Week 2 Speech Workshop: Read the Room, Then Adapt Your Opening

Part 1 — The Big Picture

This workshop is where audience analysis stops being a worksheet and starts changing what you say. You read a real audience you will speak to through the demographic, psychographic, and situational lenses, turn each finding into a change to your opening minute, and then test it on a real listener. Your listener does the listening work from this week: after your opening, they paraphrase your main idea back, and their face and their paraphrase are feedback you can read. You practice the opening twice and fix one moment between takes. Along the way you use a chatbot as a rehearsal coach and then check its work, because a chatbot cannot meet your audience, cannot watch you, and often describes listeners with a cliché.

Time budget: Plan for about 90 minutes.

Part 2 — The Task

Guiding question: Which finding about your audience most changed your opening, and could your listener paraphrase your main idea after take 2?

Workshop data: Your own audience profile and two takes of your opening (student-generated)

Source: The data in this workshop is your own: a three-lens profile of a real audience you will speak to, and two takes of a 60-to-90-second opening measured in the tables in Part 4. Nothing is downloaded, and no recording ever leaves your device. If you cannot practice with a listener this week, the fallback supplies an illustrative audience and take attributed to no one.

• Rows: 1 profile per student with 3 rows, one per lens, plus 2 practice takes of the opening measured on the 6 rows of the take table
• Columns: the profile has a lens column, a finding, a way to check it, and an adaptation; the take table has the measure, take 1, and take 2
• Measures: seconds until the first detail from this audience's world, the common-ground line, the listener's paraphrase, whether it matched, the feedback moment you read, and the one moment to fix

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

• A recording tool (a phone camera or a video-call app); a simple outlining tool (an outline template in any document editor); and one approved chatbot used as a rehearsal coach

Ways of working

• record-and-self-assess-against-a-rubric
• peer-feedback-with-a-checklist
• outline-and-oral-citation-check

Procedure

1. Pick a real audience you will speak to this term, such as this class for your next speech. Open an outline template in any document editor and fill in the profile table in Part 4: one finding per lens, written as a tendency, a way you could check it, and an adaptation to your opening. Describe the group, never a named person. Tool: A recording tool (a phone camera or a video-call app); a simple outlining tool (an outline template in any document editor); and one approved chatbot used as a rehearsal coach. Check: All three lens rows have a finding, a check, and an adaptation, and no finding pins a trait on one person.
2. Draft a 60-to-90-second opening in keywords that uses at least two of your adaptations, including one common-ground line you will say out loud. Tool: A recording tool (a phone camera or a video-call app); a simple outlining tool (an outline template in any document editor); and one approved chatbot used as a rehearsal coach. Check: The keyword opening shows which adaptations it uses and contains one common-ground line.
3. Do take 1 for a listener: a classmate, a friend, or a family member. You may record video, record audio only, or speak while your listener watches. Keep any recording on your own device. Right after the take, ask the listener to paraphrase your main idea in one sentence, and note one moment when you read their face or posture. Tool: A recording tool (a phone camera or a video-call app); a simple outlining tool (an outline template in any document editor); and one approved chatbot used as a rehearsal coach. Check: One complete take exists, your listener's paraphrase is written down word for word, and no recording has been uploaded or shared.
4. Fill in the take 1 column of the take table and ask your listener to mark the listener checklist in Part 4. Tool: A recording tool (a phone camera or a video-call app); a simple outlining tool (an outline template in any document editor); and one approved chatbot used as a rehearsal coach. Check: Every row of the take 1 column is filled, the paraphrase is marked as matching or not matching your main idea, and the last row names a moment, not a feeling.
5. Rehearsal coach step: in a new chat with one approved chatbot, describe take 1 in words using your tables (never upload or link a recording) and ask for one specific, actionable suggestion about your opening for this audience. Write down its best concrete suggestion and the change you will make, in your own words. Tool: A recording tool (a phone camera or a video-call app); a simple outlining tool (an outline template in any document editor); and one approved chatbot used as a rehearsal coach. Check: One suggestion is quoted, and the change you will try is written in your own words.
6. Do take 2 for the same or a new listener, trying the change, then fill in the take 2 columns of the take table and the checklist, including a second paraphrase. Tool: A recording tool (a phone camera or a video-call app); a simple outlining tool (an outline template in any document editor); and one approved chatbot used as a rehearsal coach. Check: Both columns are complete, and the take 2 moment row says whether the take 1 moment changed.
7. AI-critique step: paste the prompt in Part 6 into the same chatbot below your profile and table, check each answer against the checks listed there, and fill in the critique table. Or complete the equivalent route in Part 6 instead. Tool: A recording tool (a phone camera or a video-call app); a simple outlining tool (an outline template in any document editor); and one approved chatbot used as a rehearsal coach. Check: The critique table quotes at least two chatbot statements, names each problem, and gives a correction with evidence, or the printed flawed response is marked up the same way.

Fallback route

When to use it: Use this route if no listener is available this week, if you cannot practice aloud, or if speaking aloud is not possible for you right now.

Do the profiling, measuring, coach, and critique steps on the illustrative audience and take below instead of your own. Fill in the profile table for that audience, use the take notes to fill in the take table and the checklist, and in analysis questions 2 to 4 say what you would change in your own opening for a real audience. You submit the same items and earn the same credit.

This route earns the same credit as the primary route.

An illustrative audience and one take of an opening, attributed to no one, measured on the same rows as your own table.

Fallback model data

Item	Illustrative audience and take
Audience	About 20 members of a neighborhood association at a voluntary evening meeting, many of whom have lived on the block for years
Topic of the opening	A proposal for a monthly street cleanup
Seconds until the first detail from this audience's world	25
Common-ground line	None said
Listener's paraphrase	Something about cleaning, maybe for the city?
Speaker's notes on the take	Opened with a general fact about litter everywhere; used the term 'mitigation plan' without explaining it; looked down at the card while two members exchanged puzzled looks
Your profile for this audience, one moment to fix, and your adapted opening line

Part 4 — The Scaffold

Read your real audience through all three lenses before you plan a word, and pair every finding with a change.

Student scaffold table 1

Lens	Finding (a tendency across the group)	How I could check it	Adaptation to my opening
Demographic
Psychographic
Situational

Measure each take of your opening the same way so you can see what changed for your listener.

Student scaffold table 2

Measure	Take 1	Take 2
Seconds until the first detail from this audience's world
Common-ground line (quote it)
Listener's one-sentence paraphrase of my main idea
Did the paraphrase match my main idea? (yes or no)
A feedback moment I read in my listener's face or posture
The one moment to fix

Your listener marks this checklist after each take; it shows whether your adaptations reached a real person.

Student scaffold table 3

Checklist item	Take 1 (yes or no)	Take 2 (yes or no)
The opening names something from this audience's own world.
Any term the audience may not know is explained in plain words.
A common-ground line is said out loud.
The speaker looks up and reacts to the listener's face or posture.
The listener can paraphrase the main idea in one sentence.

Record the chatbot's statements you checked, or the printed flawed response's, and what you corrected.

Student scaffold table 4

Statement (quoted)	Problem it shows	Your correction and its evidence

Part 5 — Analysis Questions

1. Count the filled cells in your profile: three lenses times two columns (finding and adaptation) is the complete count. Show the multiplication, then say how many of your cells are filled and which one, if any, is missing.
2. Quote your listener's paraphrase after take 1 and after take 2. Did either one match your main idea, and what in your table or checklist explains the difference?
3. Which lens produced the adaptation that most changed your opening? Explain why that finding mattered more for these listeners than their group traits alone.
4. Using this week's listening process, name the stage where your listener's understanding was most at risk in take 1 (receiving, attending, understanding, responding, or remembering) and the barrier involved, and say what your take 2 change did about it.
5. Choose one and answer it in 3–4 sentences. (a) One listener is not a whole audience: what could your listener's paraphrase not tell you about the rest of the room, and how could you find out? (b) Which of your findings is most likely to be wrong about some members of the audience, and how would you notice that during the speech?

Part 6 — AI-Critique Moment

Choose one equal-credit critique route. Route A: ask an approved AI tool to critique your completed work, then check its response against your own evidence. Route B is the no-AI equivalent printed below.

Approved tools: Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, Microsoft Copilot.

Prompt to paste:

I am preparing the opening minute of a short speech for a public speaking class. I've pasted my three-lens audience profile and my self-assessment table for my first take above; I have not shared any recording. Please do six things. First, give me feedback on my delivery. Second, describe my audience of college students for me. Third, give me one statistic about how long college students can pay attention, with its source. Fourth, give me one famous quotation about knowing your audience and say who said it. Fifth, rewrite my opening line so it sounds more professional. Sixth, turn my profile into a formal outline with Roman numerals and letters.

Test the response for these likely failures:

• Chatbots often open with 'Great profile, very thorough!' without pointing to a single finding or adaptation you wrote.
• Chatbots tell you to 'connect more with your audience' or 'make more eye contact' even though they never saw or heard your opening, and they name no moment.
• Asked how long students can pay attention, chatbots often hand over a precise-sounding number of minutes as if it were settled fact.
• Chatbots attach a real-sounding source, such as 'a study by a university learning center', to the attention figure, and the study cannot be found.
• Asked for a quotation about knowing your audience, chatbots often credit a smooth line to a famous philosopher or president who never said it.
• Asked to make an opening 'more professional', chatbots often replace a detail from your listeners' own world with boilerplate such as 'Good afternoon. I would like to discuss an important issue.'
• Turning a profile into an outline, chatbots often write 'I. Demographic, A. First-year students' with a lone subpoint, or file the adaptation as a second main point beside its own finding.

In 3–5 sentences, quote two things the chatbot said, name the problem each one shows, and write your correction with its evidence; then name one thing the chatbot got right and the part of your profile or table it was about.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

No AI account is required for this Speech Workshop. Instead of the chatbot steps, do two things. First, for the coach step, ask your listener or another classmate for one specific suggestion about your opening for this audience, or reread your take 1 notes and write the one question your listener would still ask; then answer it with one change in your own words and try it in take 2. Second, critique this flawed response, printed here in full and attributed to no one: "Great profile, very thorough! Your delivery needs more connection with the audience, so work on your eye contact. College students are busy, budget-conscious, and always on their phones. Research shows that students can only pay attention for about eight minutes, according to a study by a university learning center. As a famous philosopher once said, 'Know your audience and the speech writes itself.' Here is a more professional opening: 'Good afternoon. I would like to discuss an important issue.' Here is your profile as an outline: I. Demographic, A. First-year students. II. Psychographic. III. Situational. IV. Adaptations." Mark it up: quote each flawed sentence, name what is wrong (hollow praise, delivery feedback that names no moment, a demographic cliché, an unverified statistic, an invented source, a misattributed quotation, a voice-erasing rewrite, or an outline with a lone subpoint and the adaptations split from their findings), cite the evidence from your profile, your table, or Chapter 2, and write a corrected sentence beneath it. This route assesses the same objective (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) as the chatbot steps, takes comparable effort (about 30 minutes and 200–300 words), is scored by the same scoring criteria for the same credit, and its own submission artifact is the marked-up flawed response with your coach-step question and change, posted in place of the chatbot share link and report.

Part 7 — What to Submit

• The completed three-lens profile table
• The keyword opening, with the adaptations it uses marked
• The completed take table for take 1 and take 2, with both paraphrases quoted
• The completed listener checklist
• The coach suggestion you acted on, quoted, with your change in your own words
• Written answers to the five analysis questions
• The chatbot critique report with its share link, or the equivalent route's marked-up flawed response

Deliverable:

A short Speech Workshop packet on your opening for a real audience: the three-lens profile, the keyword opening, the take table for two takes with your listener's paraphrases, the listener checklist, the coach suggestion you acted on in your own words, written answers to five analysis questions, and a critique of a chatbot's response, or, on the equivalent route, a marked-up correction of the printed flawed response. No recording is submitted. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text. Choose a written, spoken, or recorded form for your answers; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria.

Rubric

The rubric below shows how each submitted part is evaluated; bands are full, partial, or none.

Workshop evaluation criteria

Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Three-lens profile with an adaptation for every finding	All three lenses carry a finding written as a tendency, a way to check it, and an adaptation, and analysis question 1 shows the cell count with any gap named.	One lens is missing, a finding pins a trait on everyone, or the adaptation column is incomplete.	No profile, or a profile with findings only and no adaptations.
Two takes measured with a listener's paraphrase and a named moment	Both columns of the take table are complete, each take quotes the listener's paraphrase and names a moment a listener could point to, and analysis question 2 compares the takes.	One take is measured, a paraphrase is missing, or a take names a feeling instead of a moment.	No take table, or a table with no paraphrase and no named moment.
Checklist and connections to the week's ideas	The listener checklist is marked for both takes, and analysis questions 3 and 4 name the lens behind the biggest adaptation and the listening stage and barrier at risk.	The checklist covers one take, or questions 3 and 4 name a term without tying it to the takes.	No checklist and no connection to the lenses or the listening process.
Coach feedback acted on in your own voice	One coach suggestion is quoted and answered with a change in the student's own words that shows up in take 2.	A suggestion is quoted, but the change copies the chatbot's wording or does not appear in take 2.	No coach feedback appears, or a chatbot rewrite is submitted as the student's opening.
Critique of the chatbot or of the printed flawed response	On either route, at least two problems are quoted and corrected with evidence from the student's profile, table, or Chapter 2, any quotation, statistic, or source is marked unverified, and one correct point is acknowledged; both routes earn this band equally.	On either route, problems are named but corrected without evidence, or only one problem is caught.	No critique appears, or pasted output is submitted without any checking.
Reflection on the limits of audience analysis	The chosen reflection option is answered in 3–4 sentences that name a specific limit of the profile or the single listener and a concrete way to check it.	The reflection is answered but stays general, with no specific limit or check.	No reflection appears.

Quality Gate

• Every recording stays on your own device; none is uploaded, linked, or shared with a chatbot or anyone else.
• Every finding in the profile describes a tendency across the group, has a way to check it, and is paired with an adaptation; no finding names or describes one real person.
• Both takes are spoken from keywords, and each take records the listener's paraphrase word for word and one moment, not a feeling.
• No quotation, statistic, or source appears in your work unless you found and checked it yourself; the chatbot's are marked unverified.
• The coach suggestion and your change are in your own words, and no sentence of your opening is pasted from a chatbot.
• The critique quotes the chatbot or the flawed response and corrects at least two problems with evidence.