Emma M. '22 competes in 2022 Canadian National Public Speaking Championships

Last week, Emma M. ’22 participated in the Canadian National Public Speaking Championships held virtually from St. John’s Ravenscourt School in Winnipeg, Manitoba representing Alberta and STS. Emma is an experienced public speaker achieving success in several categories since she began the program in Middle School. Emma was a strong competitor representing STS with distinction.

In this tournament, students must compete in four categories including impromptu speaking, persuasive speech, oral interpretation of prose or poetry, and national style debate. In the impromptu category, students are presented with 3 topics and must select one having only two minutes to prepare. Emma spoke on the topics, “there are many paths to success” and “more is less.” This category of debate pairs students from different schools where each student is judged individually. Her first impromptu debate topic was, “This house would only imprison violent offenders” and the second topic was “assuming a trade-off is required, this house believes that history education in post-conflict societies should focus on reconciliation at the cost of the truth”; both challenging and engaging topics.

In the persuasive speech category, students must present a problem of significance and then provide solutions to overcome the issue. Emma spoke on the First Nations water crisis in Canada. Interpretation of prose or poetry allows the student to interpret the literature and to identify voices and character development through their different use of voices. Judges are asked to consider if the author of the selection would like this student to be the voice for their auditory selection. In this category, Emma read from the text, Politically Correct Three Little Pigs.

Although Emma competed online through the Zoom platform, she found the experience rewarding and was thrilled to represent Alberta and STS.