Reflective Journal #7: Specific Purpose.

 Now we are looking forward to our final challenge of the term. Hopefully by now, we have had several opportunities to see what people do well, what makes good speeches and presentations, and reflect on our own strengths and weaknesses.

We have analyzed what makes good speakers, and what makes speeches work as either informative or persuasive. Personally speaking as one of your audience members, I am heartened by the commitment of so many of you to the course, and to your own development through each challenge, even under the difficult circumstances that we are in. Thank you sincerely for this.

As always, the first and very important step to high quality speaking is identifying a specific purpose. For this final group presentation, you have to decide on your purpose, to inform or persuade. And then clearly the next question is: Persuade Or Inform... about what?

The same considerations are at play: Who is your audience? What will be relevant for them? What do you need to do to achieve your purpose?

For this post, this is a first chance to propose a topic and purpose. With this post, you can also see what other groups are planning to do, so you want to differentiate yourselves from others to be unique and memorable. And remember the theme: Living in Uncertain Times.

Please introduce your topic idea. Generally, what is the idea? Explain it briefly, and then state your Specific Purpose: We want to inform / persuade our audience that...

Only 1 group member needs to make this post, but please include all group members' ID numbers in the post. Please also include your Section #. I will be responding to each post to give preliminary feedback. Of course groups can change their minds about topic ideas after this post, but it is best to make this decision as early as possible. Aj. M

Reflective Journal #6: Lucas Tutorials for Weeks 7 & 8.

In this week's post, we are reviewing the Lucas tutorials from Weeks 7 & 8 posted by your classmates. As we prepare for our individual persuasive speeches, it is important that we keep coming back to Lucas to help us understand what makes good persuasive speaking.

Remember that the unique challenge of persuasive speaking is that we must influence or change the minds of our audience. This means we must know who they are, what they believe, and what kind of argument and evidence will serve to challenge their points of view.

For this blog post, I want you to view 2 of your classmates' tutorial videos. From each, reflect on one key learning you gain that will benefit the preparation of your persuasive speech. Please take these tutorials to heart, as they truly matter to your work.

Please make your first post by Sunday night, and then respond to 2 other posts by next week.

As always, please remember to include your ID# and Section # in your posts. Aj. M

Reflective Journal #5: Speaking to Persuade.

As we have now passed the middle of the term, we have gained some experience with speaking to audiences in different formats, learning how to personalize, gain credibility, and integrate research in the process. Now, we are moving forward into a new challenge: to persuade an audience. This means addressing a strongly held opinion, or bias, or perspective of the world...  and destabilizing it, maybe even changing it. 

For this week, I want us to review two models. One is by Mechai Veravaidya, a world leader in the area of family planning. You will see he has a very distinct style, sense of humour, and finds a way to talk about sensitive topics in an entertaining way.

Another example is by Greta Thunberg. Here is an example of a very young and fearless young person who has tremendous power in spite of her age, and largely due to her extraordinary ability to speak with honesty, clarity, and conviction.

Both of these speeches are posted in the Google Classroom. Please view them, and make observations. 

Particularly, I want you to decide if you are persuaded by them. If the answer is yes, why and how are you persuaded by them? Is it their delivery? Is it their research? Is it their experience and credibility? These are all possible ideas for discussion.

Please make your first post by Friday night, and then respond to the comments of 2 classmates by class time next week. I look forward to reading your thoughts.