If you have chosen to find out about how children's lives have changed over time, you will need to prepare a speech to persuade an audience about the biggest changes to children's lives. Your teacher will be able to give you some useful places to start your research. This document will give you some help to prepare your speech.

Do

• Do make sure that you are thorough in your research, making use of several sources of information and that your research leads you to a conclusion/judgment
• Following your research, make sure that you identify a clear line of argument and stick to it.
• Plan your speech first. Make sure that it introduces the topic/theme, that it covers all your main points and that you sum up at the end.
• Make sure that your main argument includes all of your reasons/evidence as to why your chosen change has been the biggest.
• When considering which change/s have been the most important, you might want to consider the 5rs. How is it remembered? What were the results? Why was it remarkable? Does it resonate today? What does it reveal about attitudes towards children?
• Make sure that you also cover other changes, explaining why they are less significant than your chosen change.
• Practice your speech and keep convincing eye contact with your audience.

 

Don't

• Decide upon an argument before you have done your full research.
• Just tell your audience what the main changes were - you need to have an argument. What was the biggest change?
• Be tempted to research only one area. If you only research one area, you may find that you fail to find evidence that could change your mind or make your own arguments flimsy
• Base your arguments on the evidence of one book/historian/website. Always cross-reference what you have found out by using several sources of information in your research.
• Try to give a speech without planning it first
• Stare at the paper or your feet
• Fidget during your speech

 

Further Advice

For further advice and samples of public speaking, follow the links below.

Advice on public speaking

Samples of debate pieces on local heroes