Senior speech auditions are around the corner, and a handful of students are willing to take this burden upon themselves to leave an everlasting impression on their classmates. Those 3 minutes will embody everything that those brave souls worked for; with it, demand the highest skills in the schools. Giving a presentation in class is one thing, but doing the same in front of parents, the Senior class, and the Junior class, while being broadcasted to the entire school, is a different caliber of speech.
What should you do to prepare?
Here are some step-by-step tips to prepare the perfect
- Write an outline of your main points
- Pre-write the speech (make it flow)
- Read it out loud and listen for sentences that sound unnatural
- Practice in front of Family members and friends
While writing a speech, it is essential to sound natural, after all, this is not a graded assignment. Yet, we all know that a good speech won’t heal you from the sprouting anxiety that comes from presenting in front of the entire school. The senior speech might not be for everyone, but practice makes perfect. The senior class would love to hear a new perspective from someone that usually doesn’t do speeches. Let’s be honest, the people that speak at the end of 8th grade are the same that will speak at the Senior graduation. No offense to them, but if you never gave a speech to your class and think you would have some great insight to share, I would encourage you to gather your courage and sign up for that audition.
The Senior speech audition is on the 21st of March but the sign-up is on the 6th and ends on the 8th of March in room A 218. The Speech itself will be at the Senior Graduation and represents the final salute to the class. Intended to give one last opportunity to look back at the 12 years of school, the Senior Speech should be a nostalgic memory of high school. There are very few limits on what you can do within the 3 minutes that you have at your disposal. It could contain memorable parts of high school, advice for the future, or just a simple embrace of the moment at hand.
Words can change a person’s life. Perhaps one person or another will carry the words of his or her graduation throughout her life. It is unimaginable how much we can spark in another human mind with simple phrases and memories. Yes, you can also manipulate or hurt people with it, but that is beside the point for the Graduation Speech. At the end of college, those small memories might be the only thing that survived the years on an individual’s memory, hence they better be good memories. If we fast forward 20 years, we might see high school friends with families and one or another son/daughter that has graduated too. For those children, the words of our graduation might be meaningless, but to us, they aren’t. We graduate for us. We speak for ourselves. We remember what we have done and will do in the future.
Image courtesy of Harvard University.