To conclude this experience, we ask that each of you complete one final blog assignment. This is a required reflection, but I hope that you will find it a meaningful way to pull together your three weeks of writing, editing, and speaking. Overall, our hope is that Project Soapbox was not just a "summer school" experience, but rather was a time for you to feel like you made gains in improving your writing and public speaking skills.
In the comments section, please write an extended, thoughtful reflection that considers these questions as a starting point:
- How helpful was the writer's workshop in helping you improve your writing? Where did you improve? Where do you still see room for improvement?
- Did you find the blog useful? Did you enjoy posting on the blog and responding to your peers?
- How else did the workshop impact you?
- Do you see yourself as a more confident speaker?
- Do you feel the workshop helped you develop an understanding for effective communication?
- Do you see yourself now as an agent for change? How else did you grow?
- If you were to redo this workshop, which activities would you be sure to keep? Which would you change? What would you add/subtract? Why?
- Do you believe that you will continue to take action on your issue? Are you motivated to go forward and pursue the change you spoke up for? Why/why not?
Please go beyond just one sentence responses to each question - instead, use these questions as a springboard for deeper reflection. Remember you are SOPHOMORE Scholars now, and we continue to have high expectations for you, as you should for yourself.
Also, check out opportunities for further action from the Mikva Challenge, the foundation that created Project Soapbox and has inspired you all to speak up for social change in your communities.
These three weeks of Project Soapbox have been the most exciting way to approve upon our skills as writers and community speakers. Ever since I was in fifth grade, I had no confidence in making eye contact with my audience when it came to speaking. Project Soapbox helped me change the way I introduced my topic to the audience effectively. Now I feel more confident when I deliver my speech and don't have the tendency to look at my speech as often. However, I am still not perfect in giving speeches. I can still feel myself moving a little faster in my speech than I should have. I can still improve upon my pacing, but Project Soapbox has helped me to improve upon my pacing. At first, I didn't understand why we needed a blog. I thought it wasn't in any helpful use. But, boy was I wrong when I realized what its purpose really was. This blog helped us interact with everyone else a lot easier than with our email addresses. The blog also kept us in contact daily for we knew to look at the blog for our homework assignments and other useful information that our scholar coaches give us. Interacting with my peers was fun. We got see each others' opinion about our community's problems whether it was within Round Lake or our country. It's not every day where we can make contact with each other. Project Soapbox also made me interested in how I feel about our community. Our community is not the best it could be; just like everyone said in their speeches. What we spoke of in our speeches was basic, but I feel that our community has a much larger and significant challenge that we may not understand. Though I can't completely prove it, it is something we should all think about as we head for the future. Even though I don't plan on public speaking, you never know when this skills might come in handy. Thanks to Project Soapbox, I feel more confident in my speaking abilities even though I am not fully confident just yet. I would to continue to improve my skills in speaking before I think about being a fully confident speaker. Ever since I was 6, I found public speaker dull, boring, and useless, so I wondered why don't they post it on the internet somewhere. Now I see that public speaking is more effective in communicating with others than through the internet or other media sources. Project Soapbox changed me for the better, but I couldn't have done without my mom, my peers, Annie and Hector, and everyone who came out to listen to our speeches. Change was great, but the change can be greater if I continue the methods I have learned from Project Soapbox. I would never had thought that I had this ability to speak up and stand for what I believed was right for my community. Project Soapbox has also taught me the importance of feedback. Without feedback from those around you, you would just be in the same spot you started in. That probably would have ended badly for most of us if we didn't provide feedback for each other. If I were to redo Project Soapbox, then I would continue to use everything we used during Project Soapbox, especially the activity when we would listen to someone about a random topic and see if s/he used repetition or hesitation before their minute was up. All of these activities helped us practice actually speaking about a certain topic that we were trying to get across. It is just like giving a speech; try not repeat, hesitate, or go off topic. I don't think there is anything to add, subtract, or change. I used all of these activities to help me understand what true public speaking could really be. To continue speaking for a better community, I would love to continue speaking about the misuse of money in Illinois schools. A little speech can go a long way if you know what to do and how you are going to do it. Even with the slightest bit of motivation, if you can change your community for the better, then go for it. Don't hold anything back. Well I have said I could have. See you at school on my birthday, everyone!
ReplyDeleteHello fellow bloggers, I want to start off by saying Happy (early) Birthday Jeremy! In all honesty, when I first found out what the end goal of Project Soapbox was; I was a bit more than terrified. I am actually surprisingly outgoing around a small group of people if it's informal, but when it comes to full blown public speaking about my opinions-I get very nervous. I've always admired those who were brave enough to go up in front of people and just speak their minds with absolutely no regrets and no nerves. So when I found out that I was to give a speech about a topic I was passionate about, I was also slightly excited to speak my mind freely. Project Soapbox was an eye opener for me because it made me realize that one small speech can make a big impact; especially listening to my peer's speeches because as I was listening to them, I knew I was taking each one to heart. This workshop really boosted my confidence as a whole because I quickly realized this was my opportunity to really have people listen to what I have to say, and that isn't something you get too often these days. This blog has helped me tremendously throughout this program through making it easier to interact with my fellow scholars and coaches and helping me get feedback on my opinions because I actually like hearing other's view on different things. As far as what I have improved upon, I believe my public speaking skills have majorly improved since the last speech I had to give in eighth grade explaining why I should earn a certain award and I think it can only get better from here. I do think that something I could improve on is managing my time because if I had a chance to go back, I would definitely spend more time rehearsing my speech before-hand. I hadn't realized how much it would effect my delivery once I was up on that stage. Every factor of this workshop leading up to reading our speeches to the public seemed relevant to me. Each public speaking exercise, every example of other speaker's speeches, and every little bit of feedback we received was useful towards our end result. I'm grateful for all the help I got and I found the experience enjoyable and helpful with future public speaking opportunities. I know that after this summer, if I see someone considering dropping out of high school; I vow to try to help them out in any way I can because no matter the person, I want to see people succeed. I hope the rest of you wish to pursue the same goal of making your speech a reality and to make our community a better place. That seems all I have to say on the subject so have a great rest of the summer! TTFN, ta ta for now.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about you, but these three weeks went by really fast!! ... At first, when I heard the words 'public speaking' I was not excited at all. In fact, I used to love to speak in public until something happened in fifth grade that caused me to lose my confidence. It was until this summer during the writer's workshop where I started to get my confidence back. Everything that we did I find helpful, from memorizing a short poem to projecting our voice (to being on stage); I am glad to say that I would do it again. The writer's workshop also helped me to improve my writing. It helped me to develop writing where I can express my own opinions, though I still have to improve on writing with figurative language and organization of thoughts. But after all, it helped me to have an understanding of effective communication. As for this blog, I really like it because we can interact with each other and see other perspectives and help each other out. It also helped me to stay on task with my speech because when the time came, I felt prepared... but not fully confident. But what helped me to have confidence in myself was rehearsing on the StAgE. I was really nervous at first, but when I got up there, I realized that it was not a big deal. I actually was surprised because I thought that I wouldn't be capable of going up and handle the nervousness or even make eye contact. I definitely find myself as a more confident speaker; and I definitely will continue to take action and make bullying vanish... I mean I just hate it.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I think that everyone did a very good job in delivering their speeches and expressing their feelings towards the community. Everyone should be VERY proud!! If you feel like you made a mistake, it's okay!... we are humans- we are not perfect! Enjoy your summer! See you at school!...On Jeremy's birthday! (It's okay Jeremy.)
Before we started the workshop I didn’t think it was going to be a public speaking class, I thought it was just a writing type of class. I was really nervous because I hadn’t tried public speaking in front of a huge crowd since I was in fifth grade. And I never tried it after that time because I thought it went pretty bad. This year I made myself search up how to control nervousness when public speaking. I think that helped me a bit because when I was up in the stage I didn’t feel like growing wings in order to fly out of the theater. Even though I wasn’t as nervous as in the practice speeches because I practiced my speech more, I still got a feeling that I need to improve my speed and the volume of my voice. The workshop helped me a lot. I learned to write my thoughts in a more organized way and to be a bit more confortable with my audience. I didn’t enjoy the outside activity because I haven’t raised my voice that high in a long time. I found the blog to be very helpful. It was a starting point for my speech. The Eldridge Cleaver quote activity made me realize that people have different opinions than me and that I should take in mind not to offend them or ignore their ideas. The workshop also helped me in finding the way a speech should be laid out so it will make sense. I think I am a more confident speaker all thanks to the practices we had before the real presentations. The first day I was really quiet and I noticed that the second day I was a bit louder and I kept a bit more eye contact. To take action on the issue I will keep asking my parents to attend any event that they can. But to encourage every parent on my own will be very hard. So I ask you to please inform your parents about anything you hear will be happening in our school. I think that the workshop was very well organized and that they should keep it like that for next year.
ReplyDeleteThese past 3 (4) weeks have been really enlightening. I was really scared about the whole program itself because I wasn't confident in delivering a whole speech where people would be paying attention to the words that came out of my mouth and more importantly actually writing a speech that would catch people's attention and be powerful to make an impact. I am very grateful that the workshop has taught me how to properly organize my writing and how to brainstorm and overall express myself in my writing which I'm really happy about because sometimes I don't know how to go about my writing and also giving me insight on how to go about my future writing . I'm never the one to be content with my work and believe there is Always room for improvement and in no way have I mastered writing and delivering a speech properly so feel I can work on delivering more properly such as being more confident and not fidgeting around and putting more impacting things in my speech that leave people thinking about what I've said because I want my speech to be a lasting thought. If I were to do this again I would make sure to spend more time on practicing delivering the speech and put more thought into my speech. I truly believe everything we did, all the activities and exercises we did were really helpful and wouldn’t take anything away, but perhaps giving more ideas on what sort of topics we want to talk about would be helpful because there are a lot of the things in the world to talk about and it’s sometimes a bit hard to choose one which is what I struggled with. I also struggled with public speaking and was never really fond of it and found it REALLY difficult and scary but with this experience I do feel I have taken a step towards becoming a more confident speaker. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and didn't freak out too much on the actual day we gave our speeches as I usually do which is a big improvement I would say and with all the exercises, practice and pep talks we did I strongly feel that they had a great impact on me. I will strive to be more confident and take this fear away! The blog was of great help as well; seeing all of us interact and seeing all the different opinions and perspective each took was really interesting and expanded my perspective on things at the same time sometimes making me question my own thoughts. It's always nice seeing( listening) to what people have to say and see them talk passionately about something they truly feel strong about. If we didn't have the blog we wouldn't really see what we all had to say about certain topics and help these issues get fixed and be aware of them but more importantly actually speak and share these thoughts with a broader audience to attract more attention to the issue and make it be noticed. Words can have a lasting effect which I have learned through the workshop. There needs to be proper communication for there to be any change, it may not be right away or cause a huge impact but it may be step forward and anybody has to power to do so. In regard to the negativity in Round Lake I spoke about, I am positive I will continue taking action on my issue and am motivated to do so because I know it’s a great place and others agree too, but sometimes we get blinded and drowned in the negativity we don’t truly see the good in things. But I want to be the hand that helps them from drowning in the ocean of negativity and help improve our community. Overall I am really thankful for getting this opportunity and having great mentors guiding us along the way (Annie, Hector, friends, family, etc.). It was a great eye opening experience and am sure it will stick with me. Thank you all for being a part of it! You all did great!!
ReplyDeleteTo start off, I just want to say that Project Soapbox wasn't as frightening as I thought. It was really helpful because it showed me that I could speak in front of an audience without completely breaking down. I have to admit, I was really nervous and messed up a lot the first time I spoke at the podium for practice, but in the end, I got over my nerves and tried to speak without stuttering or anything. I feel like I have improved in being able to speak in front of people, because before Project Soapbox, I wouldn't even try to speak. I think that I could improve in delivering the speech, because although I practiced my speech, I felt that I wasn't connecting with the audience much. The blog was really helpful because it allowed us to interact with each other with ease, and we could communicate about homework easier, too. Posting on the blog was also an interesting experience because I had never even known what a blog was for. It was fun reading what others had to say, and the way they viewed certain issues. The workshop was helpful because it got me interacting with my peers and asking them for feedback. I learned that sometimes you need to ask for help even if you think you don't need it because in the end, it'll help both you and that person; both can learn from that experience. Although I am not a perfect speaker, I feel like I am a little more confident, but still not completely comfortable speaking. There was good communication between us and Annie and Hector: asking for help when needed and also asking for feedback. I used to think that asking questions wasn't necessary, and that telling others what you thought was only if you had to, but I know now that communication is essential in expressing the way you feel about something. Overall, I wouldn't change anything in how Project Soapbox was ran this year, and although at first I questioned why we did some activities, I know that there was a purpose to all of it, even to the activity we did about ad-libbing and projecting our voices I know that I will try really hard to speak about my issue and try to get the school expanded, and even though there will be obstacles, I will try to overcome them to help the students.
ReplyDeleteHello everyone, I have enjoyed my days in the soapbox program. Its has helped my speech writing and with my delivery. I improved greatly on delivery because to be honest I thought I was a coward but I actually ended up delivering a well written speech. I still could improve more the speech its self and the delivery speed; i tend to speed up. Other than that I would declare myself as a confident speaker because I was still capable to express my ideas in a fluent manner. I enjoyed the blog a lot. I thought it was incredible to see everybody's opinion on what was posted. It help me realized the different perspectives that I could not see. The blog would defiantly be an activity that I would keep for the future. One other activity that I enjoyed was the tree and root one because it was a useful resource to look back into. I would also include the scream a lullaby from 200 feet away activity. Not only does it hurt your throat but it actually helps project your voice. Its also very fun too do unless you cant yell loud enough; which would suck. I feel like I could start slow because I defiantly know it will take time and I also know I don't have a sufficient amount of time to dedicate not the solution. But a little is better then nothing.
ReplyDeleteHi, everyone. First off, I'd like to thank Hector and Annie for taking the time to create the Project Soapbox workshop. I'm told that the project usually only lasts one week, but the two of you took far more time help us with our speeches, and for that I am grateful. I found the writing workshop very beneficial when in came to structuring my speech, without it, my time on stage may have just been a rambly mess. The blog on the other hand, while I did have an enjoyable time posting on it, was not very helpful in regard to my speech. I felt that the meat of the activity was purely debate, which was not all that relevant to our speeches. Part of the workshop I enjoyed most was watching my peers deliver their speeches; it really helped me to form mine, and made me more comfortable on stage. Apart from that, I don't really feel that the public speaking aspect of the workshop made me a better speaker. I didn't find any of the breathing exercises or muscle relaxing tips helpful at all. However, that final week let me practice a lot, and that's always nice in and of itself. If I were to run this workshop myself, I would have definitely focused a lot more on revising speeches. By that, I mean I would have taken students work and gave them feedback, and made that the focus of the writing workshop. I find that helps me "perfect" my writing. As far as keeping up with the cause goes, I wasn't all that invested to begin with, and, as I realized later, the market open to people with technical degrees have become so saturated specifically because speeches like mine. My point is, even if I am able to persuade someone to get a job in the technological field, they may not be able to. I think that If I had to do Project Soapbox again, I'd probably pick a different topic. I'm not saying that I'm not proud of my work, it's just that maybe there are bigger fish to fry.
ReplyDeleteThe three weeks we worked on project soapbox was an enjoyable experience regarding that every week I felt more comfortable and confident for the real thing. The writers workshop improved my writing in the emotional aspect of the speech, but also on the order it should be delivered to have a bigger impact on the audience, therefore I improved in not just writing for myself, but to learn and speak for my audience. Although I do need improvement in my transitions and have deeper connections with my audience. Personally, I thought the blog was an interesting way to interact with my fellow scholars because of how others and like myself are shy to speak as much or share an opinion but with the blog everyone's opinion is shared rather than one common person and while reading others opinion you can even learn and see things in a different perspective. Also, I thought it was cool that many others that aren't even from our community took their time to read our opinions. This workshop impacted me into doing something that was really out of my
ReplyDeletecomfort zone but in the end of the speech I felt proud of myself and my hard work. After doing project soapbox I do see myself as a more confident speaker than I was before based on how different the environment was than a classroom, but to me public speaking is something that I think I will always be scared and nervous to do. The way that I grew through this experience would have to be not being intimidated of others opinions while writing my speech and just write what I truly feel about the topic. All the activities we did through the workshop are great as they are, my personal favorite activity would have to be the 200 step activity because through the activity you don't just learn how to project your voice but also your pacing while reading since it had an impact of whether you are heard or not. I also liked how the organization of the activities were planned because it wasn't just writing all the time and along with the activities it helped with our writing later on. I do want to keep taking action for my issue because the school should provide us with the resources we need in order for us to succeed as students.
Hi everyone! I really enjoyed the three weeks we had together! I feel that this workshop was excelent practice for me to continue with public speaking! I have presented speeches several times before so it wasn't much of a struggle for me, however I have never written about a problem. I was challenged because I had to be able to talk about the negative things in the least offending way. Basically I had to find the correct words when writing my speech. I had never wrote a blog before and I really enjoyed commenting and debating with my peers on this one! However, like Nevyn has said, I don't think it was very helpful when writing our speeches other than the beggining stages when we had to choose a topic. I would like to think that this workshop also helped me with time management! One of the activities that we did was speaking for a minute about a completely random topic and it was all improv. That was a lot of fun for me and it made me think quick, but intelligently. A lot of the other activites solidified my understanding and thoughts on effective communication. It further reinforced how to present to all the possible people in my audiance. I liked that we had to pick a problem because it made me really think about what is going on in MY community and it made me think about what I wanted to do about it. I cam up with a solution that I think could solve an issue. If I were to redo this workshop I would definitely keep the projecting activity because I think that helped a lot of my peers. I would also keep the tree worksheet because it was a perfect graphic organizer for this type of speech. I would probably ditch the blog. Although it was fun, it wasn't very helpful. I take action on my issue everyday! I make sure kids get the correct information. I'm always open to talk about the effects sex has to anyone who needs information. I also resaerch and talk to teen parents to get their prospective on the situation! This is a topic that needs to be heard! As for Annie and Hector, thank you for making this experience enjoyable and putting in the work you did to guide our speeches in the right direction! See you all soon!
ReplyDeleteHi everyone I hope you're all doing good! As I've gotten older I have realized that public speaking is something that you can not avoid, so I personally have gradually learned to like public speaking. I like the jitters I get when I know I'm next in line, and the rush you get when you step on stage. Because the second I get up on "stage" I remind myself that I can get through anything. I remember that when we were practicing our speeches in front of one another I kept messing up. I would make silly mistakes and read ahead which sadly caused me to mumble a strange unheard of word.
ReplyDeleteI wish that I would have chosen a topic sooner that way I would have been able to produce a better speech, but it taught me to be better prepared for next time! Because now I know that a GREAT speech can not be written in a matter of 4 hour, at least not at this point in my writing.
I liked the way Project Soapbox was set up. I appreciated that we were given a good amount of time to brain storm topics, and use our resources to do research. I do believe that an extra day of rehearsing our speeches would have helped me more, so that I could have gotten more criticism from my peers.
But overall it was a great experience that I wont forget. Through this I have learned a new trick to make public speaking easier for me. The trick is that whenever i'm about to go on someone will hopefully tell me a joke of some sort that will help get my mind drift away. Because by the time I get on stage to start presenting I will have forgotten "to get" nervous.
I have appreciated this new learning experience and practice of public speaking. Because you can only get better... right?
Hopefully you are all having a great summer. See you soon!
-Val
Hello everyone! I hope you all are enjoying your summer as much as I am. As I look back to these couple weeks we spent together in Project Soapbox it feels great to think about everything I gained from it. I always had the tendency to doubt my writing or my capability to write a good paper. But with only those few weeks not only did I gain wonderful skills on how to write a good speech but the confidence while writing it. When I first heard, "Yesenia, blogging will be a part of this experience" I had no idea what that would really be like. Never before had I blogged. I remember the first time I blogged I felt very awkward in lack of a better term. With time I realized this was a great way to get actually express myself through great forms of communication, writing and speaking; I loved the idea that I was able to gather but ideas together and share it with my peers getting feedback which I learned is a great form of learning. As soon as I was told we were to write a speech on something we were passionate about I knew this would be an interesting experience. I was given the opportunity to express my thoughts and feelings about something that clearly I felt was important enough to share with my community; which not to mention I love public speaking. I have always enjoyed speaking in front of others and seeing their reactions and listening to their thoughts. But I have always been a firm believer on the idea that not exactly because you feel you are good at something means there cannot be progress in it. So I knew I loved public speaking and felt confident as to being a "good" public speaker, but I knew I wanted to be a great public speaker, and this was my chance to make that happen. But would the point be in being excited in speaking in front of many if you don't feel comfortable in what you're speaking about. So that got me thinking about the steps I would take to be successful in this process. First off, I was aware of the great resources I was surrounded by, but it was on me on how I took use in them. But what I did was... write write and write. I had so many thoughts roaming in my head I had to start somewhere. Sure I was a bit nervous on going up there and speak about what I felt very passionate about, but hey if it is important to you it most likely is important to someone else.
ReplyDeleteI know what made my experience the best and memorable was the fact that I wrote about something I truly felt for. I took my time to actually sit down and think through everything I wanted to get across and even came across with new stuff I wanted to cover on. Overall I can say I this is beyond a great start to my sophomore year. I am grateful for everything I was taught in those weeks. I loved the fact that I never really saw the environment we were in as a "summer school" zone. I loved going in there and actually focus myself on something I really was interested in. No doubt in my mind by far this is a high light moment as a Schuler Scholar with many more to come. I hope as you read this you can relate to how I felt throughout this experience. But I now know with time, effort and dedication a good speech can be written. Gaining confidence in my own writing has honestly been the best part of this whole journey.
See all of you soon, and take care!
Hello everyone, hope you you all are enjoying your summer. I just want to start off by saying that I have never enjoyed public speaking and the thought of having to do this project frightened me, but this experience helped me not be as afraid as before. This workshop helped me become more confident in my writing and has helped me present and deliver my speech in a better manner. Before this workshop I had a very hard time speaking publicly, my voice would become shaky and my face would become red as a tomato. Although I have become better now I still think that I can improve in having confidence when I speak. I want to better improve having eye contact with my audience and being able to deliver a speech that will effect them emotionally. The blogging activity for me was not as helpful to me as the other activities were. The blog did give me the chance to express my emotions into a topic, which gave me an example of what the content of a speech should be. After that I didn't find the blog very useful. Project Soapbox helped me realize what a true speech was compared to other research papers I have written plenty of times. Speeches contain a lot of passion and emotion causing the audience to feel that they as well are part of the topic being presented. The speaker is able to use their persuasiveness to show why their argument is important. When I heard Martin Luther King Jr's and Malcolm X's speeches I noticed that they both had spoke about things that they were very passionate about, and had used different strategies to get the audience connected and feel they had an obligation to help the cause. Hopefully in the near future I will be able to write a speech that is full of passion and emotion just like important speakers like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. With the activities we were doing throughout the workshop I was able to better understand how to write and deliver a speech effectively. Such as debating against each other, projecting our voice, and hearing examples from famous speakers. I believe that with the experience from each activity done, I was able understand better how to form a speech and try to deliver one. All of these activities were very helpful to me, I was not a very good speaker before project soapbox but now I feel that I was able to improve. Even if I were to redo this workshop I would still keep all other activities we did. They all were useful to me and helped me in some way or another. If I were to change anything it would be to help us more on structuring our speech and showing us how to better use speech strategies. Overall I really enjoyed the experience given from this workshop, I hope will be able to do an even better job my junior year when we do this project again. Hopefully I will be able to bring what I have learned to school and be able to use my improved skills on assignments given. Hope you all have a good rest of your summer, see you all when school begins.
ReplyDeleteHello Everyone!
ReplyDeleteI would like to thank everyone for sharing the experience of public speaking together. Seeing everyone working hard really motivated me and everyone's encouragement guided me to encounter my fears of public speaking and made the process easier. That is not to say that speaking in front of people was not challenging because that uncomfortable feeling of making a mistake will always remain. But what was easier was taking those steps towards the stage and knowing that I had people that supported me. In my perspective this writer's workshop has helped me improve on my writing and public speaking. Not only have I gained some courage to speak in front of others but have also gained confidence on what I say. I improved in expressing my thought in paper but feel that because my lack in vocabulary it is still somewhat difficult. I also wish to improve my eye contact with the audience, it was difficult memorizing my paper. Even though I wrote my speech, when I got on stage all the words left my mind and I relied on my paper more than I had wished. I was honestly nervous about the blog when I first heard of it. I had never blogged before so I wasn't sure what to expect. Even though I was feeling uncomfortable with my part on responding to my peers I was not disappointed by then because I enjoyed getting feedback from my peers and filling those gaps where I needed improvement. I have learned so many things in Project Soapbox that I hope not to forget; the difference between an English paper and a speech, the feeling of accomplishment and relief of releasing my thoughts knowing that someone has heard them. Even though it is their choice to do what they want with my words I am glad I could share them. I believe I now have a better understanding on how to successfully communicate with others and know the different strategies on getting one's attention. If I were to redo this workshop I would like to learn on how to deliver a speech with more emotion. I felt that as I read my speech my voice was consistent throughout, not emphasizing the important parts. What I did enjoy and would be glad to see be done throughout the years is the nursery rhymes. I feel that activity, even though it was a bit hard and embarrassing really did help on getting an idea of how it feels to project your voice. I believe that my issue has a broad base but I will continue working on it. I feel that it is best to start with the people around me like those in my house and influencing them to what I believe in. I can now proudly say that I expressed myself on something that I felt strongly about and presented my ideas to others. Even though it wasn't a big change, I am glad that I got others awareness of the matter.