Reflection: Current event mini-speech

9/27/2011

            When asked in class to come up with a current event idea, I had nothing.  I then realized that I am appallingly out of touch with current global news.  So I thought locally and remembered about the increased crime occurring in New Haven, CT that has made the places I used to frequent not worth the risk of visiting the city (not that I ever really felt safe there).  I knew I had a personal story to grab my audience’s attention, so I stuck with the topic. 

As I was preparing my speech, however, I remembered that in class we were told to present the current event in a way that revealed how or why the news was important/mattered to the audience.  This is when I decided to make a connection between the New Haven police’s response to crime and the way the UNH police force responds to crime.  Through the question and answer session though it was evident that the audience was more interested in my story about my sister and the happenings in New Haven than in the way UNH police conduct themselves.  I suspect that this is at least partly because many of my audience members are first-year students who have not been around campus long enough to feel as though violent crime is an issue on campus; they probably have not walked alone across campus at night either, to discover if they feel safe doing so or not (last year I did this frequently, but always with a bottle of pepper spray).  Therefore, I feel my connection with my audience was made within my first few sentences, but that connection seemed to linger there and not travel throughout the rest of my speech.  This makes me reconsider how I presented my material and how I chose to follow my story; if I were to rewrite my speech, I would probably develop a more obvious objective.

Before giving my speech, I felt fine; over the weeks I have felt myself become more and more comfortable with my classmates.  The second I stood up though, I felt a pang of nerves radiate from my heart, and it began to pound.  I had a few moments while the class was still discussing Kingsley’s speech to try to collect myself—I took several strong, purposeful and slow breaths; my heart rate may have lessened slightly, but was consistently racing throughout my speech.  As I began my sister’s story, I found that I was not nearly as comfortable talking about it as I thought I would have been (given that I did not myself experience the tragedy).  This discomfort caused me to say “um” far too frequently, and I realized it as it happened but I couldn’t stop.  This also led me to refer to my notecards too much (the topic made my mind wander to thoughts of my sister, and not the topic at hand: giving my speech).  These things must have been obvious to my audience.  I make note not to choose a sensitive topic again, as I could not effectively handle it.