Standard 7, Speaking and Listening

Standard 7: Listening and Speaking: Skills, Strategies, and Applications

Students formulate thoughtful judgments about oral communication. They deliver focused and coherent presentations of their own that convey clear and distinct perspectives and solid reasoning. Students deliver polished formal and extemporaneous presentations that combine the traditional speech strategies of narration, exposition, persuasion, and description. They use gestures, tone, and vocabulary appropriate to the audience and purpose. Students use the same Standard English conventions for oral speech that they use in their writing.

Comprehension

10.7.1
Summarize a speaker’s purpose and point of view and ask questions concerning the speaker’s content, delivery, and attitude toward the subject.

Organization and Delivery of Oral Communication

10.7.2
Choose appropriate techniques for developing the introduction and conclusion in a speech, including the use of literary quotations, anecdotes (stories about a specific event), or references to authoritative sources.

10.7.3
Recognize and use elements of classical speech forms (including the introduction, first and second transitions, body, and conclusion) in formulating rational arguments and applying the art of persuasion and debate.

10.7.4
Use props, visual aids, graphs, and electronic media to enhance the appeal and accuracy of presentations.

10.7.5
Produce concise notes for extemporaneous speeches (speeches delivered without a planned script).

10.7.6
Analyze the occasion and the interests of the audience and choose effective verbal and nonverbal techniques (including voice, gestures, and eye contact) for presentations.

Analysis and Evaluation of Oral and Media Communications

10.7.7
Make judgments about the ideas under discussion and support those judgments with convincing evidence.

10.7.8
Compare and contrast the ways in which media genres (including televised news, news magazines, documentaries, and online information) cover the same event.

10.7.9
Analyze historically significant speeches (such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech) to find the rhetorical devices and features that make them memorable.

10.7.10
Assess how language and delivery affect the mood and tone of the oral communication and make an impact on the audience.

10.7.11
Evaluate the clarity, quality, effectiveness, and general coherence of a speaker’s important points, arguments, evidence, organization of ideas, delivery, choice of words, and use of language.

10.7.12
Analyze the types of arguments used by the speaker, including argument by causation, analogy (comparison), authority, emotion, and logic.

10.7.13
Identify the artistic effects of a media presentation and evaluate the techniques used to create them (for example, compare Shakespeare’s Henry V with Kenneth Branagh’s 1990 film version).

Speaking Applications

10.7.14
Deliver narrative presentations that:
• narrate a sequence of events and communicate their significance to the audience.
• locate scenes and incidents in specific places.
• describe with specific details the sights, sounds, and smells of a scene and the specific actions, movements, gestures, and feelings of characters.
• time the presentation of actions to accommodate time or mood changes.

10.7.15
Deliver expository (informational) presentations that:
• provide evidence in support of a thesis and related claims, including information on all relevant perspectives.
• convey information and ideas from primary and secondary sources accurately and coherently.
• make distinctions between the relative value and significance of specific data, facts, and ideas.
• include visual aids by employing appropriate technology to organize and display information on charts, maps, and graphs.
• anticipate and address the listeners’ potential misunderstandings, biases, and expectations.
• use technical terms and notations correctly.

10.7.16
Apply appropriate interviewing techniques:
• prepare and ask relevant questions.
• make notes of responses.
• use language that conveys maturity, sensitivity, and respect.
• respond correctly and effectively to questions.
• demonstrate knowledge of the subject or organization.
• compile and report responses.
• evaluate the effectiveness of the interview.

10.7.17
Deliver oral responses to literature that:
• advance a judgment demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of the significant ideas of works or passages.
• support important ideas and viewpoints through accurate and detailed references to the text and to other works.
• demonstrate awareness of the author’s writing style and an appreciation of the effects created. • identify and assess the impact of ambiguities, nuances, and complexities within the text.

10.7.18
Deliver persuasive arguments (including evaluation and analysis of problems and solutions and causes and effects) that:
• structure ideas and arguments in a coherent, logical fashion using inductive or deductive arguments.
• contain speech devices that support assertions (such as by appeal to logic through reasoning; by appeal to emotion or ethical belief; or by use of personal anecdote, case study, or analogy).
• clarify and defend positions with precise and relevant evidence, including facts, expert opinions, quotations, expressions of commonly accepted beliefs, and logical reasoning.
• anticipate and address the listeners’ concerns and counterarguments.

10.7.19
Deliver descriptive presentations that:
• establish a clear point of view on the subject of the presentation.
• establish the relationship with the subject of the presentation (whether the presentation is made as an uninvolved observer or by someone who is personally involved).
• contain effective, factual descriptions of appearance, concrete images, shifting perspectives, and sensory details.