For my Inquiry into Citizenship course, I took Inquiry Into Citizenship: May The Odds be Ever In Your Favor: Examining Citizenship through the Hunger Games, taught by Professor Jennifer Beach. I found this to be an interesting approach to analysing what it means to be a good citizen, and there were many ethical dilemmas that the class spent many discussions debating. The content for these discussions was Suzanne Collins Hunger Games trilogy, and throughout the semester we read The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay. While I was used to a discussion-oriented class, and often spearheaded many discussions, I was no so used to having to give speeches in a digital format, which was a major aspect of the course.
These virtual speeches constituted a major aspect of the speaking-infused portion of this course, and I found them especially difficult. While I am very used to being in front of a crowd due to my musical background, recording myself and editing a video of a memorized speech was new territory to me. We had two virtual speeches, an informational and a persuasive speech, and while I was pleased with my content, recording and editing the speech proved challenging, but I did grasp a good understanding of how to operate Panapto, which became very helpful when Longwood turned to online-courses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I found the in-person speeches much easier, and there were three of these. Two of the in-person speeches were called minute talks and was composed of a summary of the chapters, the main themes found in these chapters, and a summary of a real-world article relevant to the topics found in the chapters. While I was much more confident in my delivery of these minute talk compared to my virtual speeches, there was a lot of information to work into a one minute window. This taught me to utilize clear and concise speech, not adding fluff while still addressing all relevant points.
The culminating speech was a panel discussion, where a group of five students worked to present different aspects of a topic and to present their findings to the class and answer students questions regarding the topic. We were to use what we learned through our discussion about citizenship in the Hunger Games trilogy to drive our thoughts regarding our topic, but the speech was to be on real-world issues. The topic of my panel was to discuss was surveillance/privacy in America. I specifically researched how surveillance affects American citizens liberty, and the relationship of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution has to privacy. The panel was very successful in our delivery, and there lots of discussion regarding citizenship, oppression, civil disobedience, bystander interaction, and citizen complicity. Attached is a partial transcript of my panel discussion speech, much of the speech was done on the spot and is not included in the written version.
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