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Brentwood’s Public Speaking Program Reaches New Heights
Public Speaking Captain, Macy D, Allard ‘23 has always had a stronger passion for public speaking, and this year Brentwood gave more opportunities than ever for avid public speakers like Macy to sharpen their skills. Macy explains: “Model United Nations, debate and public speaking used to be part of the same course. However, as the program grew, Brentwood felt the need to split up the course into its own sections. Now, we even have individual assignments for all three strands.” While those who were interested spent the month of January preparing for Vancouver’s Model UN Conference held in early February, the other half of the class was given a choose-your-own-adventure public speaking project, allowing us the option to choose any form of public speaking to present to the class.
Public Speaking teacher, Ms Legassicke, explains the benefit of the assignment: “Public speaking is such a broad topic, and many of the assignments force the students solely into persuasive speech. This project allows them to really pursue the aspects of public speaking they want to explore, and results in a variety of unique and intriguing projects at the end of the month.”
The submissions were interesting, creative, and professional. Take Filipp L, Rogers ‘24, who filmed a satirical video guide to Brentwood that combined public speaking with skilled video editing in order to create a hilarious masterpiece of a video. On the more serious side, Macy created a poem that powerfully illustrated the difficulty of female stereotypes in our society. This project truly displayed the diversity that a class like Public Speaking has to offer.
Joshua F, Privett ‘24, created and presented a fantastic story from scratch that took you high into the sky, discussing the fluffy paradise that existed above the clouds, only to reveal the true horrors of living somewhere that is always uncomfortably wet. When asked about his feelings towards the project, he responded: “At first, I was overwhelmed by the amount of freedom I had with this project since I’m so used to the parameters of a traditional classroom assignment. However, I used the opportunity to practice my storytelling and play around with what techniques would captivate my audience. It was really nice to be able to practice a skill that I’ve never really had the opportunity to work on before.”
The development of the Public Speaking program has been sensational over the years, and it still has plenty of room to grow. Special thanks to Ms Legassicke and Ms Curtis, who work hard to create fun assignments for our future politicians and motivational speakers.
Nick C, Rogers ‘23
Public Speaking teacher, Ms Legassicke, explains the benefit of the assignment: “Public speaking is such a broad topic, and many of the assignments force the students solely into persuasive speech. This project allows them to really pursue the aspects of public speaking they want to explore, and results in a variety of unique and intriguing projects at the end of the month.”
The submissions were interesting, creative, and professional. Take Filipp L, Rogers ‘24, who filmed a satirical video guide to Brentwood that combined public speaking with skilled video editing in order to create a hilarious masterpiece of a video. On the more serious side, Macy created a poem that powerfully illustrated the difficulty of female stereotypes in our society. This project truly displayed the diversity that a class like Public Speaking has to offer.
Joshua F, Privett ‘24, created and presented a fantastic story from scratch that took you high into the sky, discussing the fluffy paradise that existed above the clouds, only to reveal the true horrors of living somewhere that is always uncomfortably wet. When asked about his feelings towards the project, he responded: “At first, I was overwhelmed by the amount of freedom I had with this project since I’m so used to the parameters of a traditional classroom assignment. However, I used the opportunity to practice my storytelling and play around with what techniques would captivate my audience. It was really nice to be able to practice a skill that I’ve never really had the opportunity to work on before.”
The development of the Public Speaking program has been sensational over the years, and it still has plenty of room to grow. Special thanks to Ms Legassicke and Ms Curtis, who work hard to create fun assignments for our future politicians and motivational speakers.
Nick C, Rogers ‘23