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Aims and Benchmarks:

• Organization and Structure: 

Ideas are organized, both within the speech as a whole (including an introduction and conclusion), and within each subpoint. Prompt questions are answered in a logical order with details. The audience is able to understand the speech.

• Subject Knowledge and Main Idea:

The student understands the subject matter. The student covers all key information and elaborates on it with details. The student is able to not just recite information from the referenced text but can transform it into their own words.

• Audience Awareness: 

The student presents all information in an understandable way, including all necessary background information for the audience to understand points. The audience is engaged.

• Delivery:

The student speaks with a consistently loud and clearly audible volume, and with a confident tone of voice. The student’s speech is clearly understandable by the audience without any mumbling or trailing off. The student maintains eye contact with the audience throughout the speech. The student is confident in their presentation.

• Response to Questions:

Students can answer all audience questions completely, with elaboration on the key points to give a complete understanding. Students are respectful in their response.

 

Contents and Topics:

• Story Presentation: Students are given a story to read, and present in different ways (write an ending for an incomplete story, discuss events and motivations in a story, write a new story with the same characters, expand on an event that occurred in the story, imagine an alternative story had an action or choice been different)

• Topic Presentation: Students learn about a variety of different subjects, then present and answer questions about the subject to explore different aspects (expand on details learned, provide personal opinions with supporting details, apply knowledge to a given scenario)

• Leadership: Students are introduced to the 7 Habits of Happy Kids. Activities help students reflect on their lives, develop leadership skills, and set goals that will inspire them to succeed. Through use of the 7 habits, students can realize they have control over much of what happens in their lives and they have the potential to be true leaders.

Sample Topics:  

• Martin Luther King Jr.

• The U.S. Government at Work

• Summer Olympics Events

• National Parks

• Being Bilingual

• Healthy Me

• The Recess Revolt

• Morty and the Mousetown Gazette

• The Animal Bridge

• The Cyberbully