Thank You For Coming to my ted talk

By: Caitlin Ward, Contributing Writers

Dr. Andrew Darr, CHS dual credit English teacher, is holding the Speech class TED Talks where students are given the opportunity to earn 50 extra credit points.

Instead of doing the speech in front of only their class, they will have to memorize it and deliver the speech to a large audience of multiple classes.  Students participating are only allowed a visual presentation that is not digital.

Students are given four weeks to prepare their speeches, but if they choose the Ted Talk option, it requires extra tedious work to be done at home. Some students will spend hours preparing for these speeches, working on memorization and visual aids. 

The speeches will be argumentative with topics like, Why Special Education Students Should be in the Classroom, and Why Comic Books Should be Considered Literature.

“It would take me at least two weeks because I have to memorize the speech, which means I have to completely familiarize myself with the speech,” said Faith Decker, a CHS student doing the TED Talk speech. 

Although given this opportunity, few students take part,

 “Only a handful of students each semester undertake the TED Talk challenge despite the incredible opportunity it presents. Sometimes two or less, and last year I had no students undertake it. What I like about the assignment is that it rewards ambitious, confident, well-prepared students that might be overly comfortable with the more straightforward speech assignments. ” Dr. Darr, CHS dual credit English teacher.