Why are senior speeches important?

Well of course I think the opportunity to use and showcase your communication skills that you’ve learned at Blake.. Kind of like a culmination of that I think is important. I also think that the senior speech is a platform for self discovery and reflection and self advocacy that they’re able to share at the end of their educational experience.

What is the process of writing a senior speech?

First, we actually start off with an ‘I am From’ poem where the students get to investigate a little bit about their family history, memories, and identify things, people and places that are important to them. Many times students – a senior speech – will develop actually from that. We do critical readings, and then we just kind of brainstorm and write and we do a lot of one-on-one meetings. And they have a peer review partner that they work with throughout the process as well. They will give the speech to the class and then we workshop the ideas and help with that.. And then just keep polishing.

How do you “teach” senior speech?

I guess one of the things that I focus on is: ‘Is this the right message at the right time for the right audience?’ Because we all have a lot to say, and we just have to decide ‘what is the message we want to share with the community that’s going to be beneficial for this specific audience?’ And I also really encourage the students to be authentic and creative.. Everybody in the class has had their own unique, personal experiences, and everybody has their own unique personal interests, and then.. How can they figure out what is it from those things that can be shared with the student body?’ I encourage them to be open and authentic and we work together to help them get to a place where… you know some students don’t feel like they want to share that much and that’s okay.. It’s just to what extent they want to be vulnerable.