9/9
Canvas Status:
The course skeleton in Canvas is fully established with all assignment weights and due dates populated.
Detailed instructions and prompt revisions are being actively updated.
Transition from Introductory Weeks:
Initial weeks focused on foundational policies, syllabus clearing, fair use, and core vocabulary terms that carry forward throughout the semester.
Speech Cycle Rhythm & Workflow:
The course operates on repeating, standardized speech cycles following a fixed 5-step rhythm:
Substantive Delivery Exercise: Focuses on a specific delivery goal or structural speech design element (e.g., Delivery Exercise #2).
Proposal & Draft Submission: Students submit a formal proposal and a complete draft for each speech project.
Proposal Pitch & Workshop: Proposals are pitched in class and collaboratively workshopped.
Dry Run Round & Workshop: A complete practice run of all speeches is conducted and workshopped.
Speech Week: Final formal speech performances occur.
Manuscript Policy Variations across Speeches:
First Speech (Ceremonial Speech): Students are permitted to write and work directly from a full written manuscript.
Subsequent Speeches: Manuscript usage is strictly prohibited. Draft structures for later speeches change accordingly so students do not write line-by-line scripts for speeches that cannot be delivered from a script.
Delivery Exercise #2: Novel Mark & Marked Up Script
Exercise Title: "Novel Mark".
Core Task: Select, prepare, and deliver a synopsis of a novel using a custom marked-up script.
Text Selection Constraints:
Text Genre: Must be a synopsis of a novel (a fictional narrative).
Material Foreclosure: Non-fiction books or non-narrative texts are strictly prohibited.
Microgenre Definition: A synopsis is the back-cover or online plot overview describing the book's narrative. It excludes promotional blurbs, reviewer quotes (e.g., "Best book ever"), star ratings, or award notices (e.g., "National Book Award Finalist").
Text Acquisition: Text can be sourced from a physical novel, Amazon.com, or a full-text PDF.
Text Length: Should match the standard length of an online book synopsis listing (approximately 1–2 paragraphs).
Required Submission Items (Submitted to Canvas):
Raw Copy / Raw Text: The plain, unformatted text of the chosen novel synopsis (copied/pasted or typed out).
Marked Up Script: A formatted visual script containing performative annotations and typographical design choices.
Definition and Purpose of a Marked Up Script:
Terminology derived from television and production contexts.
A tool that embeds performative cues, beats, pauses, and emphasis directly into the text to facilitate live spoken performance.
Memorization Policy: Word-for-word memorization is not required. The script serves as a material constraint that creates conditions of delivery possibilities.
Design Considerations for a Marked Up Script:
Font Size: Must be large enough to read quickly at a glance without forcing the speaker to stare downward or flip pages continuously (avoid 10pt dense blocks as well as single-word-per-page setups).
Line Breaks: Text should be structured like a prose poem. Line breaks act as explicit visual visual cues to pause, take a breath, adjust volume, slow down speech rate, or shift emotional register. Prevents rushing into adjacent words.
Typography as Visual Cues:
Use bolding, italics, and ALL CAPS as extra-linguistic indicators for pathos, volume changes, and emotional emphasis.
Performance Annotations: Incorporate explicit written performance directives in the margins or text inline (e.g., writing "smile", "pause", "look up", "slow down", or "building up").
Media and Constraints in Future Speeches:
Informative Speech: Scripts are completely eliminated. Speeches are delivered using only a single visual slide.
Persuasive Speech: Digitally mediated presentation. No physical notes or scripts may be visible on camera. Mock teleprompter setups behind the camera are encouraged to maintain direct eye contact through the lens while tracking text.
Found Speech Assignment: Proposals, Reports, and Logistics
Assignment Structure:
Independent, Canvas-only assignment sequence consisting of two parts per student: a Proposal and a Report.
Does not take place as an in-class speech presentation.
Staggered Speech Cycles & Canvas Due Dates:
Deadlines are automated and staggered across three distinct term cycles based on class roster distribution (class size: 24 students):
Cycle 1 Proposal Due Date: September 18th
Cycle 2 Proposal Due Date: October 16th
Cycle 3 Proposal Due Date: November 13th
Students only see the specific proposal and report due dates for their assigned cycle inside Canvas.
Live Speaking Event Requirements:
Students must identify and attend a live speaking event (a live discourse event) in real time.
Format: Can be in-person or online synchronous.
Temporal Rule: The event must occur within the assigned cycle window. Proposing past events (e.g., a recorded State of the Union address from a previous week) is strictly forbidden.
Synchronicity Requirement: Event attendance must be synchronous for both the audience member (student) and the speaker in real time.
Sourcing Live Events:
University Event Calendar: Academic lectures, major-specific presentations (e.g., Neuroscience talks regarding brain research, live EMT clinical skill displays).
Pittsburgh City Paper Calendar: Local weekly publication listing cultural events, lecture series, community meetings, plays featuring post-show playwright conversations, and stand-up or comedy improv performances.
Proposal Submission Criteria (15 to 75 words):
Must clearly answer: What the event is, When it occurs, Where it takes place, and How you will attend (in-person vs. online synchronous).
Must explain why the event interests the student and how it connects intellectually to public speaking concepts.
Report Guidelines & Digital Artifact Requirements:
Format: The report is explicitly NOT an essay or research paper; it is a structured data-entry report on Canvas containing guided questions.
Primary Goal: Apply at least one course concept to a specific live moment observed during the event.
Digital Artifact: Primary proof of live attendance and active note-taking submitted alongside the report.
Examples: A photo of handwritten notes taken live during the event, a self-portrait (selfie) in the venue with the presentation background visible, or venue-permitted digital transcripts/recordings.
Special Event Windows & Faith Communities:
The Persuasive speech cycle window overlaps with Thanksgiving break.
Live events during this window can include religious or faith community services (e.g., sermons at a church, synagogue, or mosque, including non-traditional contemporary services featuring musical ensembles).
Concept Bank for Reports:
Theoretical Concepts: Ethos, Pathos, and "Return of the Repressed".
Practical Skills: Vocal volume, physical presence, manuscript delivery techniques, and audience connection (e.g., the tactical difference between room-scanning and true eye-contact check-ins).
Staggering assignment cycles prevents repetitive event choices and aligns concept analysis directly with the active speech topic taught in class.
Situational Speech Dynamics, Audience, and Public Speaking Anxiety
The Core Question of Public Speaking:
The primary guiding question of speech is not "What is public speaking?" or "How do I speak?", but "WHERE does speech happen?"
Speech has no functional meaning outside of its specific time and space context.
Dimensions of Speech Context:
Located: Anchored to physical time and spatial coordinates.
Situated: Establishes an active dynamic relationship between speaker and audience.
Mediated: Built upon physical, digital, and technological conditions of production and circulation.
Dynamic & Uneven Audience: Audiences possess varying background knowledge, cultural biases, beliefs, and differing stakes. Audience attention fluctuates dynamically (e.g., audience members falling asleep vs. deeply engaging).
The Concept of the Audience:
There is no such thing as a "general audience" or a "neutral nobody".
The immediate classroom group (24 students over 12 weeks) constitutes the specific speaking community and context.
Navigating Public Speaking Anxiety:
Anxiety is universal, persistent, and natural across all speakers.
The objective of speech training is not to eliminate anxiety, but to leverage nervousness into productive performative energy.
Biological Anecdote: Experiencing extreme physiological stress (e.g., vomiting before or after running an 800-meter race in high school and college track) is directly linked to peak athletic and delivery performance; bodily excitement is required for high-level execution.
Topic Selection & Preparation Strategies:
Topic Investment: Speakers must select topics they genuinely care about ("give a shit") to avoid combining high performative anxiety with personal disinterest.
Mental Outline: Maintain a structural skeleton of the speech in mind so that if performance goes off-script, a clear mechanism exists to return to the core message.
Substantive Practice: Students must engage in practice sessions outside of class that accurately simulate the physical room environment.
Epideictic Rhetoric and The Moth Model
The Moth Speech Model:
Setting: A stage inside a bar setting with an event sign outside.
Structure: Speakers sign up to deliver stories centered on an open-ended theme (e.g., "Pizzazz").
Rules: Stories must be 100% true stories from the speaker's life and performed strictly with no notes.
Epideictic Rhetoric in the Present:
The Moth model represents modern epideictic (ceremonial) rhetoric—a community coming together in a loosely institutionalized space to tell true, personal narratives around shared human themes.
Application to Upcoming Ceremonial Speeches:
Students will construct their upcoming ceremonial speeches around this model by sharing true narrative accounts.
Unlike The Moth, students in this first speech cycle are permitted to utilize marked-up scripts to facilitate their live delivery.