The return

I really don’t see the value in informative speeches. A kid stands in front of a class with a poorly written essay which they’ve cut up into strips and recites in the most dull of terms whichever text they’re studying. The teacher, struggling to stay awake, has to decide what’s more important: the content or the speech. Sure it’s easy to say they’re both the same, but really? You get a really intelligent but painfully shy student deliver an awful speech with superb insights: what are you going to do?

So I always try to add a persuasive element to the task so the speech becomes foregrounded. And so recently, instead of assigning the students a speech about a speech, I went through Barack Obama’s victory acceptance speech over the course of three periods, then finished with the statement: “This is the greatest. Speech. Ever.” Then I challenged them to prove me wrong. So the students had to research a speech, and then construct a persuasive speech with an actual point to it.

Nothing too special, I know.

But

Then I actually looked at the programme (I don’t often do that, because.) And I realised there was another speech scheduled. This time it was meant to be a propaganda speech. Whilst normally I would do something like that (I have before) I wasn’t going to make them do another speech right after that, if for no other reason than 64 speeches in a row was going to suck.

So what was I going to do? We’re “studying” Animal Farm in class and I decided to play around with political obfuscation for a bit. 

  

1     I opened with making them read Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English language” Unfortunately we didn’t have more than day to concentrate on it, so we didn’t do much more than look at the important points. I also made them write the 6 rules for clearer writing on the front of their English files. 

2    We looked at some Youtube clips of that modern master of obfuscation, Tony Abbott. We looked at how he was able to talk so much without saying anything. The interview with Leigh Sales was particularly instructive. 

3     We came up with some rules for how to deal with questions you don’t want to answer.

a.       Never lie

b.       Never use the word ‘lie’.

c.       Never apologise for the fault you made. You can apologise for the damage you caused, or the way people feel, but never apologise for what you’ve been caught out doing.

d.       Open your answer with, “yes, and…” “well, you see…” or “that’s one way of looking at a very complex situation…” and then proceed to say whatever you want regardless of the question.

e.       Turn the question onto the interviewer. It buys time.

f.        Overload the answer with as many things as you want to talk about so the interview time is tied up with fewer questions.

g.       Say “As I said earlier,” with just a hint of frustration, and then give an answer regardless of whether or not you actually did say the answer earlier. it will make the interviewer look unprofessional.

h.       Have an expert opinion ready to use the moment you can.

i.         Have three catchphrases ready to pull out anytime the interview is getting away from you.

j.         Deflect criticism onto the opposition party.

4    4  Now they’re ready for the assignment.

The Assignment:

The students are to take on the role of a politician caught in a scandal. Their defence is to be given in one of 5 ways. Each part of the assessment is to be assigned “randomly”.

A student is a politician from a Left – Extreme; Left – Moderate; Right – Moderate; Right – Extreme party. Obviously some information is required to be provided; with Animal Farm being studied I took some time to look at Karl Marx’s philosophies, and how it was corrupted by communism; and then I looked at Adam Smith and Ayn Rand philosophies of capitalism and how it was corrupted by, well, capitalism.

There were 8 possible scandals in total. They were:

• Caught cheating on spouse                    
• Caught lying about insult about the PM.
• Cheated on tax for 5 years.                    
• Accepted $10,000 donation from a known criminal        
• Philosophical hypocrisy:

•           (Left) Supports a law that would increase the taxes on the unemployed and give benefits to corporations                                  

•           (Right) Employs 17 illegal immigrants under the minimum wage
• Lie:
•           (Left) Caught lying about a time they said that they thought climate change was a hoax         
•           (Right) Overheard calling a citizen a “fat cow”.       

All have some basis in reality and we had some discussion over real life scandals and how the politicians involved tried desperately (and often, hilariously) to get out of trouble.

The final option was I think, the awesome icing on the kick-arse cake. The students will have to defend themselves in one of the following 5 formats:

• Doorstop
• Press Conference
• Question Time
• TV interview
• Tv debate

Each has different rules which requires the remainder of the class to pay attention and prepare for other scandals just in case.

A doorstop is when the politician is ambushed by a pack of reporters on the way out of a building. The student will stand at the top of a staircase, and at least six other students will thrust their microphones in his face and ask questions. The student must respond to questions for 5 minutes,

A press conference is a little more civilised. The student gets to address the class for 2 minutes. After that they must field 5 questions from the class.

Question time will be more difficult. They have 5 minutes to explain themselves. However, during that time, the opposing party (half the class) will be heckling them. Their own party (the other half) will be heckling in return. The student must address at least three heckles.

TV interview is the most variable. Over the course of 5 minutes, the student must field questions about the scandal from an interviewer. The interviewer will be chosen at “random” (ie, by me) and it may actually be me.

TV debate is similar to the tv interview, except, there are two students involved; one from either side of the political spectrum. Both have their own scandals to deal with while trying to deflect attention away from themselves onto their opponent’s scandal. This involved most manipulation on my part as I had to ensure there was an even number of students, and an equal amount of lefties and right-wingers. I also need to make sure the ability of the opponents is similar.

Other considerations include: coaching the students to keep insults and interjections parliamentary safe. So no personal attacks that aren’t directly related to the scandal at hand, and no use of the word “liar”.

The part I’m most looking forward to is tomorrow when I tell them why the scandal descriptions are so vague:

Details are filled in on the spot. This is where the improvisation aspect occurs. If the person playing the main role doesn’t give the details, the other participants will. Who exactly is the known criminal? How much does the politician actually pay those immigrants? What is the marital status of the politician? What exactly did they call the PM? Who was the citizen called a fat cow?

More to follow