Genocide in Rwanda, Day 5 - Class Recap

My mom, Amanda Fritz, giving a speech after she was elected to Portland City Council in 2008. Photo taken by my dad!

Hi everyone,

Today was our last day of preparation for the Rwanda speech in front of the United Nations! Lots of tips and stuff to talk about. Here's what happened in class today:

Learning Targets:
Knowledge LT 20: I can identify the critical components of imperialism.
Communication LT 1:  I can communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.

Soundtrack: "Man in the Mirror" by Michael Jackson. Selected because you get to "make that change" with your speech, and also, practicing in front of a mirror is a good strategy to prepare for a speech. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 12/13/17:
News Brief - Max
Brainstorm Public Speaking
Rwanda Video
Speech Work Time

Homework: Read the blog. The United Nations group speech in front of an administrator is next class! Practice! Dress up (if possible)! Be ready to go with your group! Also, if you haven't turned in your revised/final individual speech, please do so ASAP. Next news brief: Ella.

News Brief: Max had the news brief today and selected an article about this story: TheGuardian.com - US ready for talks with North Korea 'without preconditions', Tillerson says. We found North Korea in our world maps again, and talked about why this is an important development. Thanks, Max.

Ella was selected to do the next news brief.

We also watched the one minute BBC World News update. Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day (it will probably be different from what we watched in class):

BBCNews.com - One-minute World News

Brainstorm: Public Speaking: We talked in class about some tips for giving a good speech. I used two video clips for this:

The 2014 National Champion of Original Oratory, Andrea Ambam.

I only showed the first two minutes or so of this in class, but the point was hopefully made clear. She does a great job of knowing her material, standing straight, using hand gestures to be engaging, making eye contact, and varying her tone of voice.

As a class, we thought of good public speaking tips. Here's what we came up with:

• Effective use of hand gestures
• Be clear in what you are saying – be loud enough
• Don’t speak too fast
• Good posture
• Looking around the room – right above the judges
• Be passionate about your subject
• “um” “like” etc – know your speech really well

Next, I showed this five minute video from Toastmasters (an organization devoted to helping people with public speaking):

I hope that all of this made everyone feel better, or at least, provide some tips on how to feel better about the speech!

Rwanda Video: Finally, before work time the rest of class, I showed half of this video that an American media company made for Rwanda's tourism department. I wanted to show this to highlight some of the beautiful aspects of Rwanda, as another counter story to what people may typically think.

Group Speech Work Time: The rest of the class was devoted to working on the speech in groups - getting the order down, practicing, and refining. The groups are (some may have six, which means that the group will have four middle speakers on speech day):

Group 1:
Clayton
Rachel
Haddie
Omar
Kiran
McKenzie

Group 2:
Logan
Jessica
Peter
Justin
Bella

Group 3:
Emina
Kylie
Bob
Ree
Emma

Group 4:
Ryan
Max
Richard
Sofia
Megan

Group 5:
Olivia
Desi
Linh
Bailey
Josiah
Vicky

Group 6:
Tristan
Naomi
Varsha
Krista
Ella
Kanta

Here's the assignment sheet again, if you are needing it to find the rubrics to turn in with your revised paper:

Google Drive: Individual United Nations Rwanda Speech Assignment

Please make sure to bring turn in revised final copy of your speech (if you have not turned it in already), for me to grade, by next class! Be prepared and confident in your speech - I know you will all be great! Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help!