The assignment reminder I'm posting below this paragraph followed, of course, oral instruction in class regarding the parameters of the assignment. I generally offer this as and "extra credit" assignment, meaning the students cannot lose points for not doing well, but they have an opportunity to vastly improve their grades if they take it seriously. The assignment followed from a conference (Natl Comm Assoc) paper I presented on the usefulness of Quintilian's master text on teaching for today's students, particularly those starting at a disadvantage (such as many of my College of Southern Nevada students). In the paper, I made the argument that we could basically rehabilitate at-risk students by teaching them everything they needed to know to be competent writers and speakers in two semesters--using, of course, Quintilian's lifetime, step-by-step methods. Among his many suggestions is that we teach through imitation; he particularly notes the importance of reaching out to growing minds by accessing material that was considered quite controversial in the time (comics, actors, torrid tales, for example) but that would be engaging for them. He suggests such material as a constructive way to study words and arguments and styles that are effective and moral and those that are not. So, my hope was that be having students imitate a movie speech or rap that particularly resonates with them, they would learn to express themselves better when using their own words (see the assignment below). This is one of those assignments that has extreme results. It has quite seriously "saved" students that were on the verge of failing, giving them inspiration and self-confidence; it has also utterly failed for others, who miss the point of "imitation" entirely and instead stay locked in their self-limiting idea of who they are or should be. One student once even gave a completely dismal, depressingly flat reading from the Gospels. Sigh. At least if she'd done Charlton Heston as Moses we could have worked with it. Anyway, although the assignment was designed for first generation students at a struggling community college, I have found it quite helpful for reaching out to "troubled" kids here at Minnesota as well.
Here's the assignment as I sent it out after Spring Break 2011:
Welcome back!!
Ready to give your movie/rap speech tomorrow? :-)
I can't wait to hear them!!
Reminders about what it should be:
GOAL--Delivery, delivery, delivery!!! Being able to express emotion while speaking is an important skill to practice. By imitating a famous dramatization, you will gain the experience of expressing heightened emotion in front of a group while maintaining some safe "distance" from self because the words and style are not your own. Learning what it FEELS like to be expressive in front of an audience is a big step toward enacting expression in your own speeches.
SPECS--
The speech should be between 1 to 3 minutes, and it should be intense (that could mean passionate, funny, angry, revolutionary--anything that is exciting!).
I recommend movies/raps because they naturally tap emotions. Go to americanrhetoric.com for some famous movie speeches and accompanying script, or find another reputable outlet for what you'll perform. (If you want to transcribe it yourself, that's fine, too.)
Poetry is also fine, so long as you perform it poetry-jam style. If you don't know what that means, I suggest sticking with the movie/rap.
Bring a print out of the speech--both for you to use as speaking notes and for me to collect when you are done. Be sure to put a citation on it so I can find the original source. You are of course welcome to memorize the speech, but that is NOT expected. What is expected is a DRAMATIC performance.
POST YOUR SPEECH--I will open a space for you to post your movie/rap speech selection. First come, first served!! And I am not going to police the list--you must look through it yourself to be sure your choice isn't already taken. If you do give the same speech as another student, whoever posted their speech first gets the extra-credit points and the other student gets no points.
Enjoy!! See you tomorrow!!!
--Shannon
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