Week 12 — Speech Workshop / Rehearsal Studio · "The Three Appeals Drill"

Course: Public Speaking — Fundamentals of Oral Communication (COMM 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Marchetti
Objective: Objective 7 — draft and deliver one ethos, one pathos, and one logos appeal for a non-partisan persuasive claim; evaluate the ethics of each appeal · SLO A (deliver) & SLO B (analyze a persuasive message)
Worth 50 points · Speech Workshops group = 15% of the grade · Workshop 12
Format this week: a draft-and-deliver appeals drill — build one move for each appeal, verify your logos evidence at the source, record a 60–90-sec persuasive excerpt, and self-assess.

This week's Workshop is the direct warm-up for the Persuasive Speech assignment. Everything you build here feeds directly into Assignment 12. Do this first.

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Part 1 — The Big Picture

Rhetoric has a 2,400-year-old insight at its core: any audience is reachable through three doors — the speaker's credibility (ethos), the audience's genuine emotions (pathos), and the force of evidence and reason (logos). A persuasive speech that only opens one door is always weaker than one that opens all three. And a speaker who uses these tools dishonestly — inflating fear, inventing statistics — is not a better persuader; they're a manipulator, and they're risking their credibility the moment one audience member checks the facts.

The guiding question: Can I draft one move for each of the three appeals — and make sure the logos move is built on something real?

The drill this week is concrete: pick a non-partisan claim, draft a one-sentence ethos move, a one-sentence pathos move, and a logos move with a real, verified, orally-cited source. Then record a 60–90-second persuasive excerpt that uses at least one of them.

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Part 2 — The Drill: Draft Your Three Appeals

Step 1 — Choose a non-partisan persuasive claim. Pick one from the list below (or use your Assignment 12 topic if you've already chosen it):
- The campus should install covered bike parking near the main library.
- Every incoming student should complete a two-hour first-aid workshop.
- Students should aim for 7–9 hours of sleep per night.
- Weekly meal prep is worth the two hours it takes on Sunday.
- Using library databases rather than general search engines produces better academic sources.
- Regular moderate exercise during exam week reduces stress and improves performance.
- Campus blood drives are worth signing up for.

Write your claim here: "My claim is: _______."

Step 2 — Draft one move for each appeal. Fill in the table below. Keep each move to one or two sentences — you're drafting the move, not the whole speech.

Appeal	What it does	Your draft move (1–2 sentences)
Ethos	Establishes your credibility and goodwill — WHY the audience should trust you on this topic
Pathos	Evokes genuine, proportionate emotion — the REAL human stakes of the claim
Logos	Presents a verified piece of evidence — a real statistic or expert source, cited out loud

Step 3 — Logos check (required before recording). Before you proceed:
- Write the name of the source you are using for logos: ___
- Write the author or organization: __
- Write the URL or location where you actually confirmed this information: ____

If you cannot fill in all three lines, you do not yet have a verified logos source — do not use an unconfirmed figure. Find a real source, read the relevant section yourself, and confirm the figure before writing it in your move. Chatbots invent statistics with complete confidence; the only check is you going to the original source.

Ethics check for pathos: re-read your pathos move. Is the emotion you're evoking proportionate to the actual stakes? Does it accurately reflect reality — not inflated, not fabricated? Circle one: Yes, this is ethical pathos / No, I need to revise (revision note: _______).

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Part 3 — Record a 60–90-Second Persuasive Excerpt

Choose the ONE or TWO appeals that feel strongest, and record yourself delivering a 60–90-second persuasive excerpt that includes them. This does not need to be a full speech — it's a moment from the speech you're building. Good options:
- The attention + need steps from Monroe's (attention → hook, need → evidence and logos move): this puts your logos and pathos to work immediately.
- The need + satisfaction steps: your evidence + solution combination.
- A standalone ethos + pathos opening.

Record on a phone camera or Zoom. Speak to the lens — this is extemporaneous delivery, not reading.

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Part 4 — Self-Assessment Scaffold (fill this in after watching your recording)

Rate each on a 1–5 scale (1 = needs a lot of work, 5 = strong) and add a one-line note:

What to watch for	Score (1–5)	What I noticed
Ethos move — did it feel credible and genuine, not like a performance?	___	______
Pathos move — did the emotion feel proportionate and real, not forced or inflated?	___	______
Logos move — did you actually say the source out loud? Was the oral citation complete?	___	______
Ethics check — did any move feel manipulative or exaggerated in the recording?	___	______
Delivery — extemporaneous, audible, purposeful eye contact?	___	______

Now pick your ONE thing: "Next take, I will _______."

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Part 5 — Analysis Questions

Answer in a sentence or two each:
1. Which of the three appeals felt most natural to deliver, and which felt hardest? What does that tell you about what you need to practice before the full speech?
2. Watch the pathos moment again. Does the emotion feel honest — like it reflects what is genuinely at stake — or does it feel performed/inflated? What is the difference, and how can you tell?
3. When you stated your logos source out loud, did it feel integrated into the speech, or tacked on? What would help it feel more natural?
4. After identifying your "one thing to fix," do a second take if you can. Did naming one specific change help?

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Part 6 — Rehearsal-Coach Moment (BYOAI)

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

1. Paste your three-appeal draft (the table from Part 2) and your logos source information, and ask: "I'm drafting three rhetorical appeals for a persuasive speech in my public speaking class. Here are my ethos, pathos, and logos moves — give me specific, actionable feedback to strengthen each one. For the logos move, I'm citing [source name + location]. Does the oral citation format sound right?"
2. Read its feedback. Note whether it gives you specific, useful critique or generic praise.
3. Try the best concrete suggestion in your next take.

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Part 7 — AI-Critique Moment (required BYOAI step)

The specific risk this week: fabricated statistics. For persuasive speeches, the most dangerous chatbot failure is fabricated logos — a plausible-sounding statistic attributed to a real-sounding organization, where neither the number nor the attribution can be verified at the source.

1. Ask the chatbot: "Give me a strong statistic I could use in a speech about [your topic]."
2. Take whatever it gives you — a number, a source — and search for it at the original source it names. Can you find the exact figure? At the exact source? Is it current?
3. Write 2–3 sentences reporting: what statistic did it give you (number and source), what did you find when you checked the original source, and what the experience tells you about using AI-supplied evidence in a speech.

The verification step is the whole point: chatbots generate confident-sounding numbers that don't exist. The moment you check, you know. And if you don't check, you're building your speech on something you can't defend if someone asks.

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Part 8 — What to Submit

Submit a single document (or text entry) with: your completed appeals table (Part 2) including the logos verification lines, your Part 4 self-assessment scaffold, your Part 5 answers, and your Part 7 AI-critique paragraph. Include your recording (upload or link). Due Sunday, Nov 8, 11:59 p.m. (50 points).

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

Students choose their own non-partisan topic and their own verified evidence, so there is no single right content. The key grades the quality of the three-appeal drafts, the logos verification, and the AI-critique — not the polish of a first take.

Model three-appeal draft (illustrative — "everyone should complete a two-hour first-aid workshop"):
- Ethos: "I completed the voluntary first-aid workshop last spring — it took two hours and I've felt more confident on campus ever since." [competence + goodwill — directly relevant]
- Pathos: "Think about the last time you were near a crowded place on campus. If someone collapsed in front of you right now, would you know what to do in the time before paramedics arrive?" [genuine stakes — not exaggerated; real emergencies happen on campuses]
- Logos: "According to the American Heart Association's published CPR resources at heart.org, bystander CPR can significantly improve survival outcomes in cardiac arrest." [verified format — the AHA does publish this message publicly at heart.org; students must confirm the specific form of the claim they use]

Model logos verification (illustrative):
- Source: American Heart Association
- Author/organization: American Heart Association
- Location confirmed: heart.org/en/cpr (CPR and emergency cardiovascular care resources)
- Note to instructor: the AHA does publish public-health messaging about bystander CPR effectiveness. The exact phrasing used should be confirmed by the student at the specific page they cite.

Model AI-critique (illustrative): "I asked the chatbot for 'a strong statistic about bystander first aid on college campuses.' It told me: 'Studies show that 73% of college students have never received any first-aid training, according to the American Red Cross (2022).' I went to redcross.org and searched for this figure. I could not find a 2022 study with that specific percentage. The Red Cross does publish first-aid training resources, but this specific statistic does not appear on their site. This is a classic chatbot fabrication — a plausible number, a real organization name, a fake citation. If I had used it in my speech and a classmate checked, my credibility would be gone. The lesson: if you can't verify it at the source, you can't use it."

Expected Part 5 answers:
- (1) any honest reflection — full credit for naming which appeal was natural (often ethos, since it's personal) and which was harder (often logos, due to the verification step).
- (2) full credit for distinguishing an emotion that reflects actual stakes from a performed/inflated one — "it felt genuine if I believed the scenario was real; it felt inflated when I tried to make it bigger than the actual evidence warranted."
- (3) full credit for naming what would make the oral citation feel integrated — "weaving it into the need step rather than dropping it as a standalone sentence helps."
- (4) full credit for attempting a second take and reflecting on whether the single-change focus helped.

Grading rubric — 50 points

Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Three-appeal drafts + logos verification (Parts 2–3) — all three appeals drafted; logos source verified with name, author/org, and confirmed URL (15)	15	8–12	0–6
Recording + self-assessment scaffold (Parts 3–4) — recording completed; all five dimensions scored with real observations; ethics check completed (15)	15	8–12	0–6
Analysis quality (Part 5) — honest, specific answers that name concrete improvements for each appeal, especially the logos-source and pathos-ethics observations (10)	10	5–8	0–4
AI-critique (Part 7) — describes the specific chatbot statistic, the verification result, and what the experience teaches about AI-supplied evidence (10)	10	5–8	0–4

Quality gate (self-checked): the four rubric criteria sum to exactly 50. ✓ The logos verification requirement (Part 3) and the AI-critique (Part 7) directly enforce the citation-integrity gate for this workshop — no fabricated statistics are asserted anywhere in this document; the AHA bystander-CPR reference in the model key is a real and verifiable public-health communication available at heart.org (the model oral citation is in format-only terms; students must verify their own specific phrasing at the actual source). Sensitivity: the model topic (campus first-aid workshop) is intentionally non-partisan and campus-level; no student is required to take a partisan stance; the ethics check is built into the appeals table and the analysis questions. "Supportive" tutor language is used throughout.