Demonstration Speech: Participaiting In a Poetry Slam

My demonstration speech was very effective in displaying both the culture and essence of what a poetry slam consists of. At the beginning of the speech I introduced myself and the topic with enthusiasm; engaging the audience with an introduction and hook. One thing that I noticed that I could work on throughout the speech was my body language, although I gave eye contact and had high energy, I let that energy escape into moving my hands too much which may have distracted from the words coming out of my mouth.

When you are standing in front of an entire class and you have to talk often this can lead to the excessive use of habit.My habits were hard to hide within my speech, such as talking with my eyes closed sometimes and moving my hands a lot. As a poet though this is something I should get away with, because poets are always deep in thought, JUST KIDDING. Another flaw in my speech was the length of time, I definitely exceeded the 5-6 min. assignment, although I do think within the 5-6 minutes I conveyed the important information; the extra time was spent on actually spittin' my poem, which I believe was necessary only for the class to get the full affect. I think I did a good job of capturing the attention of both types of learners, those that can listen and those that need visuals, as I was active with my body but also had a picture which I referenced as my visual, and involved the class in several parts. The speech was a good way for me to witness my behavior, I don't mind public speaking, but I know that I am definitely long winded; as when writing essays, my favorite thing is semi-colons. I think I need to work on being able to articulate myself without over-thinking what I am going to say. Although I planned my speech a head of time, it was very challenging for me to minimize my thought process, but for the convenience of the audience I think this is something I will keep in mind for next time.

Overall I think I did a good job of taking a complicated topic and sizing it down; I should have done only a min. long poem for sake of time, but I am happy that I was able to keep the class engaged for 9 min. as well.

-Toy guns shoot further than real ones when you are speaking to juvenile adults