Assignments for Class on Saturday October 6thThere are TWO assignments for class this week. 1) Fill out the form below and press submit. 2) Answer 3 questions at yahoo answers and wait for a response. The form is an activity that will help you understand the various parts of a speech. You are going to outline an informative speech about what YOU have leaned about speaking and you will also to plug in information from your book or the internet that will help you compose points in a speech or compose paragraphs in an essay. The second assignment is about understanding what it takes to inform someone about something. You can find Yahoo answers HERE and if there are any questions, please let me know. You can post the links to your answers in the Blog section of the website. You can answer questions about absolutely ANYTHING you want. 
 
As I explained before, I would like you to answer three questions in the yahoo answers website. You can pick any topic that you are familiar with and answer questions about them. Please share your answers, if you are comfortable doing that and tell us about your experiences. Did anyone have their answer chosen as the "top pick?" How did you feel when you were waiting? Did it take along time? Does anybody use this website regularly? 

After you have participated in this process a little bit, I want you to think about things like:
What does it take to trust someone's information?
What if your answer was wrong?
Does it matter that the information is on the internet?
Does it matter that no one has to know who you are?

Posting answers or commenting is NOT required. But please feel free to comment and post.


 
Today in class we talked about cultural analysis as a form of audience analysis. I explained Tricia Rose's analysis of hip hop culture and how she tells us that there are three main aspects behind any expression of hip hop culture that make it hip hop: Flow, layering and rupture. 

We looked at two videos to get deeper into the meaning of layering and intertextuality. Tallib Kweli's Four Women and Nina Simone's Four Women (you can see those below). We also saw how people used this song and the concepts in movies and other works or art.

We also talked about what the essence of culture is (at least in this one theory of culture): assumptions, values and artifacts. This theory (explanation and understanding) about culture comes from the Onion model of organizational culture. We looked at different cultures and examined how an audience of different cultures may have different assumptions, values and artifacts in a number of respects that inform how the audience perceives us and our messages; as well as how we see them and how we tailor our messages to them.
 
We have two goals over the next several weeks. 1) We need to understand enough about dramatic reading and oral interpretation to be able to perform a 3-5 minute piece well. 2) We need to learn more about informative speaking. We need to know what an informative speech is and how to give one. The informative speech structure is extremely similar to a five paragraph essay. 

Watch BOTH of these videos.

Make sure to bring something that you think you may want to read for your dramatic speech.