Speeches

This week the students have been working hard on speech writing. 

They needed to:

• Think about the purpose (to describe/ inform/ entertain/ convince).

• Think about the focus. What is the EXACT topic? For example 'Skateboarding is fun. You should try it!' isn't just writing facts about skateboarding. It's explaining how/ why skateboarding is FUN.

• Think about the audience.Who are they writing for? Will people understand what they mean? How can they make their ideas clear? 

 
The process has been

1. Come up with 10 ideas about the topic.
2. Group the similar ideas together so they will make sensible paragraphs.
3. Begin writing. 
4. Put ONE idea into a sentence (not cram three ideas in!)
5. Follow that sentence with ONE or TWO sentences which add detail to the idea and explain how/ why it connects to the topic. (How/ why does that idea make skateboarding fun?)
6. Tick each idea off on the plan once they have written about it. 

 Difficulties have been:
1. Coming up with ideas.
2. Sorting them into groups.
3. Writing one idea per sentence.
4. Remembering the whole topic (fun) not just 'facts about skateboarding'.
5. Thinking of ways to connect ideas to the topic (why/ how does that make it fun?)
6. Writing correct sentences.

No matter how well or badly they will have written the speeches by the time we finish, I am confident every child has worked hard and learned something valuable! They can feel proud of their efforts.