. An excellent website for this type of brainstorming can be found at www.mindmap.com.
Once you’ve exhausted your inner knowledge or, if this is a topic you don’t know much about, do a google search (www.google.com) on the topic. Visit the sites that seem to speak to the topic and again write down individual thoughts or ideas on a blank sheet of paper.
Your Introduction: Now take your sheet of ideas and write a 3-sentence introduction. A key to giving a speech is a conversational tone. In the introduction tell your audience what you’re about to say.
Make each section about 2 or 3 paragraphs long. Keep referring back to your brainstorm page.
In the body, you told them again in detail. Make the conclusion about 2 times as long as your introduction.
A speech is made to inform, to persuade, or to move to action. Finish off your speech with a statement that meets one of those purposes.
As a rule of thumb, a single-spaced, typed page should take 3 to 4 minutes to read through at the correct pace. If it takes less, you’re going too fast.
Practice, practice, practice - do NOT read your speech to your audience; either from 5X8 cards or from a typed sheet. To give a good speech you must sound familiar with the material; to become familiar with the material requires repetition. Repetition means reading the material aloud up to 50 times if necessary until you are totally familiar with it.
A good speech also involves feedback. During practice sessions you must recruit family or friends or coworkers to listen to you. Don’t ask them if it’s “good” or not; rather ask if it sounds conversational. Rewrite as needed to make your sentences sound like a normal conversation.
Fear: Since speech making often causes fear it must be dealt with beforehand. First, familiarity with your content will reduce fear. Repetition causes familiarity so practice, practice, practice. Ultimately, if you need notes for fear you’ll forget, you are not familiar enough with the material. If you MUST use notes, keep them to a minimum - perhaps your outline points (introduction, ABC, conclusion).
Some tricks - if you wear glasses, take them off. You’ll be less nervous if you can’t see the audience so clearly. If you have notes you’ll be looking down and just make it more obvious how uncomfortable you are - especially if you lose your place and have to stop. Instead of making eye contact, look at each individual’s forehead. To your audience it looks as if you are making eye contact without actually having to.
Make your speech about half as fast as you feel the urge to. When giving a speech we often speed up making ourselves sound silly and making it difficult for the audience to get your points.
Speech making comes to most of us sooner or later. If you’ll think out and organize what you want to say, if you’ll practice until you sound conversational, and if you’ll deal with fear up front, then you’re speech will be well received.
As a final incentive, remember that your audience is not out there to ridicule or belittle you. Good presenters are worth their weight in gold. Just think for a moment about all the poor speeches you’ve endured. Now think about someone who made a memorable speech. If you have questions about making a presentation, write me at the email address below.
"Students will make personal connections to the text and share their ideas in a variety of ways."
This objective leaves the door wide open for a whole host of possibilities. You might have three Grade 1 or Grade 5 classes in the same school and the objective is the same. The expectations are different for each grade level and the three teachers can teach completely different lessons and still achieve that objective.
What part does writing and speaking play in achieving this objective? Students are expected to communicate in various ways - through role-play, thinking out loud, small and large group discussion and by writing. Connecting with the text invites the students to give their own interpretation of what they read. They can use small group discussions and speak their minds by discussing the text with a group of classmates. This is often the strategy most teachers use in the higher grades where you have students that tend to be too shy to speak out in class.
Although discussion is common in the Primary classroom, quite often the teacher has to draw out the student responses by asking questions, such as:
This type of questioning helps to invite the children to speak out in class. The teacher accepts all answers and often records them on the board or chart paper. While young children cannot do a lot of writing, they can still express their opinions by drawing a picture related to the text and write a sentence explaining the picture.
Open-ended questions are the norm in elementary, junior high and high school classes, as the types of writing and speaking take on a more formal mode. The types of expectations are also varied, so a formal connection does not have to take place with every text. Speaking can take the form of just stating an opinion, class discussion or a formal debate.
Using these techniques you can use literature to teach proper conventions in writing and speaking without the drill and practice techniques often used in schools.
A Simple Guide to Writing (and Giving) a Speech
Nearly as dreaded as snakes and spiders, public speaking ranks high in causing fear in many of us.
Your Topic: is this speech about something already know? Put them randomly around the page with circles or boxes drawn around each thought. Then draw lines to link the thoughts together in a meaningful way. An excellent website for this type of brainstorming can be found at www.mindmap.com.
Once you’ve exhausted your inner knowledge or, if this is a topic you don’t know much about, do a google search (www.google.com) on the topic. Visit the sites that seem to speak to the topic and again write down individual thoughts or ideas on a blank sheet of paper.
Your Introduction: Now take your sheet of ideas and write a 3-sentence introduction. A key to giving a speech is a conversational tone. In the introduction tell your audience what you’re about to say.
Make each section about 2 or 3 paragraphs long. Keep referring back to your brainstorm page.
In the body, you told them again in detail. Make the conclusion about 2 times as long as your introduction.
A speech is made to inform, to persuade, or to move to action. Finish off your speech with a statement that meets one of those purposes.
As a rule of thumb, a single-spaced, typed page should take 3 to 4 minutes to read through at the correct pace. If it takes less, you’re going too fast.
Practice, practice, practice - do NOT read your speech to your audience; either from 5X8 cards or from a typed sheet. To give a good speech you must sound familiar with the material; to become familiar with the material requires repetition. Repetition means reading the material aloud up to 50 times if necessary until you are totally familiar with it.
A good speech also involves feedback. During practice sessions you must recruit family or friends or coworkers to listen to you. Don’t ask them if it’s “good” or not; rather ask if it sounds conversational. Rewrite as needed to make your sentences sound like a normal conversation.
Fear: Since speech making often causes fear it must be dealt with beforehand. First, familiarity with your content will reduce fear. Repetition causes familiarity so practice, practice, practice. Ultimately, if you need notes for fear you’ll forget, you are not familiar enough with the material. If you MUST use notes, keep them to a minimum - perhaps your outline points (introduction, ABC, conclusion).
Some tricks - if you wear glasses, take them off. You’ll be less nervous if you can’t see the audience so clearly. If you have notes you’ll be looking down and just make it more obvious how uncomfortable you are - especially if you lose your place and have to stop. Instead of making eye contact, look at each individual’s forehead. To your audience it looks as if you are making eye contact without actually having to.
Make your speech about half as fast as you feel the urge to. When giving a speech we often speed up making ourselves sound silly and making it difficult for the audience to get your points.
Speech making comes to most of us sooner or later. If you’ll think out and organize what you want to say, if you’ll practice until you sound conversational, and if you’ll deal with fear up front, then you’re speech will be well received.
As a final incentive, remember that your audience is not out there to ridicule or belittle you. Good presenters are worth their weight in gold. Just think for a moment about all the poor speeches you’ve endured. Now think about someone who made a memorable speech. If you have questions about making a presentation, write me at the email address below.
0 comments:
Post a Comment