Final Speech Assignment Plan

Topic,
The problem of childhood obesity and how schools can help childhood obesity as well

The problem of childhood obesity is a very important problem in the USA and I am interested in this topic because I want to help the children of today's society in making the right choices as well as becoming fit and able to have a level of confidence when looking at their body. I don't want these children feeling embarrassed of their weight and in order for this too happen it starts with the school systems in the U.S making drastic changes in the way they serve their food. Schools serve school lunches with little hesitation of worrying about the nutritional value that these kids are going to be consuming. Which has a very positive effect on why some children across America are obese. As well as the "main course" of lunch being usually a type of fried food or something like pizza, etc., schools also provide a ton of chips and cookies and some type of desert which also doesn't help especially on top of the badly nutritioned main course being provided for the children. From real life experience of attending public school at Glastonbury High School, public schools however do serve fruits and vegetables. The only problem is the fruit that I was provided with at GHS was always in terrible condition wether it was a mushy apple or a bruised banana or even really chewy broccoli. It just didn't agree with my taste buds which is why I think so many of these kids do not eat the fruits and vegetables at school and decide to stick with all the unhealthy choices. In my eyes, these schools need to focus on the more nutritional type of lunches being served as well as focusing on making sure the fruits and the veggies are in the best condition possible to be served so that the kids can be healthy as well as finish the rest of their day off strong because without nutritional energy, you are not going to succeed as often in the classroom as well as in a sporting event or whatever these children do after school. This would help tremendously for these suffering children suffering with obesity. Childhood obesity is a very big problem and can easily be fixed starting with the school systems and what they serve for school lunches and even breakfast if they serve that as well. In my speech I am going to talk about the improvements that need to be made to these school lunches, the benefits of these changes towards childhood obesity, a real life experience as well as some real life facts to spice it up alittle bit. This is a major topic in today's health society and it is something that needs to be fixed

Debate Unit Reflection

Overall, on the broad scheme of things, I think my improvement as the Debate Unit progressed increased a lot. I think one of the biggest concepts when performing in a debate that I learned personally was to argue what the other person was stating. In other words, if they were to say something about M and M's containing a lot of calories, when it's my turn to speak I should argue the point about the calories instead of arguing something totally different about M and M's. This tool as well as skill helped me increase my grade in these debates throughout the time in this unit especially when it came to the point where we were doing the 1 on 1 mini debates, this was a huge skill that came into play during those sepcific debates just because it was so hard to think of information on the spot. On top of this concept, I also learned to mix in real life facts as well as a real life experience and even a quote stated by a famous person or an expert on the topic of the debate. This allows me as a speaker in the debate to provide the audience as well as the opposing team with a taste of logos and pathos which spices up what I am trying to say as well. This is a huge skill when debating because it allows the audience as well as the opposing team to really think about what I am arguing and also really allows them to paint a picture in their head's when I add the real life experience into my point. Adding real life facts is key to backing up what I am trying to say. These facts also make it easier to prove my point and more importantly for the judges to come up with a winner because you can't argue real life facts, they are what they are. Like I said before, as the unit went on I think my ability to be able to debate increased tremendously. Throughout the first 2 mini debates we did in class, it was more of a free for all. It was 2 on 2 where each team was just blerting out information. After these 2 mini debates were completed, I learned that in order to have a more formal and more organized debate we'd have to have an opening statement, followed by our rebuttals and then ending with a closing statement. As we began to perform the debates in this type of style, it allowed me to learn and improve on my debating skills because it made it easier to argue each other's points as well as getting my point across to the opposing team. The 2 formal debates allowed me to put all my knowledge into the opening or closing statement whichever one I was assigned. This allowed me to receive a good grade because I was able to follow the correct guidelines in completing a full statement. These guidelines were, add real life facts, add a real life experience and also add a quote stated by an expert on that specific topic. On top of this, if I was doing the closing statement I also had to be alert during the rest of the debate in order to hear the opposing teams points so that I could argue them in my closing statement, another key skill that I learned throughout this process. Lastly, the final mini debates we performed in class allowed me to put all the tools and skills that I learned on debates together and to just let it all out there. These quick mini debates also allowed me to think of information quickly on the spot so that I could argue my point thoroughly throughout the mini 6 minute debate (each person had a total of 3 min to talk). Overall, I think that my ability to debate increased tremendously throughout this Debate Unit and I think these skills and concepts that I picked up will help me in the real world as well as future debates in school as well. I really enjoyed this unit and I encourage Ms. Guarino to keep doing this unit with future Public Speaking Classes

2 Mini Debate Topics

1.) Coed school

2.) Guns being illegal or legal if you have a license

Debate Review, How We Did as Well as Which Team Won and Why

I think as a whole we did pretty well. We provided facts as well as a real life experience on completing homework and the benefits. This allowed us to provide a taste of logos as well as pathos which in having a good debate, these 2 very important topics need to be included. Overall, I think our arguments were very strong and this allowed us to rebuttal well also

In conclusion, I think our team takes the win here because I think we provided more valuable facts and arguments but it also did help us seeing that our part of the debate was alittle easier to perform because we were provided with more details as well as research

Citations for Debate on Banning Homework

For my quote,

http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/news/ending-the-homework-debate-expert-advice-on-what-works/

For my research and facts,

https://today.duke.edu/2006/09/homework_oped.html

Research for Banning Homework Debate (closing statement)

Homework should not be banned from schools. Homework is nothing but a beneficial factor for

students across America. Homework is not just a "time hogger" kind of thing. In other words it

provides an increase in 4 very important character traits as a young child becoming an adult. These 4

traits include, responsibility, time management, perseverance as well as self esteem. It teaches the

kids how to become sure of their priorities in life. A pole for the Associated Press earlier this year

found that in such 35 studies, about 77% of parents find the link between homework and achievement as positive.

If these students want to have a bright future, do homework. However, if they don't want to have such

a bright future, don't do homework, that's your choice. Homework provides students with an

advantage to learn the curriculum and what they are doing in class a lot more easier because by doing

homework they are provided with a lot more time to practice and improve on a certain skill or

concept. From real life experience of being a student at Cheshire Academy i've noticed a very big

improvement in my grades when I complete my homework because the most important thing about

taking time to do your homework is being able to understand the concept being taught to you. I was

having a lot of trouble with a specific Spanish verb tense and by doing the homework this allowed me

to do well in class the next day as well as the test we had based on this specific verb tense.

Homework does nothing but create good habits for students and increases their chances in doing well

in a certain class as well as on a specific test or quiz. It teaches students a life lesson in time

management especially if they are buried in a lot of homework in one night or even a week, it allows

them to be able to plan out certain amounts of time to do certain assignments which sets these

children up for becoming an adult in learning how to manage your life as a parent or husband and if

you end up being neither of these then just time management in life in general. Homework motivates

students to do well. A lot of kids take homework very seriously and this allows them to receive the

motivation to want to do well on the homework in a specific class. Not only is this beneficial for the

student to understand a specific concept but it allows them and gives them the advantage in the class

as well as increase their grade tremendously in the class by doing their homework. Homework is a

beneficial factor and creates students a greater chance in succeeding in school as well as learning and

improving upon real life character traits. A quotes stated by Annie Murphy Paul, an education expert

from Concordia University reads, "homework must be a deliberate practice. Students and teachers are

both fully aware of homework's purpose and point. This leads to one of the most important points

about homework, it is not effective without student buy in. Both common sense and research show

that the only chance a student has to benefit from homework is when the student actually attempts

completion, meaning that in addition to being effective, students have to be motivated to complete it.

That motivation only comes when students understand how and why homework is important." Even

though it takes up so some time in student's lives, it helps tremendously and should not be banned

from school systems

Opening Statement Which Includes Research

At 18 years old, you can buy cigarettes as well as tobacco. Along with alcohol these are 2 types of addictive drugs. In this case, it does not make any sense when allowing people to be able to buy these types of harmful, addictive substances at the age of 18 and not allowing people to purchase alcohol until they are 21. When you reach you're 18th birthday you are officially tried as an adult. If you get pulled over and are doing something illegal you get arrested, at 18 you are officially legal to buy a home and live on you're own, at 18 you are officially allowed to vote as well as buy your own land. At 18 you are officially responsible for yourself which is why when people say "putting the drinking availability age off until 21, saves lives," makes me very confused. If you are officially responsible for yourself then you should also be able to control yourself when drinking especially if you are required to drive that day as well as doing something else that requires any type of physical activity. However, if you do not wanna do so and you want to abuse alcohol and are not able to control yourself then you are going to have to pay the price and learn a life lesson. The basis of the decision of the drinking age in the U.S should not be based on safety because if that was the case then things like tobacco, cigarettes as well as even buying a house and living on your own, etc. should be put off until the age of 21. The learning of being punished for your uncontrollable actions is more beneficial for it to happen at 18 than it is at 21. Yes, I am not going to persuade you and tell you that Alcohol does no harm because it does but so do all of the other drug substances available for people at the age of 18 which in my eyes doesn't make any sense. Alcohol in the United States of America should be legal at 18 years of age

5 Possible Debate Topics

Topics,

1.) Banning alcohol
2.) Thoughts on the death penalty
3.) Banning homework in school
4.) Prohibiting junk food in schools
5.) Allowing gay couples to marry

Reflection of Revised Ted Talk

The main focus in improving my Ted Talk was minor fixes. An important factor in doing well on a project or even a test or quiz in school is reading and following the directions as well as each and every step in receiving a successful grade for whatever you are working on. Unfortunately, I did not read the directions as well as I should have which is something I really tried to focus on when revising my Ted Talk. One major important thing I did not do was creating my project so that it is between 3 and 5 minutes long. Unfortunately, my first version of my Ted Talk was only 2 minutes and 24 seconds long. This received myself 2 points out of 10 which is an 8 point loss when trying to complete a simple direction and in the overall scheme of things that was a big loss in the end. On top of this I also forgot to post the link onto blogger so that my teacher could easily find my Ted Talk on YouTube. This received me 2 points out of 10 as well which was also another 8 point loss, which killed my overall grade as well. Unfortunately, towards the end of my project I forgot to include my citations for my information found on top of the pictures used in my presentation. This received myself 0 points out of 10 which was the major killer to my overall grade. Just between these 3 things, I lost a total of 26 points and originally received a 117 out of 160. Just by improving these 3 things to their full potential I receive a 143 out of 160 which looks much better than before. However, with more time and effort put into this project I probably would have started over again and focused more on the pointers I was given for the overall outlook my teacher had on the public speaking part of my Ted Talk. I consistently moved my head which was probably a nervous twitch for me throughout my speech which could potentially distract the audience when viewing this Ted Talk so my body language and nervousness when presenting my speech is something I would work on if I put more time and effort into this project. On top of this the content of my Ted Talk is something I would have also worked on. My takeaway as well as leaving the audience with something to "think" about would be 2 specific things I would focus on when working on improving the content of this speech. Lastly, more fully organized points in different sections would be something I would also try and improve. I received an 8 for this specific skill and part of the rubric but a 10 would be something definitely worth shooting for if I put more time and effort into this Ted Talk. Overall, I think I did well for this being my first personal Ted Talk with some minor errors in content and throughout the actual public speaking part of my speech. However, most importantly, next time following specific easily presented directions to receive a full score up to it's full potential instead of losing easy points for not so smart errors. I enjoyed this project and I think it's something we should do in the future