Eloquence

Classroom Activities

The sequence presented here is deliberate and I suggest that it be followed. It is a path by which students can simultaneously construct text, improve it along the way to make it more powerful, while learning to deliver that text powerfully. Each number denotes a 90-minute block.

1. Introduction: Wearing Words

1. Deliver opening speech (Appendix A)
2. Discuss words versus terms
3. In teams, list all possible definitions, connections, and connotations of each teammate's word.
4. Discussion: What does your word mean? What alternative meanings does it have? Explain how this word represents you? Who else might it represent? Why?

2. Six Word Memoir (I am…)

1. a. Discussion: What is included in good communication? What might you need to do to convince someone to show respect toward you? What personal traits should instill respect?
2. b. Introduction to prewriting: Using the 'Creative Thinking' model with 'I am' prompt, which requires students to think of themselves and define themselves with the most accurate six words possible.
3. c. Stage work introduction

1. Being seen
2. Being heard
3. Being understood

3. Opposing the Six Word Memoir (I am not...)

1. Create web of societally-imposed labels.
2. Discuss: What do you wish people saw instead? Why is it important for you to be able to say this aloud?
3. Re-draft 'I am' to include the antithesis under each statement as 'I am not' statements.
4. Stage work:

1. Audience must decide, upon hearing the reader, if the arrangement of ideas has flow. Discuss: What choices did you or will you make to the arrangement of this poem? Why? How did it impact the poem?

4. Invention of Arguments

1. Discussion: What is the importance of adding facts—statistics, laws, reports—into your work?
2. Review, "I am/I am not" poems. Ask: Which of your lines connect? Which are the most nagging? Why? What question could you form from that selection?
3. Discuss overall project goal and rubric, noting that the audience is, in many ways, as much one's self as it is society. Ask: Why? (Appendix H)
4. Handout and discuss 'Monroe's Motivational Sequence.'
5. Allow students time to research and document news stories, statistics, laws, and reports about their singular selection from 'I am/I am not.'

5. Finding the enthymeme in internet memes.

1. a. Re-post image of 'Big Brain/Small Brain' image and allow the students to freely associate experiences with it.
2. b. Demonstrate a syllogism based on the discussion. Possible: All those who label others are fools. X labels others. (The missing/implied is: X is a fool.)
3. i. Discuss: Why might this 'missing' part be important? What purpose does it serve?
4. c. Revisit "I am/I am not." In small groups, discuss: What syllogism is evident? If none, what can you add or eliminate to create one?
5. d. Stage work – Students will read their most current work on stage.
6. e. Homework: Assign favorite lyric search. (Make sure that students understand that they must be submitted for approval.)

1. a. Read and respond to 3 Ways to Speak English using close-reading strategy, marking for 'power phrases.'
2. b. Listen to 3 Ways to Speak English. Discuss: How did your marking hold up to the speakers? Did the voice make impact where you expected it to?
3. c. Watch 3 Ways to Speak English. Discuss: How did this visual element change or enhance your understanding?
4. d. Homework: Give handout on memorization and assign memorization of lyrics, due in two weeks.
5. i. Model 'Pegging' with a short list of unrelated words.

7. Marking for Oral Performance of Text

1. Read and respond to Spelling Bee using close-reading strategy
2. Mark for 'power phrases.'
3. Listen to Spelling Bee. Discuss: How did your marking hold up to the speakers?
4. Watch Spelling Bee. Discuss: How did this visual element changed your understanding?
5. In small teams, students will do the same with their lyrics.
6. Homework: Remind students that their lyrics need to be memorized for the following week.

8. Stage Work

1. Each student will recite his or her lyrics alone on stage, holding the paper, but attempting not to refer to it. The only directive should be, "Eye Around", meaning scan the tops of the audiences' foreheads.
2. Discussion: What would you change to improve you delivery? Why? Ask for volunteers to try again, incorporating suggestions.

9. Rhetorical Tropes

1. Simultaneously Read/Listen/Watch, To This Day Discuss: What is powerful in this delivery? What is ordinary? Extraordinary? How do these play off of one another?
2. Jigsaw: Give small teams quotes and names/samples of rhetorical devices and let them figure out which is which, explaining their answers to other teams.
3. Reread "To This Day." Discuss: What do you think about his phrases now? How did his words and delivery impact one another?

10. Understanding and Addressing Ethos, Pathos, Logos

1. Reflect on covered Spoken Word poems. Discuss: What did they all have in common?
2. Expand poem with the writing prompt, "I remember when...," which illustrates a time when the student demonstrated an element of his or her "I am…" poem.

11. 1:1 Conferences/Work Only/Assign Memorization of "I am/I am not."

12. Rehearsal/Peer Feedback

13. Filming

14. Filming

15. Viewing

16. Closing: "Learned Letters" (See Strategies)