PARTICIPATION

Value 25%

The participation component is determined collectively by the students in the class.  The evaluations must be fair, honest, and constructively critical.  Note:  All individual, written evaluations handed in by students are kept confidential. 

There are two major areas where you can demonstrate participation.

1.  Speaking Practice Sessions

Speaking practice sessions for everyone occur throughout the entire course.  For these, it is essential that a candidate offers a consistently positive and willing attitude despite having to deal with the challenges of speaking, learning, and sharing in public. The ideal participant develops and demonstrates both speaking and interactive skills.

2.  Speech Review Sessions

The fifteen-minute speech review sessions are chaired by the professor and immediately follow every formal ten-minute speech. Conducted according to detailed marking sheet guidelines, these sessions allow each student many opportunities to provide immediate and invaluable audience-feedback for each speaker. The reviews also allow the reviewers themselves to demonstrate both course insights and interaction expertise. The ideal participant is a consistently careful listener, respectful reviewer, and impressive public persona.

Evaluating anything in any course is a significant responsibility that demands knowledge, accuracy, and fairness. The ideal PARTICIPATION evaluator begins the deciding soon after the lecture series, updates the evaluations as the course proceeds, and is ready with the final results for the last day of classes. Evaluating participation is–in itself–one of the most important aspects of sharing the Speaking course.

• Download and print the Participation Ranking Sheet which is available by clicking on "Course Documents."  You will use it on the second-last class day.

• Download and print the Speech Ranking Sheet (also to be used on the second-last class day).

I will discuss and explain the participation grades in more detail in class.