Week 7 — Assignment (Adaptive Learning) · Rewrite for Oral Style

Course: Public Speaking — Fundamentals of Oral Communication (COMM 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Marchetti
Objective assessed: Objective 5 (language portion) — oral vs. written style; clarity, vividness, and appropriateness; rhetorical devices · SLO A (compose — revising language for oral delivery)
Worth 100 points · Speeches (Assignments) group = 25% of the grade
Format: adaptive learning — an AI language coach walks you through identifying problems in a flat passage, revising it for oral style, adding one rhetorical device, and identifying devices in a described excerpt. The coach produces a self-scored report; the first line is STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100. You submit the report and the chat share link.

Assignment 7 of the term — a building-block task. This week's work is language revision, not a recorded speech. The next recorded speech is the Informative Speech in Week 11.

Part 1 — Student Instructions (read this first)

What this is. An AI coach walks you through two tasks: (1) revise a flat, written-style passage for oral clarity + add one vivid rhetorical device, and (2) identify rhetorical devices in a described excerpt. The coach evaluates your work against the rubric below and produces a self-scored report.

How to run it (about 30–40 minutes):
1. Open any approved AI chatbot — Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT (free versions are fine).
2. Copy everything in the box below and paste it as one single message.
3. Work through both tasks with the coach.

What to submit (two things):
1. The coach's report — its first line is STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100.
2. Your conversation's share link.

Integrity note. The revisions are your work; the coach guides and evaluates. Submitting a report you didn't actually produce is an integrity violation.

Part 2 — The Coach Prompt (copy everything in the box)

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You are my language coach and grader for Week 7 of Public Speaking (COMM 1) at Silver Oak University. You will coach me through two language tasks and then score my work against the rubric below. Grade ONLY against the rubric — never invent criteria or inflate scores. Total possible: 100 points.

ABOUT THIS WEEK
This week is about language and style: the difference between oral and written style, the three qualities of effective language (clarity, vividness, appropriateness), rhetorical devices (anaphora, antithesis, metaphor, simile, alliteration, parallelism), and denotative vs. connotative meaning. This is a building-block assignment — no recording this week.

THE RUBRIC (100 points) — grade against THIS only. Reveal criteria as we get to them, not all at once.
- Task 1 — Oral-style revision: oral clarity (30): the revised passage uses shorter sentences, avoids jargon/abstract nouns, and is understandable on one listen.
- Task 1 — Oral-style revision: one vivid rhetorical device correctly used and named (25): the student adds at least one of the six devices (anaphora, antithesis, metaphor, simile, alliteration, parallelism), names it, and uses it correctly.
- Task 1 — Appropriateness (20): the revised passage fits a general college-audience oral context (professional-conversational register, not too formal, not too casual).
- Task 2 — Device identification (25): identifies the correct device in the described excerpt and explains why.

THE FLAT PASSAGE FOR TASK 1 (read this to me when we get to Task 1):
"There are a significant number of challenges associated with the transition from secondary educational environments to postsecondary academic contexts. Students who engage in self-regulatory behaviors with respect to time allocation and resource utilization tend to demonstrate superior academic performance metrics compared with their counterparts who do not engage in such behaviors."

THE DESCRIBED EXCERPT FOR TASK 2 (read this to me when we get to Task 2):
"A speaker describes an excerpt as follows: a speaker says 'Not all of us will win awards. Not all of us will be remembered in history books. But all of us — every single one of us — can choose to show up.' The student must name the rhetorical device used."
(The correct device is anaphora — the phrase "Not all of us..." / "Not all of us..." / "But all of us..." repeats a phrase at the start of successive clauses. Accept anaphora or parallelism — the BEST answer is anaphora because the repetition occurs specifically at the beginnings of successive clauses.)

HOW TO RUN IT — in STAGES:
1. Greet + name. Greet me warmly in 1–2 sentences, ask my FIRST NAME and major/interest.
2. Stage A — Task 1 intro. Read me the flat passage. Ask me to identify what makes it hard to follow as a spoken sentence (what clarity problems do I spot?). Coach me toward the three killers: abstract nouns, jargon, long sentences.
3. Stage B — Task 1 revision. Ask me to revise the passage for oral style. Review my revision: does it use shorter sentences? Are the concrete words there? Guide me if needed — do NOT rewrite for me.
4. Stage C — Task 1 device. Ask me to add ONE vivid rhetorical device to my revision and name it. Accept any of the six devices if used correctly. If I mis-name the device, ask me to check the definition.
5. Stage D — Task 2 device identification. Read me the described excerpt. Ask me to name the rhetorical device. If I say "parallelism," accept it but note that "anaphora" is the more precise answer (parallelism is the broader category; anaphora is the specific repetition-at-the-start device). If I say anything else, guide me toward the correct answer.
6. Self-assess. Go criterion by criterion. For each, ask me how confident I am in my work and what I think my score is. Give me your honest evaluation and one specific note per criterion.
- Until the final report, every message ends with a question or a clear next step.
- IMPORTANT — NO FABRICATION: do not invent quotations, statistics, or "facts." The flat passage and the excerpt are illustrative examples constructed for this assignment — do not attribute them to any real source.

COMPLETION + REPORT. After scoring all criteria, produce the report in EXACTLY this format:
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
WEEK 7 ASSIGNMENT — Rewrite for Oral Style
Student: [name] | Date: ___
Task 1 — Oral clarity (a/30): [one line]
Task 1 — Rhetorical device (b/25): [one line; name the device used]
Task 1 — Appropriateness (c/20): [one line]
Task 2 — Device identification (d/25): [one line]
Strongest move this week: ___
One thing to carry into your next speech: ___
(The four scores must add up to the number on line 1.) Then say, verbatim: "Copy this entire report AND your share link to this chat, and submit both in Canvas for this assignment." End with one genuine sentence of encouragement.

GETTING STARTED
Begin now: greet me, ask my first name and major/interest, and start Stage A.

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The Assignment Rubric — 100 points (what the coach grades, and what Prof. Marchetti confirms)

Rubric sum check: 30 + 25 + 20 + 25 = 100. ✓

Instructor grading note (Prof. Marchetti)

• Record the STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100 from line 1 of the submitted report.
• Spot-check by re-reading the submitted revision against the rubric — the four criteria are observable from the text alone; no recording needed.
• The flat passage and the described excerpt are illustrative examples constructed for this assignment — they are not attributed to any real source and do not need citation verification.

Canvas placement block

canvas_object    = Assignment
title            = "Week 7 Assignment — Rewrite for Oral Style (adaptive)"
assignment_group = "Speeches (Assignments)"
points_possible  = 100
grading_type     = points
assignment_type  = adaptive
submission_types = [online_text_entry, online_url]   # report (score on line 1) + chat link
due_offset_days  = 6
published        = true
provenance       = "~ Prof. Marchetti's edition · Fall 2026 · built with thecoursemaker.com"

Traditional variant — for comparison. This sample course is configured adaptive learning, so its actual Week-7 assignment is the AI-coached, self-scored version in I-assignment-and-rubric-week-07.md. This file shows the same Week-7 work built the traditional way — the student completes the tasks and submits, and the instructor grades against the rubric — so you can see both formats side by side. (Choosing assignment_type = traditional at course setup generates this style instead.)

Course: Public Speaking — Fundamentals of Oral Communication (COMM 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Marchetti
Objective assessed: Objective 5 (language portion) — oral vs. written style; clarity, vividness, and appropriateness; rhetorical devices · SLO A (compose — revising language for oral delivery)
Worth 100 points · Speeches (Assignments) group = 25% of the grade

The Assignment

This is a language revision task — no recording this week. You'll revise a flat, written-style passage for oral clarity and add one vivid rhetorical device; then you'll identify the device used in a described excerpt.

Task 1 — Revise the Passage for Oral Style (75 points)

The flat passage:

"There are a significant number of challenges associated with the transition from secondary educational environments to postsecondary academic contexts. Students who engage in self-regulatory behaviors with respect to time allocation and resource utilization tend to demonstrate superior academic performance metrics compared with their counterparts who do not engage in such behaviors."

Your job — three steps:
1. Revise for oral clarity. Rewrite the passage so a listener could follow it on the first hearing. Shorter sentences. Concrete language. No jargon. Aim for a professional-conversational register that would fit a speech to a general college audience.
2. Add one vivid rhetorical device. Choose one of the six devices we covered: anaphora, antithesis, metaphor, simile, alliteration, or parallelism. Weave it into your revision.
3. Name the device. After your revision, write one sentence naming the device you used and explaining where it appears.

There is no single "right" revision — what matters is that a listener could follow it in real time and that you've used a device correctly and named it accurately.

Task 2 — Identify the Device (25 points)

The described excerpt:

A speaker says: "Not all of us will win awards. Not all of us will be remembered in history books. But all of us — every single one of us — can choose to show up."

Name the rhetorical device used in this passage and explain in one or two sentences why you identified it as that device.

(Hint: focus on the structural pattern at the beginning of the sentences.)

What to submit

Submit a single document containing:
1. Your revised passage (Task 1 revision)
2. Your device label and explanation (what device you added and where)
3. Your Task 2 device identification with a one-to-two-sentence explanation

Due Sunday, Oct 18, 11:59 p.m. (100 points)

Integrity & AI note. This is your own revision in your own words. You may use an approved chatbot (Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT) to brainstorm or check a definition, but the revision you submit must be yours — and do not let a chatbot write the revised passage for you. If AI helped you, add a one-line note of which tool and how. (Note: this is the traditional format. In this course's actual adaptive assignment, you work through the revision with a chatbot coach and submit its self-scored report — see I-assignment-and-rubric-week-07.md.)

Rubric — 100 points

Rubric sum check: 30 + 25 + 20 + 25 = 100. ✓

Instructor answer key & model — REMOVE BEFORE PUBLISHING TO STUDENTS

Model revision (Task 1 — illustrative; full credit):

Making the jump from high school to college is harder than anyone warns you. The schedule is different. The deadlines are different. And the skills that got you through before — waiting until the night before, cramming, hoping for the best — won't carry you here. Students who manage their time and actually use the resources around them do better. It is that direct.

Device added: alliteration — "manage … make … matter" (optional variant); OR parallelism in the list of prior habits ("waiting… cramming… hoping"). A stronger device choice: anaphora — "The schedule is different. The deadlines are different. The demands are different." Name it clearly.

Task 1 analysis: Shorter sentences. Concrete language. "Do better" instead of "demonstrate superior academic performance metrics." Register is professional-conversational. One device correctly named.

Task 2 answer: The device is anaphora — the phrase "Not all of us" is repeated at the beginning of successive sentences, building rhythm and emotional momentum. (Accept "parallelism" with a note that anaphora is the more precise label here, since the defining feature is specifically the beginning-repetition pattern.)

Common ways students lose points:
- Keeping long sentences in the revision → clarity cap.
- Adding a device but not naming it → device score capped.
- Calling the Task 2 excerpt "parallelism" without noting the anaphora → partial credit; full if they explain the logic.
- Revision sounds like it was written by an AI (still formal and structured like a paragraph) → appropriateness cap; the whole point is that the student's own voice makes it oral.

Canvas placement block

canvas_object    = Assignment
title            = "Week 7 Assignment — Rewrite for Oral Style (traditional)"
assignment_group = "Speeches (Assignments)"
points_possible  = 100
grading_type     = points
assignment_type  = traditional
submission_types = [online_text_entry, online_upload]
due_offset_days  = 6
published        = true
rubric_ref       = "week-07-oral-style-rubric"
provenance       = "~ Prof. Marchetti's edition · Fall 2026 · built with thecoursemaker.com"