Me and Kiera met Tuesday night to prepare for our speech on Wednesday. Kiera had already bought the materials we needed beforehand so we used some of our time to make slime in advance and see how long it would take for us to make it and if we would be able to fit that into our speech without going over 7 minutes or under 4 minutes. Making the slime was a little difficult for me so we decided that during our presentation Kiera would make it while we both talked about different things at certain times. She would explain what she was doing and I’d talk about alternatives for the products or chemicals that we used. We thought that our speech might take us 5-6 minutes and that was fine with us. We also went over who was going to say what and practiced what we were going to say when we got up there. I feel like me and Kiera are prepared for this speech and we just want to have fun with it. I think we will be successful. The only challenge we faced was that both of us were extremely busy because of other classes and medical emergencies so that was why we couldn’t meet up as often as we wanted to. I feel like we could have met up more but we just didn’t have the time.
While doing this speech I learned a lot about my ability to work with others on group projects. I know that I tend to like to do things by myself and control the entire situation. It was a really good challenge for me to task myself with the ability to not only allow other people to do some of the work but actively collaborate on creating a final product. I tend to be the person who chooses to do projects by herself but working with my partner ended up being a really good experience. I felt that we worked well together and had similar approaches to the project which really helped us produce a good product. We spent a lot of time working together to adjust our speaking styles to each other so that the final presentation would seem as seamless and natural as possible. Although we both came in with different ways of presenting I think we walked away with a good mix of her style as well as mine. We are both varsity athletes so finding times to meet was definitely a major challenge but I felt we were both committed to making the time to do it and made sure that we met about two times each week outside of class.The speech we ended with was definitely very different than the one we started with because each time we got together we tended to find small, but meaningful, changes that we wanted to make in order to take our speech to the next level. Some of the best changes we made, in my opinion, were the addition of the slideshow for an added visual and extended the length significantly from our original dry run.
When we came up with the idea of teaching others how to make slime, I was excited. I used to make slime when I was younger so it reminded me of when I was a little kid and I liked that aspect of it. It was something that I was familiar with and able to talk about confidently. I felt like when I presented in front of everyone I was engaged and focused on what we were doing and I knew what to say when things got quiet. While working on this, I found out that I prefer to work by myself rather than in a group. I just think that it is a little harder to work with others since some of your ideas can conflict and your schedules may not line up. This is because we struggled to meet up a lot because the both of us were so busy with other classes, We were able to make dew with what we got though so I’m incredibly grateful for that and hope we both get a good grade because of it. One of the times we met up, I struggled to make slime because I hadn’t made it in such a long time which is why we decided for my partner to make the slime while I would talk about alternatives and what she was doing. I think that really worked out for us. I feel like we did a really good job but could have done better if we prepared more and met up more beforehand.
Throughout this process, I have learned about my ability to collaborate with others. It can be challenging to coordinate times to meet with busy schedules and determine the best way to split the work so that each person contributes the same amount. However, I think Alyssa and I both accomplished this well. We had trouble finding times when we were both available to meet, but we managed to find a few times when we met for an hour. We also communicated effectively throughout the whole process by text. We both wanted to deliver a good speech and bounced ideas off of each other to do so. As someone who prefers to work by myself, this was a challenge to face as I typically prefer to take charge of the work, but I think we both spent an equal amount of time and work to make our speech the best it could be. It was beneficial to receive feedback when we did the dry runs because we might not have noticed the details that others did, and some of our best changes came from the feedback we received. Overall, I am happy with the discoveries and successes that we had during this process.
When asked to look back on the last speech I have a lot I could say. As a whole, I think it is way easier to deliver a speech with a partner. It eased my nerves and almost built up my confidence. Kassidy and I had good chemistry when it came to public speaking and I think we bounced off of each other well. While it was not easy at times, the preparation process came along over time. It was difficult to manage time and find opportunities where both Kassiyd and I could work on our speech. I also struggled on the final speech day. I kind of froze up towards the end, which did not happen when we practiced or even on the dry run. I’m not exactly sure why this happened, but I will assume it’s because of the pressure of it being the final. For successes though, I think Kassidy and I did an overall good job. I think the PowerPoint fit our steps well and we did a good job making up for the fact we could not make these strawberries in class. Additionally, I think that we worked off of our criticism well from the dry run, to improve our final product. While there were a few flaws, I believe this speech went significantly better than the first one and the result was something we both should be proud of.
I thought that this project was beneficial in many ways. I enjoyed the aspect of collaboration because I feel as though it made the speech more interesting and allowed for more than one set of ideas. I was able to stay pretty engaged throughout this process, I feel as though this speech definitely took lots of preparation and redoing/rethinking things. Maddy and I rewrote our outline three different times as we continued to practice. The aspect of having a prop also added another part of preparation because we had to make sure to incorporate that without getting lost in what we were trying to say. Although, this speech did come with challenges. I noticed, even after practicing, I would still catch myself using filler words, for example, saying um a lot. It forced me to pronounce everything clearly and really focus on what I was saying. We also faced some challenges with using the table as a bed because it was hard for the audience to picture what the actual bed in the dorm looked like, we had to fix this by adding a picture of my dorm room so it was easier to compare to the table bed that we used as our prop. You had to meet in person with your partner which could be challenging but I thought it really helped when we could express our ideas outloud and we normally had fun getting together. Maddy and I also worked very well together which helped us a lot when we had to fix things with our speech. This process showed me that the speech may have to change a lot as you go throughout the process and that is a good thing. I enjoyed collaborating and I thought that this was a fun project to work through.
It all starts with an idea. The original idea we had was to teach people how to juggle but that is not something you can accomplish within just a 4–7-minute speech. Juggling takes practice and time and that is just something we did not have. So, Sarah and I started brainstorming more ideas and we landed on how to tie your shoe. Originally that idea seemed too easy and simple to be true however we were able to expand on the basics by teaching people something interesting and new they may not have known before. We concluded that everyone learns to tie their shoes in different ways and that some people may not know some of the other ways of tying their shoes. We also discussed how as kids our shoes came untied a lot and we had to double and even triple knot them. When talking about this I stumbled upon an interesting way to tie shoes that was “the strong way”. We decided to teach people a new way of tying their shoes the strong way. The strong way entails changing a simple step in tying your shoe but makes an enormous difference. From here we discussed our roles of the speech and how and when we wanted to meet. I think finding time to get together to go over the speech in person was the hardest part because we had such busy schedules, however, we made it work. We were able to at least twice a week even if it was just for a brief chat and we stayed in contact on our shared document editing our speech on our own time. We got the body of our speech quickly and following that we wanted to make our introduction a little fun, so we came up saying each other’s names and correcting. There was a point to doing this though, your name is something you never forget, it is engraved into your memory and when someone asks you your name you do not even have to think twice. That is just like when you bend down to tie your shoe you do not even have to think about it anymore because you have been doing it for so long. However, we wanted to challenge that idea and make people think about the way that they tie their shoes and how they could do it differently and maybe even more effectively. After our first dry run, we realized our speech was too short and missing a component. We decided to expand on the explanation/demonstration of tying our shoes and with that add a slide show in the background of the steps so people in that back could see. This helped elevate our speech a little more. Overall, Sarah and I did an excellent job communicating, practicing, and developing our speech. I believe we bounced off each other well and were able to adapt to the ideas and contributions we both wanted to make to the speech.
Now that this speech is over, I feel very relieved. I do have to say It was easier giving this speech with a partner. I think giving a speech to someone else is a lot easier than having to do it all alone. Especially for the presenting aspect, it’s nice to have someone else up there with you. I think my partner and I did very well with this speech. We both had a clear understanding of our topic and I feel that we delivered it well. No, it was not perfect, we both still have things that we can work on, but overall I think we did well. We both made it a priority to have a solid dry run. Yes, we met a lot but I think it helped us a lot. After our dry run, all we needed to do was fine-tune a couple of things. I think this process is getting easier for me. With the second speech done, I am feeling a little bit more confident in public speaking.
After finishing our presentations, I feel as though this presentation required a lot more work because of the partner component. It was a little more challenging because I had to find time to be able to meet up with my partner rather than just do it on my own time. This was tricky because me and my partner, Grace, both have very busy schedules. However, I did enjoy being able to work with a partner because we were able to bounce ideas off of each other and receive advice. Also working with a partner, I feel more comfortable and confident standing up and presenting in front of people because I know that I am not alone. I also really enjoyed this topic because it is easier to present for me because you are talking about a skill and how and why to do it. I think that both me and Grace put in a lot of effort for this presentation as we did background research and met up often. I think that we also did a good job explaining what our skill was and all the benefits that it has and going through the steps to demonstrate the skill.
After finishing My partner speech project, I have realized that public speaking doesn’t have to be as hard as I previously had interpreted. I realized this due to the process of rehearsing and refining the outline built up my confidence as the process goes on. Having a partner to do the speech with also made things easier because i felt like all the weight wasn’t on my shoulders and I had someone to relate to about my struggles of public speaking, and then work on those struggles together. I discovered through watching other groups present that the class audience isn’t as judgmental as I had tricked my mind to think. I realized this because as an audience member I understood the work the other groups put into the speech, and they understood how much work my partner and I put in. By the time to present I was much calmer realizing that the audience was there to listen and support me, instead of judging me.
Overall now that the project is done I would say my engagement was pretty good. I think my partner and I worked well together and gave good feedback to each other as well as to other groups who delivered speeches. The process we chose worked well. We were able to draft a few outlines eventually making it to our speaking outline and being able to memorize our speech and deliver it pretty much exactly how we rehearsed it. One major thing I discovered along the way was how much I used the words “oh” and “like”. This is a habit I do while public speaking as well as when I’m just having a regular conversation, it’s something that now that I realize I do I’d like to work on it and hopefully cut back on filler words while speaking. One success along the way was our ability to incorporate our prop into our speech to make it flow better as well as adding a picture display to make it more clear which corner of the bed we were focusing on at certain points in the speech.
Journal 12
After finishing my speech I feel as if I put a lot of effort into making this speech the best that me and my partner could. I think my engagement was really good with putting in effort and being up there presenting. The process of the whole speech was fun. Working with my partner coming up with ideas for writing the speech and making the videos. Especially because we always got to eat the food every time we had to make the video. That was the best part in my opinion. Some discoveries that I made were don’t stress about your speech. I was stressed at first because we had to teach a skill and I had not a single clue on what to talk about. Then when I actually just sat down and focussed I was able to come up with ideas and really pick what I thought was best. Some successes that I had along the way were to definitely just listen to your partner and their ideas because they might have some really good ideas. Also you definitely have to meet in person if me and my partner never meet in person this whole thing would have been a mess. I also think going over and rehearsing your speech really really helps. It also helps you look like you know what you’re talking about when you’re up there in front of everybody.
With the process of writing these speeches I would say my engagement overall was pretty good. I think my partner and I worked really well together and I think that made this project run so smoothly. I made a lot of discoveries, struggles, and strengths along the way that I think could really help me going forward not just with public speaking but with most things in life. It was nice working with a partner on this project knowing that not all of the weight was going to be on my shoulder, I had someone to split up the work with. Really we didn’t struggle much with finding times to meet in person, since we have most of the same classes, so that made things a lot easier to complete this assignment and have lots of time to practice. I think the hardest part of this assignment was trying to figure out a topic that we could teach that we both had relative knowledge of. I think this assignment was really fun though. I think this was probably due to the fact that we were making food and after every time we video taped making our sandwich, we got to eat it so it was always an excitement to do our project. Some discoveries I made were to not be so anxious about presenting and making the speech perfect. I feel like I was so eager to make the speech perfect because I thought of the audience as a very judgemental thing that I worked my anxieties up over it so much. Once we got to the day of the presentation, sitting as part of the audience I realized that the audience was there to support and not to judge and it really changed my perspective of presenting.
I feel that some of the biggest struggles were meeting with my partner in person as well as trying to think of a creative idea. The idea of this speech was to teach someone how to do something, and we needed to find something that will keep the class entertained and keep us interested in the idea. I don’t know if slime was the best idea, I think there could have been better ideas, but I think that it was one of the best that we could have come up with at that moment and satisfied our criteria for the speech. During the timeline of the speech, I was faced with difficulties that prevented me from being able to meet up in person, which didn’t just affect me but affected my partner. During this speech, there were somethings you just needed to do in person but due to the lack of time management on my behalf and other issues, it made it almost impossible to find time, but we did it and were able to go over out outline, making slime, as well as discussing roles and practice out speech enough times until we both felt comfortable. One thing that I think we did well was the actual speech part, to me it felt smooth and like we bounced off each other well when we were talking. I think slime was a good idea for us because it wasn’t just a fun idea, but it was also something that just seemed so funny to do that it made us feel comfortable doing the presentation. I think coming in with a bunch of materials and kind of just doing something that seemed crazy to do in class made us feel better about our topic and talking in front of an audience.
After this project, I can say it was a lot better than my last speech. I put a good amount of effort into this speech and I think it paid off. All the time practicing with Casey and timing our speech and revising it definitely helped with how our final speech went. I discovered that when I have an interest or a passion in what I’m presenting then it is a lot better than when I’m presenting something I don’t care for. For example, I didn’t really want to talk about my public speaking but I love watching football and sports so I was more interested in this speech. I think doing the dry run and recording it so I was able to later watch it really helped as well. I was able to watch my body language and see in what parts I didn’t seem as confident. With this information, I was able to practice and really work on the parts I hadn’t nailed yet.
As for successes and struggles, there were a bit of both. For starters, some struggles were really the time of the speech. Trying to fit how to catch and throw a football in a 4-5 minute span was hard. But after our first practice Casey and I knew we’d have to add more background information and small details to add the seconds we needed. After this was solved our speech was the right length. As for successes, I think overall the whole speech was a success. Casey and I did really well and we were both really happy with how it went. I think all the time we put into it together and separately really paid off. Overall, I think this speech was way better than I thought it would be given I don’t like public speaking, and Casey and I had never even talked before this.
After completing Speech 2, I found that the hardest part was not the delivery, but figuring out an effective way to collaborate with my partner. In the early stages, we shared a google doc to formulate our ideas and create our outline. This was very effective for the first week, as we were both able to hop online and brainstorm ideas for this speech. Eventually, we ran into some issues, as we were only able to do so much virtually. By the second week, we had to start rehearsing with each other for our dry run. It wasn’t easy to find times that aligned for both of us, but we established a few times throughout the week to dedicate to practicing this speech. Our in-person rehearsals paid off, as it relieved a lot of anxiety and stress that came along with having to get up in front of the class. The more we practiced together, the more comfortable we got, and the more success we had in our final presentation.
I think this project was a really interesting combination of enjoyment and anxiety. I love, and very much enjoy the topic of my speech, the game of cribbage. It’s a game I’ve been playing for at least 10 years. I’ve played hundreds of games over the years and found the strategy of the game so interesting. Learning to teach it to someone was certainly a struggle in and of itself because of all of the strategies involved. Really taking the time to think and reflect on the most basic and most important parts of this game was a pivotal piece in my success…along with the fact that I just happen to have a giant-sized full deck of playing cards lying around in my Game Room as part of the decoration. Haha but no, I love collecting random things like that. Another important thing that helped me with this project was the “experts” I talked with. I consider myself an expert at this point, if not very close. But I did consult my parents and my mom’s friends, she plays cards once a month with a big group of her friends. We all came to the consensus that when teaching people how to play it is hardest for people to grasp how to score at the end of a round. Because there is very specific language that is used, 15-2, 15-4, 15-6, pair for 8…etc, and a specific order you count things in, 15’s first, pairs, runs, then nobs if applicable. So overall I think I was very engaged and interested in figuring out how to simplify this game, although I hate public speaking so much (a little side story, my pharmacy manager at the pharmacy I work in made me announce over the intercom last month, TO THE ENTIRETY OF HANNAFORD and it took me a solid three minutes before I could stop squealing and lightly begging her for someone else to do it before I did it, I was terrified, but I did it, she was so proud). Overall our process was to make plans, meet once a week on Monday to iron out the details, and it turned out to be a good plan for us, Keeping in mind the fact I live off campus and am only on campus for roughly a minimum of 3 hours and maximum of 6, as well as the fact I do not stay on campus longer than needed because I do have a life and have other things to do.
After presenting speech 2, I thought I went well. I think that preparing and presenting a speech with a partner can be challenging at times depending on what the speech is about, but I thought that my partner and I did a good job of communicating and making sure we got things done on time and leaving ourselves enough room to practice. I think one of the things that we made sure to spend time on was our props. Although we used the PowerPoint to show certain steps, I feel as though we could’ve done a better job of having more in person props. I also think we made sure that no one person did the majority of the speaking/doing during the presentation and made sure to even it out. Overall presenting a speech with a partner for the first time I thought was successful, but I feel like there are always things we could improve on.
After finishing and presenting our speech I felt me and Marena had done very well. I felt that we were able to keep everyone’s attention. The only thing I felt I could improve is making more eye contact and not reading so much off the outline. I think everyone really enjoyed the “limited edition starter kits” . It was more of a last minute thought to do but it really tied the whole speech together. Even though this is college, I felt teaching the class how to do laundry will actually be a good thing because many people before coming to college didn’t do their own laundry. That most of their parents had done it for them their whole lives till now. So not only doing this speech for this class, I think it will change how people will do their laundry now even though it’s such a simple yet difficult task for many people. For the next speech I present I hope to make more eye contact and maybe be a little more confident to make my voice less shaking and let my nerves get to me.
Although I’m glad the speech is over and we can move on to something new, I am kind of sad to say bye to it. I not only had a lot of fun writing this speech, but I also really enjoyed getting to work with Melanie. Whenever we would work on our speech, we always had fun doing it, and that made performing the speech a lot less scary in my eyes. I think Mel and I were able to take a kind of boring topic and make it not only enjoyable to talk about, but also to listen to for our classmates. I think we could’ve improved on certain things, like our smoothness when going back and forth, and also our pacing overall, but for the most part I was really happy with how Melanie and I did, and I’m excited to get started on our next speech.
Throughout this speech, I was fully engaged and committed to delivering a meaningful presentation. The process of preparing for this speech involved careful planning, research, and practice. I spent time brainstorming ideas, and organizing my thoughts into a coherent structure. And I also uncovered new insights, interesting facts, and thought-provoking perspectives that I incorporated into my speech.
While preparing for this speech, I encountered some challenges along the way. Balancing my time between work, school, and other commitments was demanding, and I had to overcome moments of self-doubt and mental block. Despite the challenges, I’m proud to say that I persevered and achieved success in delivering a compelling speech with my partner . I received positive feedback from my peers and instructors, which boosted my confidence and affirmed the value of my efforts.
After finally completing speech #2 and getting the chance to present it to everyone, I feel like that I was holding my breath for the last 4-5 weeks, and presenting it was me finally taking in that gasp of air that I needed. I feel super relived to be done with it, like a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders. To be completely honest, I was mentally and physically drained during the duration of this speech. I became sick at least twice, I was losing so much speech and nearly collapsed from exhaustion a few times, and I was losing my appetite, so I almost became malnourished as well. I also wasn’t thinking straight during it because I nearly lost my mind from how stressed out I was. I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t go back to how I was during my first semester last year, and this speech, combined with an overload of work and exams I received, nearly made me fall back into that hole, which is not what I wanted. I was extremely dedicated to this speech however because I always made sure to communicate with you and my partner. I want to be able to do well on so many things, and I had the drive to ensure that I did well on everything. I think my communication was a big strong suit for me, as I was always vocal, and I did a good job memorizing everything I wrote down. Overall, despite all of my mental and physical struggles, my overall performance was a massive success for me because I did everything I wanted to do during my presentation. I connected to the audience, I was able to have actual physical props that supported what I was trying to say, it felt like I was actually teaching, I had confidence in myself, and I presented like a TedTalk, which was my aim. I got everything I wanted out of this presentation, so overall, I would say that all of the struggles and everything were worth it.
During the creation and revision of this speech I have discovered that I am not as good at group work as I thought I was and compared to how I have to be whether it be in this class, other classes, or just any event in life that would require public speaking. I’m hoping that practicing and working up to speech four should be able to help me, as one of the main purposes of the speech is to be able to speak in a group, which I could not handle for speech two. I am greatly looking forward to speech three and four. As pessimistic as it sounds, I don’t know that there was really anything that went well. I was so nervous and was fidgeting with my hands and feet a lot. The better half of the speech was me talking about many of my weaknesses and insecurities which was really difficult for me, so it makes more sense that the energy levels were low on my part. However, I should not have let this affect my speech as much as I did. I plan on working on my confidence and rehearsing much more than this previous time.
23 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 12”
Me and Kiera met Tuesday night to prepare for our speech on Wednesday. Kiera had already bought the materials we needed beforehand so we used some of our time to make slime in advance and see how long it would take for us to make it and if we would be able to fit that into our speech without going over 7 minutes or under 4 minutes. Making the slime was a little difficult for me so we decided that during our presentation Kiera would make it while we both talked about different things at certain times. She would explain what she was doing and I’d talk about alternatives for the products or chemicals that we used. We thought that our speech might take us 5-6 minutes and that was fine with us. We also went over who was going to say what and practiced what we were going to say when we got up there. I feel like me and Kiera are prepared for this speech and we just want to have fun with it. I think we will be successful. The only challenge we faced was that both of us were extremely busy because of other classes and medical emergencies so that was why we couldn’t meet up as often as we wanted to. I feel like we could have met up more but we just didn’t have the time.
While doing this speech I learned a lot about my ability to work with others on group projects. I know that I tend to like to do things by myself and control the entire situation. It was a really good challenge for me to task myself with the ability to not only allow other people to do some of the work but actively collaborate on creating a final product. I tend to be the person who chooses to do projects by herself but working with my partner ended up being a really good experience. I felt that we worked well together and had similar approaches to the project which really helped us produce a good product. We spent a lot of time working together to adjust our speaking styles to each other so that the final presentation would seem as seamless and natural as possible. Although we both came in with different ways of presenting I think we walked away with a good mix of her style as well as mine. We are both varsity athletes so finding times to meet was definitely a major challenge but I felt we were both committed to making the time to do it and made sure that we met about two times each week outside of class.The speech we ended with was definitely very different than the one we started with because each time we got together we tended to find small, but meaningful, changes that we wanted to make in order to take our speech to the next level. Some of the best changes we made, in my opinion, were the addition of the slideshow for an added visual and extended the length significantly from our original dry run.
When we came up with the idea of teaching others how to make slime, I was excited. I used to make slime when I was younger so it reminded me of when I was a little kid and I liked that aspect of it. It was something that I was familiar with and able to talk about confidently. I felt like when I presented in front of everyone I was engaged and focused on what we were doing and I knew what to say when things got quiet. While working on this, I found out that I prefer to work by myself rather than in a group. I just think that it is a little harder to work with others since some of your ideas can conflict and your schedules may not line up. This is because we struggled to meet up a lot because the both of us were so busy with other classes, We were able to make dew with what we got though so I’m incredibly grateful for that and hope we both get a good grade because of it. One of the times we met up, I struggled to make slime because I hadn’t made it in such a long time which is why we decided for my partner to make the slime while I would talk about alternatives and what she was doing. I think that really worked out for us. I feel like we did a really good job but could have done better if we prepared more and met up more beforehand.
Throughout this process, I have learned about my ability to collaborate with others. It can be challenging to coordinate times to meet with busy schedules and determine the best way to split the work so that each person contributes the same amount. However, I think Alyssa and I both accomplished this well. We had trouble finding times when we were both available to meet, but we managed to find a few times when we met for an hour. We also communicated effectively throughout the whole process by text. We both wanted to deliver a good speech and bounced ideas off of each other to do so. As someone who prefers to work by myself, this was a challenge to face as I typically prefer to take charge of the work, but I think we both spent an equal amount of time and work to make our speech the best it could be. It was beneficial to receive feedback when we did the dry runs because we might not have noticed the details that others did, and some of our best changes came from the feedback we received. Overall, I am happy with the discoveries and successes that we had during this process.
When asked to look back on the last speech I have a lot I could say. As a whole, I think it is way easier to deliver a speech with a partner. It eased my nerves and almost built up my confidence. Kassidy and I had good chemistry when it came to public speaking and I think we bounced off of each other well. While it was not easy at times, the preparation process came along over time. It was difficult to manage time and find opportunities where both Kassiyd and I could work on our speech. I also struggled on the final speech day. I kind of froze up towards the end, which did not happen when we practiced or even on the dry run. I’m not exactly sure why this happened, but I will assume it’s because of the pressure of it being the final. For successes though, I think Kassidy and I did an overall good job. I think the PowerPoint fit our steps well and we did a good job making up for the fact we could not make these strawberries in class. Additionally, I think that we worked off of our criticism well from the dry run, to improve our final product. While there were a few flaws, I believe this speech went significantly better than the first one and the result was something we both should be proud of.
I thought that this project was beneficial in many ways. I enjoyed the aspect of collaboration because I feel as though it made the speech more interesting and allowed for more than one set of ideas. I was able to stay pretty engaged throughout this process, I feel as though this speech definitely took lots of preparation and redoing/rethinking things. Maddy and I rewrote our outline three different times as we continued to practice. The aspect of having a prop also added another part of preparation because we had to make sure to incorporate that without getting lost in what we were trying to say. Although, this speech did come with challenges. I noticed, even after practicing, I would still catch myself using filler words, for example, saying um a lot. It forced me to pronounce everything clearly and really focus on what I was saying. We also faced some challenges with using the table as a bed because it was hard for the audience to picture what the actual bed in the dorm looked like, we had to fix this by adding a picture of my dorm room so it was easier to compare to the table bed that we used as our prop. You had to meet in person with your partner which could be challenging but I thought it really helped when we could express our ideas outloud and we normally had fun getting together. Maddy and I also worked very well together which helped us a lot when we had to fix things with our speech. This process showed me that the speech may have to change a lot as you go throughout the process and that is a good thing. I enjoyed collaborating and I thought that this was a fun project to work through.
It all starts with an idea. The original idea we had was to teach people how to juggle but that is not something you can accomplish within just a 4–7-minute speech. Juggling takes practice and time and that is just something we did not have. So, Sarah and I started brainstorming more ideas and we landed on how to tie your shoe. Originally that idea seemed too easy and simple to be true however we were able to expand on the basics by teaching people something interesting and new they may not have known before. We concluded that everyone learns to tie their shoes in different ways and that some people may not know some of the other ways of tying their shoes. We also discussed how as kids our shoes came untied a lot and we had to double and even triple knot them. When talking about this I stumbled upon an interesting way to tie shoes that was “the strong way”. We decided to teach people a new way of tying their shoes the strong way. The strong way entails changing a simple step in tying your shoe but makes an enormous difference. From here we discussed our roles of the speech and how and when we wanted to meet. I think finding time to get together to go over the speech in person was the hardest part because we had such busy schedules, however, we made it work. We were able to at least twice a week even if it was just for a brief chat and we stayed in contact on our shared document editing our speech on our own time. We got the body of our speech quickly and following that we wanted to make our introduction a little fun, so we came up saying each other’s names and correcting. There was a point to doing this though, your name is something you never forget, it is engraved into your memory and when someone asks you your name you do not even have to think twice. That is just like when you bend down to tie your shoe you do not even have to think about it anymore because you have been doing it for so long. However, we wanted to challenge that idea and make people think about the way that they tie their shoes and how they could do it differently and maybe even more effectively. After our first dry run, we realized our speech was too short and missing a component. We decided to expand on the explanation/demonstration of tying our shoes and with that add a slide show in the background of the steps so people in that back could see. This helped elevate our speech a little more. Overall, Sarah and I did an excellent job communicating, practicing, and developing our speech. I believe we bounced off each other well and were able to adapt to the ideas and contributions we both wanted to make to the speech.
Now that this speech is over, I feel very relieved. I do have to say It was easier giving this speech with a partner. I think giving a speech to someone else is a lot easier than having to do it all alone. Especially for the presenting aspect, it’s nice to have someone else up there with you. I think my partner and I did very well with this speech. We both had a clear understanding of our topic and I feel that we delivered it well. No, it was not perfect, we both still have things that we can work on, but overall I think we did well. We both made it a priority to have a solid dry run. Yes, we met a lot but I think it helped us a lot. After our dry run, all we needed to do was fine-tune a couple of things. I think this process is getting easier for me. With the second speech done, I am feeling a little bit more confident in public speaking.
After finishing our presentations, I feel as though this presentation required a lot more work because of the partner component. It was a little more challenging because I had to find time to be able to meet up with my partner rather than just do it on my own time. This was tricky because me and my partner, Grace, both have very busy schedules. However, I did enjoy being able to work with a partner because we were able to bounce ideas off of each other and receive advice. Also working with a partner, I feel more comfortable and confident standing up and presenting in front of people because I know that I am not alone. I also really enjoyed this topic because it is easier to present for me because you are talking about a skill and how and why to do it. I think that both me and Grace put in a lot of effort for this presentation as we did background research and met up often. I think that we also did a good job explaining what our skill was and all the benefits that it has and going through the steps to demonstrate the skill.
After finishing My partner speech project, I have realized that public speaking doesn’t have to be as hard as I previously had interpreted. I realized this due to the process of rehearsing and refining the outline built up my confidence as the process goes on. Having a partner to do the speech with also made things easier because i felt like all the weight wasn’t on my shoulders and I had someone to relate to about my struggles of public speaking, and then work on those struggles together. I discovered through watching other groups present that the class audience isn’t as judgmental as I had tricked my mind to think. I realized this because as an audience member I understood the work the other groups put into the speech, and they understood how much work my partner and I put in. By the time to present I was much calmer realizing that the audience was there to listen and support me, instead of judging me.
Overall now that the project is done I would say my engagement was pretty good. I think my partner and I worked well together and gave good feedback to each other as well as to other groups who delivered speeches. The process we chose worked well. We were able to draft a few outlines eventually making it to our speaking outline and being able to memorize our speech and deliver it pretty much exactly how we rehearsed it. One major thing I discovered along the way was how much I used the words “oh” and “like”. This is a habit I do while public speaking as well as when I’m just having a regular conversation, it’s something that now that I realize I do I’d like to work on it and hopefully cut back on filler words while speaking. One success along the way was our ability to incorporate our prop into our speech to make it flow better as well as adding a picture display to make it more clear which corner of the bed we were focusing on at certain points in the speech.
Journal 12
After finishing my speech I feel as if I put a lot of effort into making this speech the best that me and my partner could. I think my engagement was really good with putting in effort and being up there presenting. The process of the whole speech was fun. Working with my partner coming up with ideas for writing the speech and making the videos. Especially because we always got to eat the food every time we had to make the video. That was the best part in my opinion. Some discoveries that I made were don’t stress about your speech. I was stressed at first because we had to teach a skill and I had not a single clue on what to talk about. Then when I actually just sat down and focussed I was able to come up with ideas and really pick what I thought was best. Some successes that I had along the way were to definitely just listen to your partner and their ideas because they might have some really good ideas. Also you definitely have to meet in person if me and my partner never meet in person this whole thing would have been a mess. I also think going over and rehearsing your speech really really helps. It also helps you look like you know what you’re talking about when you’re up there in front of everybody.
With the process of writing these speeches I would say my engagement overall was pretty good. I think my partner and I worked really well together and I think that made this project run so smoothly. I made a lot of discoveries, struggles, and strengths along the way that I think could really help me going forward not just with public speaking but with most things in life. It was nice working with a partner on this project knowing that not all of the weight was going to be on my shoulder, I had someone to split up the work with. Really we didn’t struggle much with finding times to meet in person, since we have most of the same classes, so that made things a lot easier to complete this assignment and have lots of time to practice. I think the hardest part of this assignment was trying to figure out a topic that we could teach that we both had relative knowledge of. I think this assignment was really fun though. I think this was probably due to the fact that we were making food and after every time we video taped making our sandwich, we got to eat it so it was always an excitement to do our project. Some discoveries I made were to not be so anxious about presenting and making the speech perfect. I feel like I was so eager to make the speech perfect because I thought of the audience as a very judgemental thing that I worked my anxieties up over it so much. Once we got to the day of the presentation, sitting as part of the audience I realized that the audience was there to support and not to judge and it really changed my perspective of presenting.
I feel that some of the biggest struggles were meeting with my partner in person as well as trying to think of a creative idea. The idea of this speech was to teach someone how to do something, and we needed to find something that will keep the class entertained and keep us interested in the idea. I don’t know if slime was the best idea, I think there could have been better ideas, but I think that it was one of the best that we could have come up with at that moment and satisfied our criteria for the speech. During the timeline of the speech, I was faced with difficulties that prevented me from being able to meet up in person, which didn’t just affect me but affected my partner. During this speech, there were somethings you just needed to do in person but due to the lack of time management on my behalf and other issues, it made it almost impossible to find time, but we did it and were able to go over out outline, making slime, as well as discussing roles and practice out speech enough times until we both felt comfortable. One thing that I think we did well was the actual speech part, to me it felt smooth and like we bounced off each other well when we were talking. I think slime was a good idea for us because it wasn’t just a fun idea, but it was also something that just seemed so funny to do that it made us feel comfortable doing the presentation. I think coming in with a bunch of materials and kind of just doing something that seemed crazy to do in class made us feel better about our topic and talking in front of an audience.
After this project, I can say it was a lot better than my last speech. I put a good amount of effort into this speech and I think it paid off. All the time practicing with Casey and timing our speech and revising it definitely helped with how our final speech went. I discovered that when I have an interest or a passion in what I’m presenting then it is a lot better than when I’m presenting something I don’t care for. For example, I didn’t really want to talk about my public speaking but I love watching football and sports so I was more interested in this speech. I think doing the dry run and recording it so I was able to later watch it really helped as well. I was able to watch my body language and see in what parts I didn’t seem as confident. With this information, I was able to practice and really work on the parts I hadn’t nailed yet.
As for successes and struggles, there were a bit of both. For starters, some struggles were really the time of the speech. Trying to fit how to catch and throw a football in a 4-5 minute span was hard. But after our first practice Casey and I knew we’d have to add more background information and small details to add the seconds we needed. After this was solved our speech was the right length. As for successes, I think overall the whole speech was a success. Casey and I did really well and we were both really happy with how it went. I think all the time we put into it together and separately really paid off. Overall, I think this speech was way better than I thought it would be given I don’t like public speaking, and Casey and I had never even talked before this.
After completing Speech 2, I found that the hardest part was not the delivery, but figuring out an effective way to collaborate with my partner. In the early stages, we shared a google doc to formulate our ideas and create our outline. This was very effective for the first week, as we were both able to hop online and brainstorm ideas for this speech. Eventually, we ran into some issues, as we were only able to do so much virtually. By the second week, we had to start rehearsing with each other for our dry run. It wasn’t easy to find times that aligned for both of us, but we established a few times throughout the week to dedicate to practicing this speech. Our in-person rehearsals paid off, as it relieved a lot of anxiety and stress that came along with having to get up in front of the class. The more we practiced together, the more comfortable we got, and the more success we had in our final presentation.
I think this project was a really interesting combination of enjoyment and anxiety. I love, and very much enjoy the topic of my speech, the game of cribbage. It’s a game I’ve been playing for at least 10 years. I’ve played hundreds of games over the years and found the strategy of the game so interesting. Learning to teach it to someone was certainly a struggle in and of itself because of all of the strategies involved. Really taking the time to think and reflect on the most basic and most important parts of this game was a pivotal piece in my success…along with the fact that I just happen to have a giant-sized full deck of playing cards lying around in my Game Room as part of the decoration. Haha but no, I love collecting random things like that. Another important thing that helped me with this project was the “experts” I talked with. I consider myself an expert at this point, if not very close. But I did consult my parents and my mom’s friends, she plays cards once a month with a big group of her friends. We all came to the consensus that when teaching people how to play it is hardest for people to grasp how to score at the end of a round. Because there is very specific language that is used, 15-2, 15-4, 15-6, pair for 8…etc, and a specific order you count things in, 15’s first, pairs, runs, then nobs if applicable. So overall I think I was very engaged and interested in figuring out how to simplify this game, although I hate public speaking so much (a little side story, my pharmacy manager at the pharmacy I work in made me announce over the intercom last month, TO THE ENTIRETY OF HANNAFORD and it took me a solid three minutes before I could stop squealing and lightly begging her for someone else to do it before I did it, I was terrified, but I did it, she was so proud). Overall our process was to make plans, meet once a week on Monday to iron out the details, and it turned out to be a good plan for us, Keeping in mind the fact I live off campus and am only on campus for roughly a minimum of 3 hours and maximum of 6, as well as the fact I do not stay on campus longer than needed because I do have a life and have other things to do.
After presenting speech 2, I thought I went well. I think that preparing and presenting a speech with a partner can be challenging at times depending on what the speech is about, but I thought that my partner and I did a good job of communicating and making sure we got things done on time and leaving ourselves enough room to practice. I think one of the things that we made sure to spend time on was our props. Although we used the PowerPoint to show certain steps, I feel as though we could’ve done a better job of having more in person props. I also think we made sure that no one person did the majority of the speaking/doing during the presentation and made sure to even it out. Overall presenting a speech with a partner for the first time I thought was successful, but I feel like there are always things we could improve on.
After finishing and presenting our speech I felt me and Marena had done very well. I felt that we were able to keep everyone’s attention. The only thing I felt I could improve is making more eye contact and not reading so much off the outline. I think everyone really enjoyed the “limited edition starter kits” . It was more of a last minute thought to do but it really tied the whole speech together. Even though this is college, I felt teaching the class how to do laundry will actually be a good thing because many people before coming to college didn’t do their own laundry. That most of their parents had done it for them their whole lives till now. So not only doing this speech for this class, I think it will change how people will do their laundry now even though it’s such a simple yet difficult task for many people. For the next speech I present I hope to make more eye contact and maybe be a little more confident to make my voice less shaking and let my nerves get to me.
Although I’m glad the speech is over and we can move on to something new, I am kind of sad to say bye to it. I not only had a lot of fun writing this speech, but I also really enjoyed getting to work with Melanie. Whenever we would work on our speech, we always had fun doing it, and that made performing the speech a lot less scary in my eyes. I think Mel and I were able to take a kind of boring topic and make it not only enjoyable to talk about, but also to listen to for our classmates. I think we could’ve improved on certain things, like our smoothness when going back and forth, and also our pacing overall, but for the most part I was really happy with how Melanie and I did, and I’m excited to get started on our next speech.
Throughout this speech, I was fully engaged and committed to delivering a meaningful presentation. The process of preparing for this speech involved careful planning, research, and practice. I spent time brainstorming ideas, and organizing my thoughts into a coherent structure. And I also uncovered new insights, interesting facts, and thought-provoking perspectives that I incorporated into my speech.
While preparing for this speech, I encountered some challenges along the way. Balancing my time between work, school, and other commitments was demanding, and I had to overcome moments of self-doubt and mental block. Despite the challenges, I’m proud to say that I persevered and achieved success in delivering a compelling speech with my partner . I received positive feedback from my peers and instructors, which boosted my confidence and affirmed the value of my efforts.
After finally completing speech #2 and getting the chance to present it to everyone, I feel like that I was holding my breath for the last 4-5 weeks, and presenting it was me finally taking in that gasp of air that I needed. I feel super relived to be done with it, like a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders. To be completely honest, I was mentally and physically drained during the duration of this speech. I became sick at least twice, I was losing so much speech and nearly collapsed from exhaustion a few times, and I was losing my appetite, so I almost became malnourished as well. I also wasn’t thinking straight during it because I nearly lost my mind from how stressed out I was. I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t go back to how I was during my first semester last year, and this speech, combined with an overload of work and exams I received, nearly made me fall back into that hole, which is not what I wanted. I was extremely dedicated to this speech however because I always made sure to communicate with you and my partner. I want to be able to do well on so many things, and I had the drive to ensure that I did well on everything. I think my communication was a big strong suit for me, as I was always vocal, and I did a good job memorizing everything I wrote down. Overall, despite all of my mental and physical struggles, my overall performance was a massive success for me because I did everything I wanted to do during my presentation. I connected to the audience, I was able to have actual physical props that supported what I was trying to say, it felt like I was actually teaching, I had confidence in myself, and I presented like a TedTalk, which was my aim. I got everything I wanted out of this presentation, so overall, I would say that all of the struggles and everything were worth it.
During the creation and revision of this speech I have discovered that I am not as good at group work as I thought I was and compared to how I have to be whether it be in this class, other classes, or just any event in life that would require public speaking. I’m hoping that practicing and working up to speech four should be able to help me, as one of the main purposes of the speech is to be able to speak in a group, which I could not handle for speech two. I am greatly looking forward to speech three and four. As pessimistic as it sounds, I don’t know that there was really anything that went well. I was so nervous and was fidgeting with my hands and feet a lot. The better half of the speech was me talking about many of my weaknesses and insecurities which was really difficult for me, so it makes more sense that the energy levels were low on my part. However, I should not have let this affect my speech as much as I did. I plan on working on my confidence and rehearsing much more than this previous time.