Week 15 — Speak on the Spot: Your Impromptu Answer and Q&A — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Assignment 14 of the term — draw a prompt, plan for one minute in keywords, record a 60- to 90-second impromptu answer twice, plan an honest reply to a question a listener could ask, and explain to a friend why "I don't know, but I can find out" is a complete answer.

This week you learned to tell impromptu from extemporaneous delivery, to build an answer on the spot with the PREP frame or one of its two backup frames, to buy time and keep one clear point, and to handle routine, hostile, unknown, and off-topic questions with the Q&A toolkit. In this assignment you work four short problems on the week's examples, explain each one, give the impromptu answer you will really be graded on, and explain the idea to someone who has never taken a speaking course. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Speech Workshop practice the same ideas from other angles. It builds on Week 5's work on organizing a speech: the PREP frame and its two backup frames are organizational patterns shrunk to a minute.

The task

This week's shared example is the three prompts and the running speech's Q&A, which are illustrative and attributed to no one. Chapter 15 builds them. Prompt A asks, "What is the most underrated study skill?", and its model answer uses the four parts of the PREP frame: point, reason, example, point. Before answering, the speaker buys time with four moves: a pause, a reframe of the prompt, a brief connector, and then the point first. That reply gets one minute of keyword planning and runs 60 to 90 seconds, and the delivery self-assessment table's illustrative take-1 rate is 130 words per minute. After the running speech, the audience asks a routine, a hostile, an unknown, and an off-topic question, and the speaker answers each with the Q&A toolkit. Chapter 15 also walks through an illustrative chatbot coaching reply that praises without naming a moment, invents a "best practice," and says "be more confident" instead of naming a move.

Draw your own prompt for this week's graded impromptu speech. Pick one from this list without looking, for example by numbering them and rolling a die or asking a friend to choose a number: (1) What is one skill you learned outside a classroom? (2) What makes a place feel welcoming? (3) Should every student learn to cook one simple meal? (4) What is one small change that would improve your neighborhood? (5) What is the best piece of advice you once ignored? Do not use prompts A, B, or C; those are the course's examples. Your answer needs no statistic or source. If you choose to use a figure anyway, it must come from a real source you can name aloud.

Work these four problems, and show how you reached each one:

1. The model reply to prompt A runs 90 seconds, and the delivery table's illustrative take-1 rate is 130 words per minute. At that rate, about how many words fit in 90 seconds?
2. The speaker records 2 takes of the reply to prompt A, and each take delivers the 4 parts of the PREP frame. How many PREP parts does the speaker deliver across both takes?
3. Before each of 3 drawn prompts, the speaker uses the 4 time-buying moves: pause, reframe, a brief connector, then the point first. How many time-buying moves is that?
4. An illustrative chatbot's coaching reply has 3 problems, and the speaker checks each problem against both of 2 recorded takes. How many checks is that?

Beside each answer, add one brief explanation, and use your own impromptu answer for the parts that ask for it:

• Problem 1: name the prompt you drew and choose one frame for it, the PREP frame, past–present–future, or problem–solution, with one sentence on why it fits. Then write your one-minute keyword plan, one keyword group per part, and a word budget for your own time between 60 and 90 seconds at a rate you choose.
• Problem 2: deliver your answer out loud twice, from your keyword plan, for 60 to 90 seconds each time. Self-assess each take against the parts of your frame, say where your point landed in each take, and name one moment that changed between the two takes. Then name one delivery choice, such as a pause before your first word, eye contact through your first sentence, or a slower rate, and say how it helped you buy time or keep one clear point.
• Problem 3: write the reframe and the brief connector you used to buy time before your answer. Then write one question a listener could ask about your answer, label it hostile, unknown, or off-topic, and plan your reply with the Q&A toolkit. If the question asks for something you do not know, your reply says so honestly and offers to find out; it never invents a figure.
• Problem 4: in the illustrative chatbot coaching reply described above (you do not need to open any tool), name its three problems and give a fix for each that names a moment from your own takes and a move you will rehearse. Then look back across the course: name the one canon of rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, memory, or delivery) you have grown in most, with one piece of evidence from your takes.

For Problem 2's two takes, you choose how to capture them: a video on your own phone, an audio-only recording, or no recording at all, with a trusted listener who tells you one moment that changed. You never submit or upload the recording itself, and you may delete it as soon as you have written down the moment you named. Feeling nervous before an answer on the spot is normal; a slow breath and a frame you trust both help.

Explain it to a non-expert

Your friend has a job interview coming up, plans to memorize a long answer to every question they can imagine, and is afraid of being asked something they cannot answer. Write a message of three to five sentences that explains, in everyday words, why saying your point first and keeping to one clear point works better than a memorized speech; why a short pause beats filler words; why "I don't know, but I can find out" is an honest, complete answer; and one limit, such as never guessing a fact or a number. Explain any course term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible; this message is scored with Problem 4.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a coworker who will take questions after a short team update and plans to open every answer with "Great question!" and a long story. Model answer: "Skip the compliment and take a breath instead; it shows you heard the question. Say the question back in a few words so everyone knows what you are answering. Then give your answer in the first sentence and one reason or example, and stop. If someone asks something you do not know, say so and promise to follow up."

Use that pattern for your friend, with your own wording and examples.

Show how you got each answer. A reader should be able to check every total and every label without guessing which numbers you used.

Deliverables

Submit a single piece of work containing:

• the four answers, each with the arithmetic shown and the brief explanation the task names for that problem;
• your drawn prompt with your frame and keyword plan, the moment you named from your two takes with your delivery choice, your reframe with your planned reply to a listener's question, and your critique of the coaching reply with your canon; and
• your message to the friend, explaining in everyday words why the point comes first, why one clear point and a pause beat a memorized speech and filler, why "I don't know, but I can find out" is complete, and one limit.

Keep it to roughly one to two pages. Clear and specific beats long. You do not submit the recording of your takes; the moment you name is the evidence.

Choose how you show it. Present your work as written text, as a spoken explanation recorded as audio or video of about three minutes with a transcript, or as a labelled outline with a written description. Every form is graded by the same scoring criteria. 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.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

This version is designed to be completed without AI: do the counting, the planning, the explanations, and the speaking yourself, without any AI tool. Problem 4 asks you to critique a described, illustrative coaching reply; you do not need to open any tool to do it. Any figure you use in your answer or your reply must come from a real source you can name aloud. Submitting AI-generated work as your own or copying another student's work is an integrity violation under the course policy.

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