SAMPLE STUDENT SPEECH

*

In her prologue Sabrina

orients listeners and

builds identification

with them.

In the first major scene

of her story, as her family

begins to starve in

Gorazde, Sabrina uses

concrete detail to help

her listeners visualize

and share the horror of

her experience. In the

second major scene,

waiting for the return

of her parents, Sabrina

describes her growing

despair. This dark feeling

sets up the happiness

she feels over their safe

return. She uses an

analogy to Christmas to

help her listeners appreciate

her joy. In this

scene chocolate begins

to develop its larger

symbolic meaning.

*

Public Speaking, Eighth Edition, by Michael Osborn, Suzanne Osborn and Randall Osborn. Published by Allyn & Bacon.

Copyright © 2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.

had brought so much of it to us. For those of you who celebrate Christmas, Im sure

I can compare my happiness on that one day to all of your holidays, added together.

My parents had brought us one unforgettable treasure: Can you guess what it was?

Yes, it was chocolate, a small chocolate bar, broken into pieces during the trip.

But my sister and I treasured each tiny piece, and ate it very slowly.

After the joy of that reunion, we returned to the reality of life around us. It

seemed that every day, the explosions were getting closer, louder, more frequent. I

remember one particular day when I was playing with my friends outside our building.

Suddenly we heard a nearby explosion, and all of us dashed for the building.

We knew that we had only a few seconds at best. I got inside the door and managed

to close it, when a grenade exploded right where we had been playing. I fell to the

floor and put my hands over my ears, waiting for the ringing to go away. After few

minutes, I peeked outside to see if any of my friends had been hurt. Thank God, all

of us had been spared.

I can t remember how this nightmare eventually ended, but somehow it did. It s

clear that the whole experience has left a huge scar on my heart. To this day, I vividly

remember everything, and the experience has made me the person I am today. Now,

I appreciate small things in life. I find satisfaction just taking a walk in the park,

thanking God I survived. The experience also made me a fighter, and gave me

strength and a will to live that has carried me through life, and brought me here to

share my story with you.

And even today, my experience makes me weep for all the children everywhere,

Muslim, Jewish, and Christian, in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere all the six

year olds who experience prejudice and hatred and violence they can t understand.

I weep for the loss of their innocence, for the loss of their lives. Can t we reach out

to them, and make their world at least a little more livable? Can t we bring them a

little chocolate?

In the third scene of her

plot, Sabrina jerks listeners

back into the

daily horror of her situation.

The image of a

hand grenade interrupting

the play of children

is especially graphic and

memorable.

In her epilogue Sabrina

reflects on the meaning

of her ordeal and invites

listeners to look for

ways to counter such

inhumanity. Note how

she applies her experience

in global, contemporary

ways. At this

final point in the speech,

chocolate has become a

universal symbol for

hope.

L

L

Public Speaking, Eighth Edition, by Michael Osborn, Suzanne Osborn and Randall Osborn. Published by Allyn & Bacon.

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 1129