Abstract
One of the most pleasant tasks we have had as instructors in the Speaking Lab over the last two semesters was helping students with their first speech. For unlike other speeches, the objectives of the introductory speech seemed to be the clearest and the most uniform. In a department that houses more than one-hundred TAs, that welcomes diverse approaches to teaching public speaking, and that has no standardized syllabus, speaking assignments with uniform goals are obviously rare. We were pleasantly surprised, therefore, to learn from Rhetoric instructors and students who visited the Speaking Lab how closely related assignments for Speech #1 were. Regardless of the particular teacher's orientation and approach, assignments invariably asked students to deliver informative speeches about their own past experiences. Whether teachers sought to use the introductory speech as an ice-breaker or an occasion to acquaint students better with their classroom audience, they looked to personal narrative as something beginning speakers would feel knowledgeable about and comfortable with speaking. Whether teachers approached the first speech as an introduction to public argumentation or as a first lesson in audience adaptation, they looked to personal narratives as excellent vehicles for making a smooth transition from the personal to the public realm, for demonstrating the dynamic relationship between self-expression and public argument, or for guiding students to detect the political in the personal.
Journal Title
Iowa Journal of Communication
Volume
28
Issue
2
First Page
48
Last Page
73
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Poulakos, Takis; Nasta, Marie; Hoffman, Dave; Lacey, Tom; Peterson, Valerie; Bordwell, Marilyn; Lindsey, Tom; and Nicholson, John
(1996)
"The Role of Narrative in Public Speaking,"
Iowa Journal of Communication: Vol. 28:
No.
2, Article 5.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ijc/vol28/iss2/5
Copyright
©1996 Iowa Communication Association
