Week 9 — Speech Workshop / Rehearsal Studio · "Record Your Extemporaneous 60–90 Seconds"

Course: Public Speaking — Fundamentals of Oral Communication (COMM 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Marchetti
Objective: Objective 5 (delivery portion) — vocal and physical delivery self-assessment; extemporaneous delivery drill · SLO A (deliver) · SLO B (analyze a delivery)
Worth 50 points · Speech Workshops group = 15% of the grade · Workshop 9
Format this week: a self-record-and-self-assess delivery drill — extemporaneous delivery, vocal + physical self-assessment, rehearsal-coach moment, AI-critique catch.

This is the course's signature weekly component. Every instructional week has one Speech Workshop. Workshop 9 is the full delivery drill — the culminating practice for this week's concepts. You'll record a short extemporaneous passage, watch yourself like a coach (not a critic), and self-assess your vocal and physical delivery with specificity. You'll also catch the AI coach doing what AI coaches do: giving you hollow praise instead of useful feedback.

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Part 1 — The Big Picture

This week's concept is delivery: the four methods, vocal elements, and physical elements. The Workshop is where you practice these — not just learn them. The self-record-and-self-assess loop is the discipline's core rehearsal method, and every professional speaker uses a version of it.

The guiding question: When I watch myself deliver an extemporaneous passage, what do I actually see and hear — and can I name one specific thing that will make the next take better?

What this week's drill adds that previous Workshops haven't: you will specifically target both vocal and physical dimensions and name the exact delivery method you used (and why it's the right one). The combined attention to voice and body together — while staying extemporaneous and not sliding into reading — is the skill.

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Part 2 — The Drill: Record Your Extemporaneous 60–90 Seconds

Choose your passage. Pick a topic you know reasonably well — it can be:
- the topic you used for a previous assignment or workshop, or
- a topic from this course (e.g., explain the four delivery methods, or explain why extemporaneous is the recommended default), or
- any topic you could speak about comfortably without research.

Prepare keyword notes (NOT a script):
Write 3–5 keywords per main idea on a small notecard or in front of you. These are prompts — not sentences you intend to read.

Do this:
1. Stand up, set up your phone camera or Zoom to capture your face and upper body.
2. Record yourself delivering 60–90 seconds from your keyword notes. Speak to the lens as if it's a person.
3. Do NOT re-record yet. Watch this first take all the way through, even if it's uncomfortable.

The goal is not a polished performance — it is honest, specific data about your own delivery. Awkward takes are more useful than comfortable ones, because they show you exactly where to improve.

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Part 3 — Vocal Self-Assessment Scaffold

Watch your recording once listening only (or close your eyes and audio-only if your device allows). Rate each on 1–5 and add a specific one-line observation:

Vocal element	Score (1–5)	What I specifically heard
Rate — was it too fast, too slow, or varied appropriately?	___	______
Pitch — did my voice stay on one flat note, or did it vary?	___	______
Volume — could I hear myself clearly? Did I vary it at all?	___	______
Pauses vs. fillers — count your fillers (um / uh / like / you know). Did I use any strategic pauses?	___ (filler count: ___)	______
Articulation — were words clear, or did I run syllables together?	___	______
Vocal variety overall — did rate + pitch + volume work together to signal what mattered?	___	______

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Part 4 — Physical Self-Assessment Scaffold

Watch your recording again watching only (mute the audio to focus on what you see). Rate each on 1–5 and add a specific one-line observation:

Physical element	Score (1–5)	What I specifically saw
Eye contact — was I looking at the lens, or at notes, the wall, the ceiling?	___	______
Gestures — did I use descriptive, emphatic, or adaptor gestures? (Name the type.)	___	______
Movement — was any movement purposeful, or was there pacing?	___	______
Posture — was I upright with weight even, or was I rocking / gripping?	___	______
Facial expression — did my face match the content, or was it flat?	___	______

Your ONE thing: looking across both scaffolds, what is the single most important delivery change for your next take? Write it in one sentence: "Next time I will ______."

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Part 5 — Analysis Questions

Answer in a sentence or two each:
1. Which delivery method did you use, and how do you know it was extemporaneous (not manuscript, not memorized, not impromptu)?
2. What surprised you most about watching yourself — in the vocal category, or the physical category?
3. Which felt harder to self-assess honestly: vocal or physical delivery? Why?
4. After naming your "one thing," do a second take applying that specific change. Did focusing on one thing at a time actually improve that element? What happened?

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Part 6 — Rehearsal-Coach Moment (BYOAI)

Bring in your approved chatbot (Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT) as a rehearsal coach.

1. Describe your passage and your self-assessment to the coach (or paste in your filled scaffold): "I'm doing a Week 9 delivery workshop in my public speaking class. I just recorded a 60–90-second extemporaneous passage. Here's what I observed: [your notes]. Give me specific, actionable feedback for my next take — one vocal element and one physical element."
2. Read its response carefully.
3. Try its best specific suggestion in a third take (or apply it mentally if you've already done multiple takes).

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Part 7 — AI-Critique Moment (required)

This is the step that protects you.

1. Look at what the chatbot actually gave you. Most coaching responses from AI default to at least some hollow praise — "Great job, it sounds like you're really working hard!" — and vague advice — "Keep working on your delivery and try to be more natural." Neither tells you what to change.

2. Push it. Type: "That feedback is too vague. Give me the single most important specific thing to change about my delivery, with a concrete technique for how to make that change."

3. Write 2–3 sentences reporting:
   - One example of hollow praise or vague advice the chatbot gave you.
   - What genuinely specific, actionable feedback on the same point would look like instead (e.g., "Not 'be more natural' — 'pause for one full second after your main claim instead of rushing into the next point'").

The habit: the tool helps you organize your self-observations, but it cannot watch you. It cannot count your fillers, it cannot see that you gripped the podium, it cannot notice that your pitch didn't change. Your self-assessment from the scaffold is more reliable than the chatbot's generic response — because yours is based on actually watching the clip.

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Part 8 — What to Submit

Submit a single document (or text entry) with:
- Your completed vocal self-assessment scaffold (Part 3) — all six rows with specific observations + the filler count.
- Your completed physical self-assessment scaffold (Part 4) — all five rows with specific observations + your "one thing."
- Your Part 5 analysis questions (all four).
- Your Part 7 AI-critique paragraph (hollow praise example + what specific feedback would look like).
- Your recording (upload or link) — do the recording; it is the entire point of the Workshop.

Due Sunday, Nov 1, 11:59 p.m. (50 points)

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Instructor answer key & model responses — REMOVE BEFORE PUBLISHING TO STUDENTS

Students record their own passage, so there's no single right content. Grade the specificity and honesty of the self-assessment and the quality of the AI-critique — not the polish of the delivery.

Model vocal scaffold (illustrative):
- Rate: 3 — "I was fine in the first half but sped up noticeably in the last 20 seconds, probably nerves at the end."
- Pitch: 2 — "My pitch was almost completely flat — I sounded like I was reading a grocery list even though I wasn't reading."
- Volume: 4 — "Audible and consistent; I did not vary it much."
- Pauses/fillers: 2 (filler count: 9) — "Nine 'likes' — way more than I expected. I had zero strategic pauses."
- Articulation: 4 — "Words were clear; I do drop some final consonants but it wasn't a major issue."
- Vocal variety: 2 — "Overall, flat — the rate/pitch/volume combination didn't change, so nothing felt more important than anything else."
- One thing: "Next time I will focus on pausing silently instead of saying 'like' — especially after the first sentence."

Model physical scaffold (illustrative):
- Eye contact: 3 — "I looked at the lens about 70% of the time. I looked at my keyword card six times — that was more than I thought."
- Gestures: 3 — "I used two emphatic gestures (a chopping motion on the key noun, an open-palm for 'on the other hand') and two adaptors (touching my necklace twice). Net positive but I want to eliminate the adaptors."
- Movement: 4 — "I did not pace. I stood still, which felt better than I expected."
- Posture: 4 — "Upright and balanced. I swayed slightly at the end."
- Facial expression: 2 — "Mostly deadpan. My face did not change even when I was describing something I care about."

Model AI-critique (illustrative): "The chatbot responded with 'You're clearly putting in real effort — great job using notes and thinking about your eye contact!' which is empty. When I pushed it, it gave me one useful note: 'Instead of filling silence with 'like,' try taking a breath and pausing for one second — the pause reads as confident, not lost.' That is specific and actionable. The original response was not."

Expected answers for Part 5:
- (1) "Extemporaneous — I used a keyword outline with five words across two main points. I was thinking through the idea as I spoke, not reciting stored words. I could tell because my wording changed slightly across takes."
- (2) any honest specific observation counts.
- (3) either answer is fine if reasoned; many students find physical harder because they're not used to watching themselves.
- (4) full credit for actually doing the second take and noting a specific result — "my filler count dropped from 9 to 4 and it felt awkward but looked deliberate."

Grading rubric — 50 points

Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Vocal scaffold completed (Part 3) — all six rows scored with specific observations + filler count (15)	15	8–12	0–6
Physical scaffold completed (Part 4) — all five rows scored with specific observations + "one thing" (15)	15	8–12	0–6
Analysis questions + re-take (Part 5) — all four answered; honest reflection on the second take (10)	10	5–8	0–4
AI-critique (Part 7) — names a specific example of hollow/vague AI feedback and what specific, actionable feedback would look like (10)	10	5–8	0–4

Quality gate (self-checked): the four rubric criteria sum to exactly 50 (15 + 15 + 10 + 10). This workshop asserts no external statistics or quotations — the Mehrabian research is addressed in the lecture and discussion, not in this workshop, so there is nothing to fabricate or misattribute here. The AI-critique targets the chatbot's hollow praise and vague advice — the load-bearing AI coaching risk for this discipline. No external citations are used or needed.