Persuasion Speech 1 - Question of Fact or Value Reflection

Unless you reflect on your previous speech and think about what you did right and what you need to improve upon, it is unlikely you will grow from one speech to the next. 

In my experience, the tendency of many public speaking students is to gloss over the self-evaluation assignments.  These students offer a collective “Whew!  Glad that’s done!” and move on to the next assignment without investing the time to think about how and why they did or did not accomplish their previous speech goal. As a result, they continue to carry the same mistakes from the previous speech into the next one. 

Students who seem to benefit most from the self-evaluation assignments are those who provide specifics, including successes/errors made in topic selection, research development, speech preparation, speech organization, speech practice, and aspects of the final delivery.  The self-evaluation requires you look through two lenses – what you personally experienced during the speech process as well as how your efforts were viewed from an audience perspective. 

If you merely state in your self-evaluation that you did this or that, and you thought it was successful without considering what feedback you received on the outcome from your classmates and instructor, you are not fulfilling an important aspect of the self-evaluation assignment.

As you can see from the rubric for this speech, you really do need to give a lot of thought to how you did with your persuasive speech. It is very important that you think about what you did or did not accomplish, what feedback you got from your instructor and your peers, and whether there are changes you need to make before taking on your final speech in the course.  

As you know, with each assignment, the stakes are higher and the challenges are greater!  Think about your entire speech planning, preparation and presentation process as you work on this reflection, so you will be ready to take on and succeed with your final speech in the class!