Last Blog

In the beginning of public speaking, I had many goals. Some of them were to get over my fear of speaking in front of an audience. Others goals were the basic ones like annuciation, pacing my speeches better, and stuff like making my speeches interesting for the audience. I wanted to be able to speak freely and confidently, without making mistakes or slipping up when I'm talking. I also wanted to be able to write a good speech. It's not easy to capture the audiences attention but that's what I wanted to lean. Posture was another important factor. I wanted to be able to stand still and look confident when I was speaking. These are some of the goals I had for this semester of public speaking.
When it comes to all these goals, I think I met a good amount of them. I know there is still tons of room for improvement. First, when it comes to pacing, I struggled with that for the most part but I felt during the end I slowed down and improved a little. I was always aware that I speaking too fast and I tried to tell myself to relax and slow the pace. Along with pacing would be volume. I noticed that I would start off loud and then quiet down as time passed. I felt I met this goal because I heard myself get louder through my recorded videos. I noticed I started off the year speaking really fast and quietly and near the end I was talking at a slower pace and I was louder than before. When it came to the idea of making my speeches interesting, I noticed that it was pretty consistent and I could have done a better job of adding more emotion and excitement to what I was saying. I don't feel I really improved in that category as much as I would have like to.
Something that I need to work on was the monologue that we did and we needed to add emotion to it. I felt like I didn't have any expression and no excitement to it. When it comes to acting for the monologue, I did a pretty bad job. Thats the thing I would work most on. Among all of the monologues and speeches, I would say I am most proud of the final Ted Talk speech. I felt that I spoke clearly and paced well(thanks to the teleprompter), and my content wasn't too bad. I thought I had some good and clear points about my topic. There was stuff I could have done to improve it but I felt overall it wasn't bad.
I could take away many things from this class about how to be a good public speaker but I feel the main idea would be to always be confident I what you are saying because even if what you say makes no sense, if you seem confident, others will respect and trust your opinion. That is something I definitely have to work on because I don't feel as confident as I should be. I learned that when your confident with what you are saying, everything else like pacing and annunciation comes naturally, which is really helpful for me. This is why I want to improve my confidence level.  This is main thing I have learned from public speaking class.

Blog on Ted Talk

Ted Talks are hard to pull off. Your content needs to be entertaining and catch the audiences attention.  When figuring out what to say, you must be a little creative. You might need to add some humor or interact with the audience by asking them some questions to keep them interested. It's not that easy to keep people attentive when you are talking for 5 minutes. As humans, we have a short attention span so the only way to keep the audience excited to add some fun to your Ted Talk. Adding humor and excitement is some things I feel my Ted Talk needs. I feel that I am just rambling on about what makes a good leader and just telling people facts. That is one of the main things I need to work on.

Along with adding excitement to it, I need to have a stronger hook. The first sentence you say is the one they are paying the most attention to so it needs to be interesting and you want to make them listen to you. Other ways of keeping the audiences attention is by adding visuals, which is something I should put in my speech.

When concluding the Ted Talk, you want to include the takeaway for the entire speech. Now this is really important because it's basically the moral of what you are saying and your explaining to the audience why it is important. My topic is what qualities make a good leader and I do explain step by step specific qualities that will lead towards leadership, but I feel I need to make it stronger. I need to really explain why leadership is an important skill to have because it will help you later in life.

Overall, I feel I can add some excitement to my Ted Talk instead making it sound like a boring speech, and make sure it catches the attention of the audience. It can also try interact with the audience by maybe asking a couple of questions her and there. The takeaway is also something I need to work on. This is what I feel I need improvement on.

Ted talk draft

     Becoming a leader is something that is a challenge to most. It doesn't come overnight. There are many characteristics and qualities that are needed to become a leader, and they aren't simple to be honest. These type of qualities take time and practice to be used effectively. There are actually many qualities that are needed, but you don't need to have all of them. The list can go on and on because there are endless qualities that are needed but obviously it's impossible to have all of them. As long as you have the important qualities that are needed to become a strong leader, you will be set. The following qualities are the ones that I feel are the most important and will allow you to succeed.

The first quality and not necessarily the most important one is communication. Without being able to communicate with people, you won't get anywhere. There are 3 ways to reach people and catch their attention. Pathos, Logos, and Ethos. Pathos is reaching people through emotion. Connecting with them through a story, family, or something that is comfortable. The second way is through logos, which is facts and statistics. This is the most effective way to connect with people because it's hard to disagree with facts. When people hear numbers or information that appeals they agree with they will listen to you. Lastly, ethos is used to reach people through their moral and ethical views. If you beliefs match up with the majority of people around you, you will get more followers who trust your opinion which is the ultimate goal. These are the 3 ways to communicate with people.

These next qualities are more about who you are as a person. Are you someone who's trustworthy, dependable, motivating etc. There are many of these qualities that are needed but the ones I will be talking about are the key ones. The first one, honesty. This is a fundamental quality that is needed by all leaders. Being an honest person branches out into many other qualities like trustworthiness and dependability. If people see you as someone who is honest and they know they can trust, they will start depending on you and listening to you. The more people that listen to you, the stronger you
become as a leader. Next is intuition. Intuition is having the ability to know what to do in pressured
situation. "leaders have to draw upon their instincts, past experiences, and mentors for help in these complicated situations"If a crisis is placed in front you, being able to handle it smartly and effectively is a valuable quality because once you show you can handle difficult situation, you will seem reliable and dependable.

The next 2 qualities are consist of the type of leader you want to be. When people think of leadership, the normally feel someone taking full control of a situation. Everyone is doing whatever that individual says because he or she is the leader. That's not always true. A big quality of becoming a leader is being open to change. You need to allow others to express their ideas and feeling. Shutting out everyone just because you think you are right isn't the smartest step in gaining leadership. It's definitely hard because we all want to think our ideas are the best but a little help can never hurt. The next and probably most important one which many haven't heard before the risk taking. Leadership and risk taking don't seem to be topics that match up but surprisingly they do work well together. In order to be a powerful leader, you need to be able to take risks. You need to step out of your comfort
zone and trying something different. This is the strongest way to capture people's attention. You need
to experiment and try something new. You can't succeed by staying on the safe side.

To conclude this topic, becoming a leader is a process that is difficult and is one that takes a lot of time and patience. The road to becoming a leader requires you to have certain characteristics that all people don't. Leadership makes you unique from the rest, but some people just don't have it and that's okay. We need followers in this world or else leaders would have no use. If you're a follower, be the best follower you can be. The main idea to takeaway from the speech is that's is not easy to be a leader, but time and effort will shape you up to be the strong leader you want to be. Thank you.

Body -Research for Ted Talk

Research topic: What makes a good leader

Source: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/what-makes-a-good-leader

 Communication.
      -Ethos-reaching people by connecting with their values
      -Logos-reach people with logic and facts
      -Pathos-reaching people with emotion
Telling the hard truth
    -a good leader will find ways to tell the hard truth that is hard to hear, and then move on to find a solution.
    -you need to be able to deal with difficult realities, and it is hard which is why most leader struggle with this problem.
    -you can't run away from a problem, and sometimes telling the hard truth my destroy everything but eventually it will have a positive impact.

Source: http://info.profilesinternational.com/profiles-employee-assessment-blog/bid/204911/Top-10-Qualities-of-Great-Leadership-Do-You-Have-What-it-Takes

Honesty
   -people want a leader that they can easily trust. They need to have certain morals and values. You can't have somebody who just says this to please the people. The need to be able to be truthful, which relates to the previous point about talking about telling the hard truth.
   -When the leader is honest they whole group or company develops an honorable reputation automatically.
   -having an honest leaders influences that persons followers or employees to do the same.
Delegation
   - this is really important because trusting your employees do productively do work without micromanaging is difficult.
   -you need to know which tasks best fit that certain employee and give them that job. When you do this, your company will run smoothly.
   - you need to know all the strengths and weaknesses of your employees/followers and manage it from there.
Intuition
   -one of the best qualities a leader needs to have in intuition
   -when a crisis is placed in front of them, the way the handle it is really important. Of course all people make mistakes so your first decision might not be the strongest one, but with time it should get better and you should be making smarter choices under pressure.
   -leaders can use instincts, past experiences, and mentors to help them solve certain problems.
When things aren't working properly, people will look to the leaders to have the right answers for them.
Open to change
a good leader needs to be open to different views and opinion. They need to take everyone's opinion into consideration. If a leader makes all the choices by themselves and shuts everyone out, they won't listen to him/her as much as they should.
Allowing other ideas to come in is also a good idea because someone else might have a stellar idea that you never thought of, which might help your company or group.
Also not allowing others to share their ideas makes you seem like you are better than everyone else which isn't a good quality or reputation to have as a leader.
Motivator
Being a strong leader yourself isn't complete. You need to be able to motivate the people who are following you and encourage them to do good. You need to make sure that your followers are working hard and maybe trying to become leaders themselves.

Peter Pan Review

I thought the Peter Pan play was a wonderful representation of the story. I liked how it was not the  Disney version which was made to please a younger audience. It was the true story of what happened, which I found really intriguing. The directing was excellent because I could feel the emotion going on through the character which was really good. They entire cast of Peter Pan did a good job of bringing the entire thing together and turning it into a wonderful production.

I felt the actors did a great job of showing the emotion and what was going on in good detail, and some characters were really funny which made the play more exciting. On top of that, all the actors spoke clearly and very loud, and there was no trouble hearing what they were saying or not being able to understand it. I enjoyed how each actor brought their character to life by expressing their persons personality through many forms. Along with the acting, the props and costumes really made the characters much more exciting. In the costumes,  there was a lot of detail and the makeup made the character seem more real. The props were great for example the wheel of a ship made that specific scene seem much more real and the movements the characters made when the ship tilted over was excellent. It made it seem like they actually fell over. Also the window in the bedroom showing the night sky was well made and when the characters jumped out the window it looked real in a way.
Going back to the character, I found the dog to be a funny character and I liked how Tink was created by a laser light and some bells, I thought that was really creative. Near the end when Peter Pan started talking to the audience and I liked that part too. It was a good idea to interact with the audience because made it more fun and added excitement to the play.

In conclusion, I felt the cast of Peter Pan did a wonderful job of recreating the story and did an amazing job by making the characters come to life. The added excitement, humor, and suspense throughout the play which made it all the moe interesting. The directors did a great job of bringing the play together and it turned out great.

Ted talk research

Research topic: What makes a good leader

Source: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/what-makes-a-good-leader

 Communication.
      -Ethos-reaching people by connecting with their values
      -Logos-reach people with
      -Pathos-reaching people with emotion
Telling the hard truth
    -a good leader will find ways to tell the hard truth that is hard to hear, and then move on to find a solution.
    -you need to be able to deal with difficult realities, and it is hard which is why most leader struggle with this problem.
    -you can't run away from a problem, and sometimes telling the hard truth my destroy everything but eventually it will have a positive impact.

Source: http://info.profilesinternational.com/profiles-employee-assessment-blog/bid/204911/Top-10-Qualities-of-Great-Leadership-Do-You-Have-What-it-Takes

Honesty
   -people want a leader that they can easily trust. They need to have certain morals and values. You can't have somebody who just says this to please the people. The need to be able to be truthful, which relates to the previous point about talking about telling the hard truth.
   -When the leader is honest they whole group or company develops an honorable reputation automatically.
   -having an honest leaders influences that persons followers or employees to do the same.
Delegation
   - this is really important because trusting your employees do productively do work without micromanaging is difficult.
   -you need to know which tasks best fit that certain employee and give them that job. When you do this, your company will run smoothly.
   - you need to know all the strengths and weaknesses of your employees/followers and manage it from there.
Intuition
   -one of the best qualities a leader needs to have in intuition
   -when a crisis is placed in front of them, the way the handle it is really important. Of course all people make mistakes so your first decision might not be the strongest one, but with time it should get better and you should be making smarter choices under pressure.
   -leaders can use instincts, past experiences, and mentors to help them solve certain problems.
When things aren't working properly, people will look to the leaders to have the right answers for them.
 

Ted talk blog

Ted talks in my opinion are extremely difficult to do properly. You are basically talking to hundreds of people which gives you very small room to make mistakes. Luckily this project is only in front of like 10 people which takes a lot of the pressure off of it, but it still needs to be excellent. There are many categories and qualities that will make a good Ted Talk. It's a combination of strong content, a little but of humor, interacting with the audience, and more. It's not something you can prepare overnight. You needs weeks to prepare what you are going to say, and then understanding how to properly present it. In my opinion, figuring out what to say isn't that difficult, it's how you present it. You might need visuals and something else to make it good. You might need to connect with your audience and ask questions.  As you can see there are many important aspects when it comes to a Ted Talk.

The most important thing before anything else is choosing a topic that is relatable or something that needs a solution. It needs to catch the audience and make them interested in what you are talking about. If your topic is only something that you understand and others don't, the talk will be boring for the majority of the audience. You need to choose something that others can relate or understand. Along with the idea of catching the audiences attention, visuals are a great idea. Even if the audience is getting bored, an image or video will wake them up a bit. Having a PowerPoint is a good idea so they are paying attention the whole time and you as the speaker have something to rely on if you need more things to talk about or you forget something. Picking a topic you are passionate about it good, so you won't come across the idea of forgetting what to say because you already know so much about it.

Along with visuals and PowerPoints, interacting with the audience will keep them extremely interested. I have seen some Ted Talks where the speaker calls an audience member up to the stage and tells them to do something. This will give a lot of energy to the audience and brighten up the mood. Asking the audience questions is good for you and them. You get to interact with them and find out how there thoughts are similiar to yours. If you just rant on for the amount of time you are given without any visuals, interactions or something that excites the audience, people will fall asleep. That's the worst thing because when you realize people aren't listening, you become a bit nervous and it will all break apart. If you have no visuals at all, you could add some humor to your speech. Adding some jokes here and there is a good idea because it will keep your audience interested.

In conclusion, there are many important aspects that are needed to make a good Ted talk, and practice is one of the most importance ones. Along with practice, finding a good topic is equally important. Another thing I didn't mention is annuciation and body language. You don't want to sound muffled and not clear. You want to make sure the audience can hear you loud and clear. You want to make sure that the audience is fascinated with what you are talking about and they want to find out more about it. These are all the things that make a great Ted Talk.

Ted Talk topics

3 topics

1. Hard work/persistence
2. What makes a great leader
3. How to efficiently prioritize your time

Ted Talks

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EFDNLq5Po0c

This Ted Talk is explaining how to takes risks in your life intelligently. Basically you need to have control over what risks you are taking, and know when to stop. The man giving the talk is a gambler and he's explaining how to take certain risks when gambling.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PL70DEC2B0568B5469&v=iG9CE55wbtY

This talks about that how schools and others areas of children's lives kills their creativity by not allowing them the right to make mistakes. You can't be afraid to make mistakes because mistakes are the key to creativity. "We are getting educated out of creativity".


https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PL70DEC2B0568B5469&params=OAFIAVgL&v=rrkrvAUbU9Y&mode=NORMAL

The man speaking says that motivations don't work all the time. It doesn't allow you to think intelligently compared to someone who is given no reward or motivation, who ends up thinking smarter. There are many experiments to prove this.

How to Speech Review

I like How to Speeches because they are very informative to your audience and they help the, with problems that need to be solved. There are millions of how to speeches that you can find online or on the news, or through social media. It even gives the speaker stronger ability to explain information that they know well to other. Sometimes it is hard to explain what you know and you might not know how to phrase or explain what you are trying to say. You need to word in a certain way that makes sense to your audience. You can't say a bunch of stuff expecting your audience to know what you are talking about. I haven't preformed my How to speech yet but I can give feedback from what I have practiced.

Am important part of giving any type of speech is speaking clearly amd annunciation. Every word should be heard clearly and the sentences should be properly paced out. That is one thing I really need to work on. I tend to fit too many words into one breath. It can be a little stressful to go up and speak in front of many people which is what I feel causes me too talk to fast. When I was practicing the how to speech, I tried to slow it down and give small pauses between each paragraph to show the transition is the topics. I annuciated every word and when I was doing all of this, it sounded much better which is good. The main thing is too be able to do that same way in front of an audience. Another important part is the memorization portion. It's not to memorize and long speech while focusing on annunciation, body posture, and pacing. Even if you fully memorize it, you might get stuck. There is a lot to focus on at once.

When it comes to other aspects like body posture, I think I am good. I try not to fidgit too much and stand tall. Once in a while I might move my feet a little but that's it. I also feel when it comes to annunciation, it's pretty good. I pronounce the words clearly, but I need to work on slowing those words down. Once I get used to slowing down my pace, I think the speech will sound good. I also
need to work on memorization, which I am definitely not good at. There are a bunch of small and important things that make a good speech a great speech.

These are all the things I feel that I struggle with and some of the things I feel I am good at when it comes to giving a speech. It all comes down to the final take. You want to say I perfectly and do everything you were taught to do, and sometimes it works well, and other times it doesn't. I think more practice will definitely benefit me. Every time you practice, the closer you are to making the final draft as perfect as can be. This is what everyone should work on when giving a speech of any kind. The good thing is we can use notecards, so it will help make the memorization easier. These are the qualities that I think will make a successful speech.

How to speech first draft

College is one of the biggest steps you will take in your life. It's the time when you step out into the real world. When it comes to choosing a college, there are many aspects involved. It requires a lot of time and patience. You won't wake up one morning knowing which college you are going to. The basics of choosing a college is having an idea about what your passions are. You should start thinking about what your goals are or what you want to become someday. If you start thinking about those ideas, you choices will become more clear. The majority of us have no idea what we want to be and that's okay. You aren't required to know what you want to be in high school, but having an idea will be a great help.
There are many steps when it comes to college choices. There are many questions that need to be answered before you make your final choices. Does this college meet your interests? Does it have certain features that excite you? Is it in a state or town that you are comfortable with? These are all typical questions that will come by you. In my opinion it's what field you want to go into that decides your college. If you want to focus on being a lawyer for example, you wouldn't be looking into good engineering or medical school. You look into the college that have your interests.
Many people look at certain colleges because it might have a good reputation and it's a very famous college,but they don't check if it has a strong area in whatever they want to major in. You shouldn't choose colleges just because you like a couple things about it. You should choose one that you know you can flourish and do great things in. You want to go to a place where you will thrive in that environment. Along with that idea, finances play a huge role in deciding your college. College is general is expensive, and there are colleges that cost way to much for anyone to afford, which is why you look at the ones that meet your price range. Of course you can get scholarships, but don't rely on those immediately because they are not easy to get.
In conclusion, knowing how to choose a college that is right for you is important because once you stick with, it will be your home for the next four years or longer. You can't reverse that choice which is why it is important to have time and patience in making this choice.

How to Speech 3 Topics

3 topics

Choosing a college-
I think this is an important topic to write a speech about because knowing what college is the right fit for you is one of the most important decisions you will make. Not many people know their strengths and weaknesses so explaining how to find the right college can be beneficial. I feel that if you apply to random colleges just because you like some small detail about it would not be useful and it would be a waste of time. There are certain ways to look and decide on colleges and that is why I think it would make for a useful speech.

Breaking old habits-
This would make for a useful speech because breaking old habits is probably the most difficult thing to do. You can try and try to break away but the more you do it the harder it becomes to get away from it. I feel that explaining the steps to breaking away from an old habit would be beneficial because we all have bad habits no matter what age you are at, so this speech could be useful to people at all ages. It might not make an immediate difference after listening to it once, but it will get them on the path on seperating from their habit.

Teach a child how to read a clock- 
This is a very useful skill to have because reading a clock as a child is a very difficult thing. You get confused between the hands and you probably can't understand all the numbers at the age of 4 or 5. This topic is useful especially in this generation when kids don't look at clocks anymore, they rely on their phones, iPads, or computers. They will never need to look at a clock which is useful especially in settings where you don't have any electronics on you and there is only a clock. They are not going to know how to tell the time and that will look really bad for them. This is why we should explain to kids how to read time on a clock.

Opinion on Debate#2

When it comes to debates, there is a lot more involved than just simply standing up and speaking in front of an audience. There are many easy and difficult factors when it comes to debating. For some debate doesn't come naturally and they need practice and for other it comes naturally cause they can think on the spot and defend themselves. Do debate properly, you need to learn more about the topic and build up facts. You need to make sure those facts are valid and not coming from an incorrect source because than you case will be entirely incorrect. Once you familiarize yourself with the topic, it makes it easier for you to think on the spot which is an important factor. You can't just memorize a bunch of stuff and pray that they will talk about that so you have a rebuttal. You need to be able to defend yourself from all sides, and that is where is gets difficult for almost everyone.

I feel that our second debate was definitely a improvement from the previous one. I felt my opening statement was stronger than the last time and I was closer to the time than before. I could definitely still add to it, but it was better.  It is all of about improving each time. For the rebuttals, they were definitely stronger and the points/facts were much clearer. The time also improved in this one. I feel that our team defended the points that were being made against us much better than the first debate. For my opening statement I feel that I expanded on my points and add more facts and detail to it. Their were some points where I could have spoke more about, but I forget to mention it.

The other team also had strong points and a strong rebuttal. I feel that they brought up some good points and we also had some good points to defend ourselves. The people doing the closing statement did a good job of summarizing the entire debate and explaining their side with good backs to back them up. I felt that during some rebuttals and other parts there were a little repetition and there were too many points being addressed. When there are too many points involved in such a small amount of time, the focus tends to wear off. I can also work on that. I would rather pick one or two points and greatly expand on that, rather than just rambling on about a bunch of random facts. I think that would be okay in a closing statement to talk about a bunch of facts because you need to summarize everything, but for the rebuttal parts, the individuals should just pick one or two important points .

In conclusion, both teams greatly improved their debate compared to the previous one. The opening statements were more detailed, the rebuttals were more stronger and clearer, and the closing statements summarized the debate in a more effective way. For both teams their is a lot of room for improvement, but I feel we all worked harder and put more effort into this one because we learned from our mistake from the first debate. This is how I felt our second debate went.

Debate #2 social media has a positive effect on teens

Opening statement draft
Social media has a positive effect on teens because it exposes them to the culture and news surrounding them. Social media broadens their horizon and helps them learn about other places besides there own. Along with that idea, social media increases social interaction among teens. It helps them meet new people, develop new friendship, and connect with people from other parts of the world. You can communicate with families living in different countries. These types of interactions lead to a boost in confidence and allow that individual to feel more secure. Isn't that what we want, for all teenagers to be confident and free to express themselves. It's not any easy task becoming confident, but social media helps teens become this way. 52% of teens say that social media has made them better in developing relationships with friends. This shows that teenager do feel better about themselves as the result of soocial media.

Points

- media outlets offer a diverse display of cultural and ethnic groups like Asian, Latino, and Afrcian American which allows them to explore different types of lifestyles and traditions
- social media allows teenagers to develop a political stance. They can start forming their own opinions about the different parties and politicians which expands their knowledge on politics.
- which social media, you don't need to worry about losing touch with friends or relatives that have moved away. You can simply use of the many social media sites avaliable to contact them, making life so much simpler
- 70% of teenagers reciece their news by either reading or watching news by Facebook and Twitter. News spreads incredibly fast this way
-teens say that they would miss so much news if it wasn't for the help of social media
-1 out of every 7 minutes spent online is used on Facebook
-social media helps raise awareness about the issues going on in America and other countries around the world. It helps us develop a perceptive of our country and others. It also makes you think and form your own opinions will increases your knowledge about the world which is extremely important.
-watching action movies or similiar types of movies don't necessarily lead to violence. This type of social media can inspire teenagers. They might look up to the actors on the screen and hope to be like the one day by using hard work. Social media has a huge influence on how teenagers think. They can use social media as hope to one day become like someone they look up too which is a wonderful thing.
- social media can improve your reading and writing skills. For example is someone famous writes about something and you feel like adding on to the discussion you will maybe start a blog or a chat to communicate with others about that specific topic. Constantly doing thing will sharpen your writing skills which is good for school.

Debate #1 lower the drinking age?

There are many rules when it comes to debating. It's more than just disagreeing with a point your opposing team made. There is a certain structure and format that is required in order to properly debate. Their are also fallacies. Fallacies are common errors made during a debate. It's hard to use fallacies because they are easy to use but the less you use them, the stronger your debate becomes. The topic for our debate was whether we should lower the drinking age to 18 or keep it at 21. For our classes first debate,I honestly think we didn't do that bad, but there was a ton room for improvement.
Both them had strength and weakness. There were more weaknesses than strengths in the debate but it was our first one so I guess that's okay. The weaknesses that each team had is good so we know what to fix up for the second debate that is coming soon. Overall both teams were close but there were some minor differences.

I felt that my team had some noticeable weaknesses but also some strengths. I felt like for my opening statements I could have expanded more on some of my points. It was definitely shorter than it needed to be. I could have added more time to my statement by talking slower and pace each point out a little better. I had good and clear points but I wasn't able to fully expand and express the facts of each point. For the rebuttal portion, my team did a good job with the main points but some of them rebuttals were a little short and some weren't as clear as they could be. There were also some moments of attacking the other side which is something that should not happen during the next debate. The closing statement had clear points and was said well but needed more memorization. There were faults to all of our sections in the debate but we should use our mistakes to help us learn and hopefully imporge and not repeat the same mistakes.

On the other side, the strengths and weaknesses were slightly similar. The opening statement was good and loud. There were good points being said but there were way too many points. It was jumping for one point to the next, which lost the audiences focus in a way. It would be helpful to stick to one or two points and then branch out based on that. The rebuttal was good but there was some repeating going on. The points they brought up were good but there wasn't much detail added to each of the points. The opposing sides closing statement could have used some more information. It could have summarized what the debate was about a little better and the pacing could have been better but besides that it was good. No team was perfect as you can see.

In conclusion, both teams could have put more time and effort into really strenghting all of their points and ideas, but for the first round it was not to bad. The side that said the drinking age should be lowered to 18 won, and I feel that they did do a good job, but there wasn't too much of a difference between both teams. Their is much that both teams can work and improve for the next one.

Debate Project

Against
Thesis: The United States drinking law should not be reduced from 21 to 18 because of the fact the fatalities and injuries due to alcohol are the most common. Reducing the age would only severely increase the number of deaths, which would impact the country severely.

- drunk teens are more likely to binge drink
-5% of all deaths involve alcohol induced teens
- 2.8% of all teens have an AUD( alcohol used disorders
- 14.2% 5.4 million pages 12-20 were binge drinkers and about 3.7% 1.4 million were heavy drinkers.
-  underage age drinking leads to interfering with adolescent brain  development and increases chances of AUD. Addition, this leads to a range of acute consequences including injuries, sexual assaults, and even death.
- keeping the age at 21 is better because the individual has more maturity and responsibility than an 18.
- about 2000 underage drinkers die each year
-1/3 of all teen deaths, alcohol is the factor of it
-teen drivers are increasing alcohol consumption and driving around the same time, leading towards death.
- allowing the drinking age to be lowered would increase the use drugs among teens.
- there are others laws that restrict the age to 21 for example owing a gun. That is kept and 21 so having the right to drink should be kept at an appropriate age just as everything else.
-76% of bars sell drink to individuals who are already intoxicated which leads to DUIs and deaths based on car crashes. Also having too many bars in one location will increase the rate of violent crimes going on in that specific area. Also in neighborhoods, the crime rate can increase.
- 18 is the same year almost every teen starts college, and allowing the drinking age to be at that same exact year is not the smartest decision since it can distract the from their education and drinking hazes the mind, so the might do something stupid on their campus. Drinking at such a young age can take a toll on you.


For
Thesis- The drinking age should be lowered from 21 to 18 because once you turn 18, you have the legal right to make your own decisions and alcohol consumption should be included among those decisions. You become an adult which gives you the right to control your life.

- when the individual turns 18, he or she should have a right to make their own decisions which includes the consumption of alcohol
- allowing 18s to drink legally would allow them to drink in safe environments instead of drinking somewhere dangerous and getting themselves killed.
- there are fewer drunk driving accidents in other countries who have the drinking age at 18 instead of 21
-making the law reduced to 18 would make the hype of breaking the law and getting a drink which would lower the consumption
-even if the law stays at 21, college students would still go out and drink, but the only difference is you would get arrested for it.
- some say that lowering the drinking age decreased the suicide and homocide rates
- students who work hard at school or at a part time job deserve to come back to their homes and be allowed to enjoy a drink.
- if more 18 year olds drink, then more bars and licensed establishments would collect more tax revenue which would improve the economy.
-reducing the drinking age will allow people who are in alcohol based injuries to seek medical attention because they are not afraid to get in trouble.
- allowing to drink at 18 can also be a stress reliever of some sort. Knowing that you come home and have a drink might reduce your stress level which can lead to a calmer mind set which is overall healthy for you in a way.

My first Dramatic monologue experience.

     Dramatic monologues are very different from a regular monologue or speech. In a regular monologue, you just stand in front of an audience and say whatever you have to say. You don't add any emotion or tone change. Your voice is the same throughout. That is not the case when it comes to Dramatic monologues. In this type, you can be sad, happy, angry or whatever you want be. You can add gestures or walk around the room. You can fall on the floor or you can jump around. It doesn't matter as long as you are emphasizing your monologue. It isn't exactly comfortable to all of the things that I mentioned in front of an audience. It teaches you to step out of your comfort zone and get creative. In a dramatic monologue, you make the character come to life, just like in acting. You make the charaters problems seem real and you have to use emotions to add the effect. There is a lot of steps when it comes to a dramatic monologue.

I have never preformed a dramatic monologue before. The first time doing anything can be kind of weird and it might not always turn out the way you had hoped it would. That's ok cause it's a first time. I haven't preformed my monologue yet but in terms of where I am now I feel pretty good. I feel like I need to add more anger to my monologue because mine is about a girl who is an actor but her father never comes to see any of her productions at school because he wants her to go to Law school to become a lawyer. There is a lot of anger building up in this scene so I feel like I need to put more emphasis on the anger in her voice. There are not many gestures to work with in this monologue because she is sitting at a table in her house while yelling at her dad, but I can always make some up since we don't have to do everything the monologue tells us to do. I can change it up if needed.  When I practice, I feel that my voice is loud enough or stern enough to make it sound like real anger, but I'm getting there.

Some students preformed their final draft of the monologue and others simply did trials runs. As I was watching their performances, I noticed their was a lot of emotion. More emotion than I expected. Their were sound effects in some, and other we gesturing in all kinds of ways. One thing I really noticed was their voices increased a tremendous amount from the first monologue we did. I saw improvement from their first trial run of the dramatic monologue to their fifth or sixth one. Practice makes perfect when it comes to anything.

In conclusion, there are a lot of important aspects when it comes to public speaking, and on top of that dramatic monologues. I hope my final draft will be what I hope it turns out to be. I want to eat loud and clear. I want to embrace the anger inside of me, which is the thing that I am struggling the most with right now. I want to improve on my gestures, that is if I can come up with any. The words can only take you so far, but it's the acting that brings it all together.

Monologue #2 about my character

This monologue takes place in the Brookes home, who is the main character. The backstory of the monologue is that Brooke is an actor who has preformed in many productions at her school. Her father has never shown up to any of her productions and she is upset with him. He wanted her go to Law School like he did but she refuses to because she wants to be an actor. She finally expresses her feelings to her dad during a board game. There is not much room for blocking because they are sitting at a table and Brooke is ranting to her dad. There isn't much movement going on in the scene.

Final Draft Mono.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=dQH_4smnPpA

Dramatic Mono

Reflection of my "Who Am I" mono

       The "Who Am I" monologues were presented in completely different ways. We are all different so there can never be one that is the same. It's not easy to go up in front of an audience and describe who you really are to them, but practice makes perfect. It's impossible to get your monologue perfect on the first try. You have one, two, three, or maybe four takes before getting to your final result. Sometimes you don't enjoy your final result as much as you wanted to but that's okay. There are many factors you have to think about than just saying your speech, which in my opinion threw me off the most, but slowly improved my public speaking.

As I was watching my monologue, I was feeling all kinds of things. I noticed mistakes made but I guess that's typical for a new public speaker. I realized that my voice definitely could have been louder. I was too quiet but to be a great public speaker you need to have a loud and clear voice. I felt my annunciation and clarity with words was good by my pacing could have been better. I would start off the sentence with a nice slow pace and as I reached toward the end of a sentence I would mumble off. I should finish each sentence nice and clear. I also felt that my monologue could use a little more enthusiastic and spirit. I was too serious while presenting and could have loosened up a little bit. My posture was good, there wasn't too much swaying back and forth. There are many things I still need to work on.

I felt the memorization part is what got people the most nervous. When you have the paper right in front of you, you feel more confident in your presentation. When you don't have it, you worry you will forget the words even though you know that you know it by heart. While I was presenting, I was overthinking each line making sure I got it perfect, which unfortunately tripped me up a couple of times. Not having the paper in front of you also improves your eye contact which I felt I was good at. Feeling the pressure of memorizing it caused me to increase my speed and not pace my lines well enough. Or my next monologue I would definitely work on my pacing and memorization. I will try to speak with the loudest voice I have an properly annunciate every word without speeding up. There are the important things I need to work on.

In conclusion, my first monologue didn't go as bad as I thought it would, but there are definitely a lot of factors I need to practice and improve on. Making mistakes the first time is always important because there is no other way to learn and get better. I feel that watching ourselves perform can be sometimes stressful because we don't like the sound of our voice and we like we look silly, but it is what shows us what we are doing wrong and how to improve.

The Fascinating Art of Public Speaking

     Many people would call public speaking an art form. Knowing how to stand up in front of an audience and to properly deliver your speech does not come easily. It takes time and practice. There are many aspects than need to be polished  before delivering your speech. It's not as easy as just going up and talking. Some have the natural ability to communicate with an audience, and others don't but that's ok because you don't have to have a natural talent to be good at it. You just have to put your effort into it and work your hardest. Here are some of my ideas that can turn good public speakers into great public speakers.
Body posture. It's incredibly important because it leads to other factors. If your body posture is slanted or your facing the ground the majority of the time, your voice will be directed to the ground. That's never good because your audience will have trouble hearing you. This is something I need to work on also. A good way to keep your posture straighter would be to firmly plant your feet to the ground. This will make you look taller and more confident. Going back to the part about your audience hearing your clearly. This is one of the most important factors because making sure that the audience can hear you clearly is a crucial part of public speaking. Make you that every word that comes out of your mouth is properly annunciated. Clarity is extremely important as well. To have clarity, you need to have proper pacing. Going too fast or too slow can throw your clarity and annunciation out a window.
The next idea is different from the rest. It doesn't involve pacing or annunciation of volume. It has to do with catching your audience's attention. We are all human, meaning we get bored easily and tend to drone off to things we find boring or uninteresting. A good way to keep your audience up and awake is to add a little humor here and there. If you add to many jokes, you might steer away from your main idea or point. Also asking the audience some questions is a good way to catch their attention. Make points that can connect with other people so they feel as if you understand them and they understand you. Try to refrain from cristism and/or judgment towards someone or something. Doing something in that sense can make certain people love you and others despise you. You don't want both extremes, you want a neutral crowd.
As you can see there are many factors when it comes to speaking in front of an audience. It's not a skill that can be mastered overnight. It is definitely a tricky experience than many people are uncomfortable with. Public speaking is not an easy task for anyone no matter what age. Everyone gets nervous but learning to overcome that fear and become more confident in front of an audience is the point of learning how to public speak.

Who am I Monolouge

Who are you? This is a question that many people find difficult to answer. It takes time to figure out your likes and dislikes, your personality, and what your passions are.
If I could describe myself I would say I'm an adventurous type of person. I like taking risks and having fun. I like to try new things and step out of my comfort zone. It's not the easiest thing to do but I learned overcoming your fears leads to success. As a student I would say I lean towards being the quiet type in a classroom, but I'm not afraid to speak my mind if needed. I am a hard worker and I always try to succeed. I know I get this quality from my parents. They tell me stories about how they moved from India to America without much to live with and how they used hard work to get them where they are now. I use stories like that to inspire me everyday.
When it comes to after school activities, I would say I'm pretty well rounded. I know that teamwork and sportsmanship are the most important qualities for a team to play well. Once I start something, I try my hardest not to quit whether it's sports or academics, and I'm been mostly successful with that. Having a passion for whatever you do is the most important part and I know that I have that quality. It's the small details that make up your personality, and who you are.

Jumping into my world

Who are you? That's a question that takes time to answer and others simply don't know the answer. Do we really know who we are? Do we know all of our characteristics? Do we see ourselves differently from the way the world around us sees us? These are all questions that go through the
head of the person being asked this question. I myself haven't discovered everything about my personality, my interests, my likes and dislikes, but I do have some things I can share with you. If I could describe myself in any way I would say I'm the type of person who's adventuruous, and a risk taker. I enjoy the thrill of taking risks and stepping outside my comfort zone. Even while enjoying all of that, I can also be the type of person who isn't the most talkative. I keep ideas even my head even if I want to express them. That's okay because everything you think about doesn't have to be said out loud. I think a lot before I say something which I wouldn't call my strong suit, but sometimes it's good. These are just some basic descriptors of who I am.

As you become older you start to realize your talents, personality traits, and someone what you want to be. As you get older these thought become clearer and clearer. I am a sophomore in high school.
High school can changes your entire point of view. You see things differently than you did before in middle school. You get experienced to more things, and people. You also discover some hidden talents you had. As a student, I would say I'm a focused and responsible student who  also enjoys having fun and relaxing. In a classroom, as I said before not the most talkative but I'm not afraid to ask questions if needed. Once I get comfortable in certain situations, I'm not afraid to speak my mind.

When it comes to after school activities I would say I'm pretty well rounded. I participate in karate, fencing, and tennis. The musical side of my activities consists of flute, piano, and vocals. Some of these activities I have spent years and years involved with them. I not the kind of person who quits if things are difficult in the beginning, or I'm having a tough time understanding how to play the sport/instrument. I keep at it until I've mastered the technique. Practicing is the most important part of
mastering anything you try to do. Sometimes practicing can be the most boring thing you ever do, but it's worth it eventually. Another factor of sports is teamwork. You need to be willing to cooperate with your team and know how to work together. To do that you need to have an understanding personality, not just on the field but with your friends and family also. When it comes to friends and family, they might not be the easiest people to handle but you always support them and have their back, and they have your back as well. I feel like building trust is the way I go when I comes to making friends or being on a sports team. Even with your family building their trust is the most important thing you can do, and that is what I do.

Finding out who you are takes time and effort. When you start to go in depth about finding out who you are, you realize that your a completely different person, or maybe your the same person you thought you were before. Either way doesn't matter, as long as you discover yourself and your personality. We all have different characteristics that make us unique and those are the most important ones.