We finished out speeches! We developed an idea, wrote a 1-2 minute speech on the topic, peer-edited, practiced, and finally delivered our speech to friends, classmates, and community members. Click on the link below to find all of our student speech presentations.
Hats off to all our students for working so hard at delivering their speech. Really amazing job!
We gave our Soapbox speeches yesterday and it was a blast. Our students got to interact with students from other schools, share ideas, and listen to some speeches about topics many of us never considered. It was a wonderful event; eye-opening for many. Our three presenters did a wonderful job with their speeches. Our other students were respectful and engaged audience members. It was a great time.
Our three Soapbox presenters (gave their speeches in front of a room of about 75 people).
Part of the warm-up of events where students had to interview other students from different schools.
One of our speakers giving a passionate speech about climate change.
One of our speakers giving an intelligent speech about electronic addiction.
One of our speakers giving an informed speech about the unfairness of our dress code.
All students, from four local Middle Schools (including ours) that attended Soapbox.
Our group…all in their t-shirts showing that Democracy is a verb!
Had to include the one of the falling down!
Things have moved along fairly well. Students have selected their speech topic (everything ranging from gun control to bullying to dress code) and worked on their speeches (they are still in the rough draft mode). Aside from a complaint or two about my lack of editing their speech and fixing it for them (which was obviously followed by a conversation about personal responsibilities and how they need to work to make their speech better (the best part about this was when a student explained how if their speech was bad, it was their fault and not mine…go figure)).
We have started to finalize our speeches, polishing off some of the rough edges, and moved into the presentation part of our speech. Each student has started to present their speech to a different class partner; hopefully receiving (and using) feedback along the way.
We will have our final presentation of our speeches on one of three days: 3 students will present at our Soapbox event on February 20, a good chunk will present on February 21, and the remainder will present on February 24.
The speeches are coming along. Certainly ask for any of our students to share their topic and/or their speech. All speeches should be no longer than 2 minutes so you can get it done real quickly if you would like.
We finished (for now) our immigration unit; culminating with students creating an introductory paragraph (thesis included) designed to answer the question: in what ways are immigrants treated differently in the 1900’s compared to today.
Yesterday, we started our next area of focus: Soapbox Speeches. In coordination with the Mikva Challenge, an organization focused on developing a voice within our younger students to live lives of active citizens, we have introduced Project Soapbox. This curriculum is designed to get students thinking about something in their lives they are unhappy with (in school, their community, their country). From there, they research that topic and ultimately develop a speech advocating for change as it relates to that topic.
Students did a preliminary selection of their topic yesterday, and it was amazing to hear some of the items that are of interest to our students. We will continue to develop our speeches and passion. This project culminates on February 20, when some of our students will present their speech at a local speech competition.
Feel free to ask any/all of our students about the topics they are interested in participating in.