Vocal Variety

by Courtney Cole

One night last summer, I read The Snowy Day to my boys, ages 3 and 6, for an imaginative reprieve from that unexpectedly hot June evening. As I read, I thought about the public speaking class I teach, and how students struggled with their vocal variety—the ability to vary their rate, tone, and volume in order to emphasize the verbal content and retain audience interest.

As I read my kids the story, I realized that with a children’s book, the way that it is written, one instinctively adopts these aspects of vocal variety in order to engage an audience who is still learning to pay attention and understand vocabulary. The delivery must match and augment the meaning of the words, and thus I realized that children’s picture books offered the perfect opportunity to have student practice and really commit themselves to delivering their words with strong and intentional vocal variety. And thus, on that warm June evening as a I read a children’s book to my young boys, I conceptualized the Delivering with Vocal Variety assignment that is now part of my public speaking course.

While I was excited about the concept of the assignment, I worked with Kara Wasnewsky, Senior Instructional Designer in the Center for Instructional Innovation, to ensure that I created an assignment that was clear in its expectations, responded to the learning outcomes of the course, and was crafted to correspond with benefits of the course’s hybrid delivery format. Through discussion with her, we developed the components necessary to make this assignment engaging and effective. First, in an age when all of us are increasingly reliant on Google to find information, I had students go to the college library, which has a children’s literature section, in order to pick out a book. Next, I had them record themselves reading the book. This offered them the opportunity to work specifically on vocal variety, without (yet) worrying about a live audience, or their nonverbal delivery (gestures, eye contact, etc.) in their public speaking. It also required them to problem solve which technology to use to create and upload the assignment. Finally, I had them write a short reflection paper in which they discussed their choice of book, critiqued their vocal variety, and explained what they learned from doing the assignment. The assignment, thus, did not just focus on vocal variety, but it also developed their ability to critically assess their own public speaking strengths and challenges.

From the work that students submitted, it was clear that the assignment provided the opportunity for students to discover, articulate, and share themselves in and through the act of public speaking. Although the pedagogical focus of the assignment was on delivery in public speaking, it also offered them the opportunity to reflect on their personal histories and the development of their identities as readers and in their families of origin. Thus, it was a powerful vehicle for them to hone their public speaking skills, as well as articulate, acknowledge, and celebrate the families in which they were raised and share their identities with me.

#publicspeaking