Persuasive Public Speaking
SPEECH 25: PERSUASIVE PUBLIC SPEAKING
ORC Course Description
This course explores persuasive public speaking and helps students learn to craft messages of influence. Approaching persuasive public speaking as transactional, students will engage in audience analysis during speech invention, organization, language choices, and delivery. Assignments include formal speeches (to convince and to actuate), brief extemporaneous speeches, speech and argument analyses, and peer speech evaluations. Peer group work will facilitate speech preparation and provide a forum to audition arguments and ideas. No prerequisites. Limited enrollment.
Extended Course Description
We start the course with a basic question: How can we craft and deliver messages that influence audiences?
In this course, we will consider the process of persuasive public speaking from the origination of an idea through post-speech analysis and evaluation. We’ll draw on advice of ancient rhetoricians as well as contemporary scholars, including empirical social scientific investigations of affect, source credibility, and literary techniques.
There will be two major formal speeches in the course, several brief speeches, written activities, peer evaluations, and class discussions. The primary focus will be on formal speaking. To help monitor your progress, you will keep a journal of experiences during the process of becoming a better persuasive public speaker. You’ll also record speech analyses and other assignments in this journal.
How do we transform our arguments into clear, convincing, compelling and credible speeches? How do we craft and deliver public messages that persuade? Discovering answers to these questions and many others will be a challenging and rewarding focus of this course
In Speech 25, students will
- gain insight into contemporary persuasive speaking from classic rhetorical principles;
- survey persuasion, social influence, and compliance-gaining theories to craft more persuasive messages;
- discover effective methods of choosing and refining persuasive speech topics;
- use speech organizational strategies that best articulate persuasive arguments;
- select wording that is clear, concise, accurate, and impacting;
- practice persuasive delivery techniques, including nonverbal, vocal, and paralinguistic factors;
- ponder ethical challenges of persuasive public speaking;
- develop and assess counter-positions of arguments;
- improve critical listening skills.
