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Public Speaking

15 instructional weeks + finals week (Week 1–Week 16) Free sample edition

Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com

This is a complete course: fifteen instructional weeks and a finals week, every student component, built with The Course Maker and ready to import. Weeks are relative (Week 1 to Week 16); you set the dates when you import it. Browse the whole thing below. Click any piece to read it in full, then click back to return here.

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Free sample edition. No instructor, institution, or term identity appears anywhere in this edition, by design. The syllabus carries fill-in slots (instructor name, contact, office hours, institution policies) for the adopting instructor to make it their own. (Original objectives written from the standard Public Speaking body of knowledge; not copied from any school's course outline.)
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This course is free, complete, and evergreen, and it is yours to keep; free downloads run through June 30, 2028. Students pay $0 for course materials: the readings and videos are links to freely available resources.

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Included in every course

  • ChapterRequired

    Required in every course. Every module presents the same content in three ways — a chapter to read, a slide deck with speaker notes, and captioned videos — so each student can choose how to take it in. The course is designed to reflect UDL's multiple means of representation, and the alignment report describes this to your curriculum committee.

  • Slide deck with speaker notesRequired

    Required in every course. Every module presents the same content in three ways — a slide deck with speaker notes, a chapter to read, and captioned videos — so each student can choose how to take it in. The course is designed to reflect UDL's multiple means of representation, and the alignment report describes this to your curriculum committee.

  • Captioned video linksRequired

    Required in every course. Every module presents the same content in three ways — captioned videos, a chapter to read, and a slide deck with speaker notes — so each student can choose how to take it in. The course is designed to reflect UDL's multiple means of representation, and the alignment report describes this to your curriculum committee. We link videos only when a caption track exists (from the creator or generated automatically), and we never host them.

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The syllabus

Policies, schedule, and grading

Read the full course syllabusPolicies, the week-by-week schedule, grading, and the bring-your-own-AI rules, with fill-in slots for the adopting instructor.→
Weighted gradebook

Assignment groups & weights

Configured in the export — the gradebook is set the moment the course is imported.

Assignment groupWeightNotes
Tutorials & Practice10%
Quizzes10%
Workshops20%
Assignments25%
Discussions15%
Exams20%
Total100%Letter Standard
Objectives & outcomes

What students will be able to do

Objective 1

Explain how communication works using the course's six-element process model (source, message, channel, receiver, noise, feedback) traced to the linear, interactional, and transactional models, speak ethically — honestly, prepared, crediting sources aloud, never fabricating — and manage communication apprehension with evidence-based strategies.

Objective 2

Listen actively and critically, distinguishing hearing from listening and matching the type of listening to the situation, and analyze an audience through demographic, psychographic, and situational lenses to adapt a message's content, examples, language, and level to that audience and occasion without stereotyping.

Objective 3

Choose and narrow a topic, write a general purpose, a well-formed specific purpose, and a central idea, and support the speech with credible examples, statistics, and testimony that are evaluated for credibility and cited aloud in a complete oral citation naming who, what, and when — never fabricated, never plagiarized.

Objective 4

Organize a speech in a pattern that fits its purpose (chronological, spatial, topical, causal, problem–solution, Monroe's Motivated Sequence), build an introduction and a conclusion that do their jobs, and produce a preparation outline and a speaking outline that follow coordination, subordination, division, and parallelism and use transitions, signposts, internal previews, and internal summaries.

Objective 5

Use clear, vivid, and appropriate language written for a listener, including ethical and inclusive language, and deliver extemporaneously with effective vocal delivery (rate, pitch, volume, pauses, articulation, vocal variety) and physical delivery (eye contact, gestures, movement, posture, facial expression), distinguishing the four delivery methods.

Objective 6

Design presentation aids that serve the audience — one idea per slide, the right graph for the data, high contrast, minimal text — and integrate them with the reveal-reference-return sequence and a backup plan, without reading from the screen.

Objective 7

Compose and deliver an informative speech that teaches without an agenda and a persuasive speech that moves an audience ethically using the three appeals (ethos, pathos, logos), sound reasoning (inductive, deductive, causal, analogical; claim, evidence, warrant), and an awareness of the common logical fallacies, on a topic from the pinned non-partisan roster.

Objective 8

Speak effectively in special-occasion, small-group, and impromptu settings — fitting the occasion, brevity, and tone; playing task and maintenance roles in a group; structuring an unprepared answer with the PREP frame — and manage audience questions honestly.

SLO A

Speech composition and delivery — research, organize, outline, and deliver an audience-centered informative or persuasive speech extemporaneously, with a clear central idea, credible evidence cited aloud, sound reasoning, and effective vocal and physical delivery.

SLO B

Critical listening and rhetorical analysis — listen critically and analyze a message's purpose, organization, evidence, appeals, and reasoning, explaining how it persuades and evaluating the integrity of its evidence, without confusing analysis with agreement.

How this course is built — read this first

Every teaching module carries the same set, in the order a student meets it: a Start Here overview, the chapter (the primary reading), the lecture (titled “Lecture: <module title>”), the slide deck with speaker notes, readings & resources (links only), the lecture tutorial and practice exercises worked with an AI tutor, the quiz, the discussion and the assignment, and the weekly Speech Workshop. Exams: the midterm in Week 8 and the final in Week 16, a finals week with no module.

The discussion and the assignment each ship in both formats: the adaptive version is the published, graded item, and its traditional alternative (no AI) is a separate item that ships unpublished beside it. An instructor who prefers the traditional format publishes it and unpublishes or deletes the adaptive one.

What you see here is every student page. The instructor pack (answer keys and worked solutions, rubric calibration, image prompts, audio-brief scripts, and the alignment report) ships only in the download, never on this site.

Adaptive and traditional

Discussions & assignments: both formats in every module

Same learning objective either way; what changes is how the work happens.

Adaptive · published

Work it through with an approved chatbot

The student does the work in a guided conversation with an approved chatbot, using a copy-paste prompt the course provides. For a discussion, the AI is a Socratic partner that challenges their thinking and never writes the post. For an assignment, the AI is a coach: it asks questions, checks the reasoning shown, and waits for the student to revise. The student submits the chat link with the required summary or report.

Traditional alternative (no AI) · unpublished

The familiar way, one click away

The student does the work themselves and submits it, and the instructor grades it against the rubric. No AI required. It ships unpublished, opening with a one-line note to the instructor; publish it instead of the adaptive version if you prefer.

All 16 weeks

Every week, every component

Each week is a heading; every component under it links to the full student page. Week 8 is a teaching module that also carries the midterm bundle; Week 16 is the finals week, with the final exam bundle and no module.

01
Week 1

Introduction to Public Speaking & the Communication Process

communication as creating shared meaning; public speaking as a prepared, continuous, audience-centered message; the course's six-element process model — source, message, channel, receiver, noise (physical, physiological, psychological, semantic), feedback — traced to Shannon and Weaver (1949) and Schramm (1954), with Barnlund's (1970) transactional picture, placed in wordsethical speaking anchored in the NCA Credo for Ethical Communication: honesty, preparation, crediting sources aloud, plagiarism described by what the speaker does, and fabrication — including an invented citation a chatbot hands overcommunication apprehension as McCroskey's term, framed as common and manageable, with the evidence-based strategies; the 'feared more than death' line corrected in wordsthe icebreaker speech (hook, who you are, one detail with a point, close); a preview of the four delivery methods with extemporaneous as the target; the rehearsal loop and the first AI-critique reflex — praise that names no moment
02
Week 2

Listening & Audience Analysis

hearing vs. listening; the listening process (receiving, attending, understanding, responding, remembering); the five types of listening matched to their purposesbarriers to listening (physical and psychological noise, information overload, pseudolistening, prejudging, semantic noise) and the active-listening curesthe three lenses of audience analysis — demographic, psychographic, situational — with the tendency-not-stereotype caution; voluntary vs. captive audiencesadaptation as the payoff column; common ground; adapting during the speech by reading feedback; the running speech's audience profile; the AI-critique — a chatbot flattens an audience into a demographic cliché
03
Week 3

Selecting a Topic, Purpose & Thesis

the three general purposes — to inform, to persuade, to entertain or mark an occasion — and why the purpose is decided firstthe specific purpose as one audience-centered infinitive phrase that passes four tests; the central idea as one declarative sentence that is spoken; the distinction that earns or loses the most points all termbrainstorming, the self-inventory, and narrowing through four filters (purpose, audience, context, time)the running speech's topic, specific purpose, and central idea worked on the board; the outline-error item of a specific purpose written as a topic; the AI-critique — a chatbot's specific purpose is generic and blind to the audience and the clock
04
Week 4

Research & Supporting Materials

the three types of supporting material — examples (a real case, told briefly or as a story; a hypothetical, flagged as invented), statistics, testimony (expert vs. lay) — and what each doeswhere credible sources live; the five-question credibility checklist; checking a source against independent sources; statistics as evidence described in words (average, spread, range; who counted, when, how many)the oral citation as this course's citation form — who, what, when, in the sentence, before the evidence — against the written bibliography of a paper; paraphrase still needs its source; an uncredited quotation or paraphrase vs. fabricationthe mini-source set (a government page, a peer-reviewed article with a DOI, a news article with a named author and date) evaluated and turned into the running speech's three oral citations; the sharpest AI-critique of the term — three citations from a chatbot, some of which do not exist
05
Week 5

Organizing the Speech

introduction, body, conclusion; build the body first; main points (distinct, balanced, parallel) and subpointsthe six organizational patterns — chronological, spatial, topical, causal, problem–solution, Monroe's Motivated Sequence (Alan H. Monroe, 1935) — matched to purpose; the decision logicthe introduction's four functions as this course names them and the conclusion's three jobs; a preview of connectivesthe running speech's three main points in a topical pattern beside a chronological alternative; the outline-error items of a promoted subpoint and two overlapping main points; the AI-critique — a chatbot agrees with any pattern and reaches for Monroe's sequence for an informative speech
06
Week 6

Outlining

the preparation outline (complete sentences, every connective and oral citation written in, never taken to the lectern) vs. the speaking outline (keywords on cards)the four outlining rules — coordination, subordination, division, parallelism — and the symbol systemthe four connectives — transition, signpost, internal preview, internal summary — and where each goes; oral citations written into the outline and cued on the cardthe running speech converted from preparation outline to five cards; the outline-error set in full; the AI-critique — 'great outline!' beside a lone subpoint
07
Week 7

Language & Style

oral style vs. written style — why a listener cannot re-read; clarity and its four killers (abstract words, jargon, long sentences, vague quantifiers)vividness and the six devices — metaphor, simile, parallelism, anaphora, antithesis, alliteration — each named on a verified fragment of Kennedy's inaugural address, Roosevelt's address to Congress, or the Gettysburg Addressappropriateness to audience, occasion, topic, and speaker; denotative vs. connotative meaning and loaded language as an ethics issue; ethical and inclusive language as accuracy and respectthe flat-to-oral rewrite pair; the read-aloud test; the AI-critique — a chatbot's 'rewrite for speech' that is still written for a reader
08
Week 8 Midterm

Midterm Review & Exam

cumulative review of Weeks 1 to 7 organized by the one distinction each topic asks for: channel vs. message, hearing vs. listening, specific purpose vs. central idea, expert vs. lay testimony, a complete oral citation vs. 'studies show', transition vs. signpost, oral vs. written stylethe five canons of rhetoric — invention, arrangement, style, memory, delivery — named in words as the map of the course's own sequence (light new material)the midterm exam

The midterm exam bundle

09
Week 9

Delivery & the Modes of Delivery

the four delivery methods — manuscript, memorized, impromptu, extemporaneous — with extemporaneous as the target: prepared and practiced, delivered conversationally from brief notes, not memorized, not impromptuvocal delivery: rate, pitch, volume, pauses (the strategic pause vs. the filler), articulation, vocal variety; a 'normal' rate taught in wordsphysical delivery: eye contact, gestures (descriptive, emphatic, adaptors), movement, posture, facial expression; using notes without reading; the '7-38-55' figure corrected in words from Mehrabian's own statementthe delivery self-assessment table and the two-take rehearsal loop; the AI-critique — a chatbot cannot watch the recording and its feedback names no moment
10
Week 10

Presentation Aids / Visual Support

the four functions of presentation aids — clarity, retention, interest, credibility — and the types: objects and models, photographs, graphs, diagrams, maps, clips, handouts, the speaker as demonstrationmatching the graph to the data — pie for parts of a whole, line for change over time, bar for comparison across categoriesdesign principles — one idea per slide, large readable type, high contrast, minimal text, consistent style, quality images; the six-by-six heuristic as a rule of thumb; the limits of working memory in wordsintegration — reveal, reference, return — and the number-one misuse, reading the slides; the backup plan; the running speech's two aids; the AI-critique — a crowded slide, the wrong graph, and a statistic with no source
11
Week 11

Informative Speaking

the informative speech — teach, describe, explain, demonstrate; take no side — and the three tests of an informative specific purposeinformative speeches sorted by subject as this course groups them — a thing or place, a person, an event, a process, an idea — matched to the patterns that usually suit them; other groupings named in wordsclarity strategies (organization and signposting, defining terms, examples and analogies, managing the information load) and retention strategies (relevance, novelty, repetition with variation, vivid support); the accuracy and objectivity obligationthe running speech in its informative form, built end to end with three oral citations and two aids; the informative speech — the term's first headline speech; the AI-critique — verify every chatbot statistic at the source before it is said aloud
12
Week 12

Persuasive Speaking & the Rhetorical Appeals

persuasion vs. manipulation; the three persuasive question types — fact, value, policy — with questions of definition named in words as a fourth kind some treatments addthe three appeals — ethos (competence, character, goodwill), pathos (relevant, proportionate emotion), logos (evidence and reasoning) — placed factually as Aristotle's three modes of persuasion in the Rhetoric; Kennedy's and Roosevelt's addresses analyzed for craft, never for agreementMonroe's Motivated Sequence practiced in full, with problem–cause–solution and comparative advantages as alternatives; the target audience (agreeing, neutral, opposed); persuasion ethics from the NCA Credo and the four manipulation moves to rejectthe running speech turned into a policy claim from the pinned non-partisan roster and built as a Motivated Sequence; the persuasive speech; the AI-critique — a chatbot's 'good statistic' with a real-sounding organization and no page behind it
13
Week 13

Argument, Reasoning & Logical Fallacies

the four types of reasoning — inductive, deductive, causal, analogical — with other common groupings named in words; sequence and correlation are not causeToulmin's model (1958): claim, evidence, warrant as the parts the course keys, with backing, qualifier, and rebuttal named; the warrant as the link that fallacies breakthe twelve fallacies by definition with neutral invented examples — hasty generalization, false cause, weak analogy, appeal to ignorance, false authority, bandwagon, ad hominem, straw man, red herring, false dilemma, slippery slope, begging the question — and the classic mix-upsthe running speech's persuasive claim mapped as claim, evidence, warrant, qualifier, and rebuttal; the spot-the-fallacy and build-the-argument drills; the AI-critique — a chatbot that labels false cause as hasty generalization
14
Week 14

Special-Occasion & Small-Group / Team Communication

the special-occasion speech and its three criteria — occasion fit, brevity, mood or tone match — and the specific-detail principlethe types: speech of introduction, speech of presentation, speech of acceptance, tribute and toast (four beats), after-dinner speech as humor with a point, commencement; the eulogy and the roast named in wordssmall-group communication: group vs. team; the reflective-thinking agenda placed in words as adapted from Dewey (1910); task, maintenance, and self-centered roles; leadership as a function; panel vs. symposiumthe special-occasion speech — a 60- to 90-second toast, tribute, or introduction; the AI-critique — a 'heartfelt' toast that fits anyone and an invented story about a real person
15
Week 15

Impromptu & Adapting on the Fly / Handling Q&A

impromptu speaking distinguished sharply from extemporaneous delivery; the PREP frame — point, reason, example, point — with past–present–future and problem–solution as backupsbuying time gracefully (pause, repeat or reframe, a brief connector, then the point first); the one-clear-point rulethe Q&A toolkit — listen to the whole question, repeat or reframe it, answer with a point and one support, bridge sparingly, handle hostile, unknown, and off-topic questions honestly; adapting when a slide fails, a blank hits, or time is cutthe impromptu speech — draw a prompt, plan for a minute, record 60 to 90 seconds; the AI-critique — hollow praise, an invented 'best practice', and 'be more confident' in place of a named move; where the course has taken you
16
Week 16 · finals week Final

Finals week

No module this week: the final exam bundle