An effective way to begin the school year is to ask students to deliver an autobiographical speech. This allows students to introduce themselves to the class and to you as their teacher. Students can focus on their family background, their hobbies or extracurricular activities, or their summer vacation. This is an especially relevant lesson for freshmen who are merging from separate middle schools into one high school, as they may be introduced to new classmates.
Another assignment that works well at the beginning of the year is to have students interview each other, and then write and deliver a speech about their fellow classmate. The interview could follow the autobiographical speech’s guidelines, focusing on hobbies, extracurricular activities, family background and so on.
The ability to write and speak persuasively is a fundamental skill set for any student, especially upperclassman. Students can choose a social or controversial topic, crafting an argument for or against the issue. This speech can serve as the cumulative assessment of a complete instructional unit on analyzing argument and persuasion.
A fun and creative way to break up an instructional routine or to fill in time between units is to ask students to deliver impromptu speeches. You can either ask students to come up with topic ideas, or you can come up with the topic ideas on your own. Have students randomly select the speech topics. Give them one minute to prepare their thoughts and then require them to speak on that topic for one minute. Speech topics can be silly, serious, dramatic or absurd.
Ask students to research an author, an event, a theme or the historical significance of a novel or other piece of literature that they’ve read. Again, this type of speech can serve as an assessment for a unit plan on a novel or other topic.
Require students to memorize and recite a poem in front of the class. You could even turn this into a contest by asking students to recite a challenging, tongue-twisting poem like “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll without a mistake. Conversely, this activity could take a more serious tone by asking students to recite a dramatic poem related to your unit of study.