Composing a good impromptu speech in your home school takes some practice. Under most circumstances, you only have a little bit of time to think of what to say. In Andrew Pudewa‘s High School Essay Intensive, he teaches the student to know one piece of content REALLY well. For instance, if your son loves The Lord of the Rings Trilogy like my son does, have him pull from that one piece of literature or set of movies to structure the illustrations for his impromptu speech or SAT essay. If your daughter loves Jane Austen, have her pull her illustrations from Pride and Prejudice or Emma. A young man who is a baseball fanatic could use his knowledge of the sport through time on the recreational team, biographies of great players like Willie Mays, or the Major League Baseball World Series to inform his impromptu speech. Current events like immigration and health care reform can fuel the speech of a savvy, informed student.
The point is this: don’t try to pull illustrations from your entire knowledge base. You only have a short amount of time to organize your thoughts for the impromptu speech or the SAT essay, so use knowledge with which you are VERY familiar! To illustrate, let’s say 3 students were given the same topic, “bondage,” for the impromptu. The LOTR devotee could talk about how the ring represented bondage to several characters like Gollum, Aragorn, and Frodo. Jane Austen fans could discuss marriage as desirable bondage in both Emma and Pride and Prejudice. The baseball fan could get creative and talk about how MLB players are bound by a contract to the team until it expires and little league players are bound to follow certain rules of play.
Use the knowledge that you already have mastered in an area of interest like history, literature, sports, current events, or hobbies to make your homeschooling impromptu or SAT essay writing experience easier! Also, if you aren’t already using the TRIAC method for organizing your impromptu speech or essay, give it a shot.
[...] follow the same format for impromptu speeches except the time limit is different. Meredith and Connor both compete in National Christian [...]
Thanks for the article. I found it rather informative and it made me think of some things differently. Thanks again.
[...] you ever given your child a prompt for (1) writing an essay or (2) giving an impromptu or expository speech in your homeschool? In this first post of a four part series on effective oral [...]
You look like a professional. Nice website and wonderful writing expertise.
I believe the familiarity of a certain topic will give the child more confidence in what he will be presenting.What you’ve shared is what i usually call a “springboard” where a child basically “spring” from an idea that he is already familiar with and then create variations of that idea into a creative story.
I like the image of springing…active, fun, and child-like!