Informative Speech Evaluation

While I prepared for my informative speech, I felt that I used credible, reputable and scholarly sources of information like from George Washington University, National First Ladies Library website and from the New York Times.  When I first started to do my research I was anxious about where I was going to begin, but it seems like once I got going I was able to uncover some really interesting facts.

 I felt I kept my information organized and clear.  My speech started from the time Eleanor Roosevelt was born, then I explained when she started her schooling at Allenwoods Acadamy which helped shaped her career as the First Lady.  I ended my speech by explaining what she did as the First Lady and what obstacles she had to overcome.

 Even thou I felt my research and organization was done well I felt that I could have been prepared better for my speech.  During my speech I tried to make eye contact at my audience, but looked at my index cards a lot.  I had a hard time getting pass the "giggles" so it was hard for me to constantly look at my audience.  I wish I had more time and resources to prepare a visual aide like using a Power Point.  I think this would have helped me in not being so distracted. 

Eleanor Roosevelt

In your posting, you will briefly explain which successful leader you chose and why. Secondly, you will want to propose a thesis statement for your speech. Remember, you can revise and rewrite your thesis statement at any time during the speech writing process. This is just your first attempt at formulating your thesis statement.

There are two reason I choose to do my speech on Eleanor Roosevelt.  The first reason would be is because I did not pay a lot of attention to my history classes in High School; I thought it was a very boring subject.  Now that I am more older and wiser I am interested in history and I hope to learn something new.  Secondly, I wanted to choose a woman in American History that had a positive influence as being a successful leader.

At the age 14 Eleanor attended a boarding school in London, this boarding school became the stepping stone in educating Eleanor on how become a successful leader.

Credible Source

 http://www.patheos.com/Library/Mormonism

The Patheos website is a good starting point in researching the Mormonism Religion.  This website contains a religion library regarding multiple religions, thus making Patheos unbiased.  The Mormonism overview page lists several statistic.  This website describes many elements of Mormonism such as Beliefs, Rituals and Worship, Symbolism and their Principles.

Gen-X Latchkey Kids

I am fortunate to be part of the Generation X Latchkey Kids.  "Latchkey Kids" are kids who carry house keys to let themselves in their homes while their parents are at work.  These unsupervised kids would take care of themselves before and/or after school until their parents come home.

Since you were home alone your parents would have a list of things that needed to be done.  The list could include starting your homework, chores and preparing supper.  Kids were given strict instructions on not to open the door for anyone and if someone called never tell them you were home alone.

Latchkey kids became more independent, self-reliant and resourceful because of the early responsibilities that were required of them.  Because of this, Generation X values freedom and responsibility.  I can identify with being independent and wanting the responsibility that comes with it.  I enjoy the freedom that the latchkey kids are use to.

Since the number of divorces was on the rise, there was an increase in the number of women in the workforce these two events would effect the generation's current beliefs and values.  

Skills that I can offer my group:

• I feel I would have good editing/proofreading skills.  My full time job requires me to proofread the customer service staff letters before they a mailed out to our customers.
• Along with the proofreading skills, I also have good written communication skills.  Since I am unable to communicate verbally with the customer service staff, I need to send them feedback in regards to their letters I proofread using written form.
• I am organized and keep track of time frames.  This would be able help our group to stay on task.
• I do have leadership skills from past leadership roles that I have had.  I can use these skills to keep our group organized, to help each other work as a team and help with conflict management.  If needed, I could take the responsibility to have to take on additional roles.
• I have good problem solving and decision making skills.  I am one where I will analyze the situation and look at all aspects of the problem before I make a decision.  I do not like to make assumptions. 

Proposed Code of Conduct: If a group member is finding they are having a hard time finishing their portion of the assignment, they will need to contact the other team members, within a reasonable time frame (to be determined by consensus of the group), for delegation to other team members.  

Nonassertiveness vs Assertiveness

For the past 12 years my husband and I have a house on the Wisconsin River that is 15 miles out of town and in the middle of nowhere.  A few years ago we had gotten some new neighbors that are from a suburb of Chicago.  Since this is their cabin they only come up on weekends and maybe a couple full weeks a year.  Our relationship with them hit it off right away.  My husband would help them on their remolding project, we would get our kids together to play and spend time socializing with them around the campfire.  Things were going great until we started feeling like they were taking advantage of us.

In the beginning they would borrow all sorts of stuff from us, from my husbands tools, to my ironing board and allowing their children to take toys from our house to theirs.  Their dogs would free roam in our yard and we would allow them the use of our boat landing and dock.  It did not bother us at all in the beginning as we were trying to be neighborly with our new neighbors.  As time went on the more they thought they had free will offering of our things.  They started borrowing things without asking and forget to bring them back and would use our yard as their own.  Since we did not want to cause waves with them and thought it was a short term thing we just let it be and took the non-assertive route.

Looking back I realize that this was not the way to handle the situation.  If I would have been assertive and addressed the situation when it came up, I would not have felt like we were being taken advantage of.  I felt our friendship was deteriorating because I had a lot of frustration bottled up inside and I started to avoid them when they would come up to their cabin.  Since I did not want to lose their friendship over something that could have been resolved; I told my self the next time there is a situation with them that I would not avoid it and bring it to their attention.     

The next time we had a conflict with them was this past summer.  Since we live in the country my husband as 5 hound dogs that he uses for hunting.  My husband has a really nice set-up for his hounds and I have to say they are really well behaved.  They typically will only bark when it is time to be fed, when my husband is getting things ready to go out hunting or if someone pulls into our driveway.  Our neighbors have owned their cabin for 5 years now.  They have had no major complaints to us in regards to my husband hounds or the occasional short term barking, until this past summer when they decided to rent their cabin to other families. 

One early Monday morning as my husband and I were leaving for work we seen this red light flashing by our kennels.  My husband went to check it out and found that our neighbors had put a no bark device in the shrubs.  To say the least I was furious!  I felt betrayed and felt like they disrespected our friendship.  I was upset that they hid this device without talking to us first.  All the way to work I pondered on how I was going to deal with this situation.  

Since I am unable to make personal calls at work and I wanted to get in contact with them right away the next best thing was to send an email.  I sent a very vague email asking them what this no bark device was and if there was anything we needed to know about it.  I was shocked by the response I got back stating, "Don't worry about it.  It does not work, the dogs barked for 6 days straight around the clock."  This response set me over the edge because now not only did they disrespect us, they were making false accusations against us.  Knowing how upset I was and knowing that arguing over email was not going to solve the situation I did not respond until I got home.

That evening when I got home I waited until my husband got home from work so we could call them together.  We were unable to make contact by using the telephone so we decided to send an email.  In our email we expressed how we felt betrayed and disrespected and did not understand why they did not come to us first if they felt our dogs were an issue.  We explained that we did not appreciate them making false accusations against us; as it would be like us telling them that are dogs do not bark at all.  We pointed out that we do live in the country and not the suburbs so at times our dogs may bark.  

The next day they contacted my husband by phone and had a good conversation with him.  They did apologize for the comment they made about our dogs barking around the clock and admitted that was not true.  My husband worked out a plan with them for when the dogs do bark excessively.  I feel since we did not ignore the situation, nor did we get aggressive with them and handled the conflict by being assertive the outcome was positive for all involved. 

Losing our Listening

  In Julian Treasure's video he is explaining the different ways we are losing our listening.  He states that the invention of how we record things from writing, to audio and now video has made the "premium of accurate and careful listening disappear."  He further states the world is so noisy that it makes it hard and tiring to listen.  Because of this we are becoming impatient, being desensitized and it is becoming harder for us to pay attention to the quiet. Julian expresses that losing our listening is a serious problem because listening is our access to understanding.  Conscious listening always creates understanding and without conscious listening the world would be a very scary place.    While watching and listening to this video it reminded me of my everyday life.  Just at supper tonight there was so much noise around us, the fan on the microwave, the TV, the dog barking and each one of us trying to talk over the other, that it made it impossible for anyone to listen to anything.  These kind of nights make me impatient and too tired to listen.  When I become too tired to listen I become the "fraudulent listener."  Which effects the type of feedback I am giving back to my family.  If listening is the main way we experience the flow from past to present then we really need to become accurate and ethical listeners.  In Julian's video he lists 5 exercises we can do to improve our listening skills:  1. Silence Excercsise: Take 3 minutes of the day to get silence.2. The Mixer: Try to listen to how many channels of sound one can hear3. Savoring: Enjoying mundane sounds.4. Listening Positions: the idea that you can move your listening position to what you're listening to.5. RASA: Receive, Appreciate, Summorize and Ask   I felt it would be fitting for me to try the "Silence" exercise.  I waited until everyone was asleep, otherwise this exercise would not work.  Almost immediately I felt more relaxed and ready to listen.  The sound of my children breathing almost in sync deed in fact reset my ears and got me ready to listen again.  I feel if I practice this exercise everyday I will have less and less days where I am feeling impatient and too tired to listen.  I feel that I can become the conscious listener Julian is talking about and be able to give effective feedback.  Julian is correct in saying, "That every human being needs to listen consciously in order to live fully"