Day 1 of the Shark Tank presentations was focused just on effective speech. We watched three videos, each one featuring a speech dedicated for a different purpose. We watched MLK, Jr’s “I Have a Dream,” to illustrate political, scripted speech; Peter Finch’s last tirade from Network to illustrate a dramatic monologue; and Obama’s late, emotional speech to his staff Election Night to show extemporaneous speech. Each video was followed by a discussion of effective techniques and characteristics of excellent speakers. But what was also the key was that every speech is keyed to its purpose and that while each great speech has similarities, differing purposes give rise to specific, different components.
That was followed by two videos of successful Shark Tank presentations - again with a focus on the similarities we saw to the earlier videos, but also the important ways in which a business pitch has its own specific components. From that we popcorned out the different characteristics and components of successful business pitches, in general and developed a rubric. It would have been easier to show a video of effective elevator pitches, or of pitch decks, but I find the kids’ attentions wander as soon as someone starts explaining things to them. It seems to be more effective to let them come up with the rules themselves (which they did pretty well.)
The actual skills work began with an activity designed to help the students think about posture, eye contact and voice. It was simply to stand up in a circle and state a color they see. The second round asked them to play a word association game, in which each student stated a word that came to mind after hearing the classmate to their left state a word. The third round was the most difficult - to state a word beginning with the last sound in a previous word - and most students “broke character” as they thought about their responses.
The 2nd activity was “expert talker” - that is, standing up for one minute and giving a lecture, in the guide of an expert, on something the student knew nothing about. In other words, the challenge was to deliver nonsense without stopping or letting the audience know it was nonsense. Then the audience was encouraged to ask questions as though the lecture was genuine and the lecturer expected to answer in kind. Two students performed (it was suggested the most nervous ones go first.) We will have each student take a turn in front of the class eventually.
The ending activity was to have the students deliver a speech about something they know well - a “real” expert speech, from anything to sports to making sandwiches - and upload the video to Youtube. These links will be placed here. The students will then critique each other according the rubric we came up with previously.
That was followed by two videos of successful Shark Tank presentations - again with a focus on the similarities we saw to the earlier videos, but also the important ways in which a business pitch has its own specific components. From that we popcorned out the different characteristics and components of successful business pitches, in general and developed a rubric. It would have been easier to show a video of effective elevator pitches, or of pitch decks, but I find the kids’ attentions wander as soon as someone starts explaining things to them. It seems to be more effective to let them come up with the rules themselves (which they did pretty well.)
The actual skills work began with an activity designed to help the students think about posture, eye contact and voice. It was simply to stand up in a circle and state a color they see. The second round asked them to play a word association game, in which each student stated a word that came to mind after hearing the classmate to their left state a word. The third round was the most difficult - to state a word beginning with the last sound in a previous word - and most students “broke character” as they thought about their responses.
The 2nd activity was “expert talker” - that is, standing up for one minute and giving a lecture, in the guide of an expert, on something the student knew nothing about. In other words, the challenge was to deliver nonsense without stopping or letting the audience know it was nonsense. Then the audience was encouraged to ask questions as though the lecture was genuine and the lecturer expected to answer in kind. Two students performed (it was suggested the most nervous ones go first.) We will have each student take a turn in front of the class eventually.
The ending activity was to have the students deliver a speech about something they know well - a “real” expert speech, from anything to sports to making sandwiches - and upload the video to Youtube. These links will be placed here. The students will then critique each other according the rubric we came up with previously.