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Tuesday 18 September 2012

Oral Language: Continuing with the Main Idea!

We continue to work on explaining the main idea in oral texts. Today we watched Kevin Alloca's oral presentation on "Why Videos Go Viral" from TED TALKS.

This is a great presentation...and we will be turning to it again, particularly when we start creating full persuasive essays, as he provides an excellent model of a persuasive essay format (you'll notice he provides an argument, supports that argument with 3 key points which are in turn supported by clear evidence/proof and then thoroughly explained...but that is something we will explore later in more depth!)

The focus of today was to again note down a speaker's key words and then look over those words to determine what is MOST IMPORTANT. What is MOST IMPORTANT typically leads to the overall main idea. When writing about the main idea, it helps to use those KEY WORDS in our explanation because that keeps it very SPECIFIC. One of our goals in explaining our understanding of an oral text is to be very specific to the text and also to be very CONCISE and to try to explain ourselves in one sentence.

I like to combine oral language and media studies because typically when giving an oral presentation people use media as well (such as a powerpoint or prezi) to clarify their ideas. In this talk, he puts key words on screen. Students, this is a clear indication that they are important! Not only is he saying them, he is showing them as well. He is emphasizing them.

Student will eventually be giving presentations of their own. It is helpful to see a model of a good presentation.

Also, the work we are doing now in crafting specific and concise main idea sentences will impact later study in literacy--for when we start explaining the main ideas in our readings, for example (also known as 'themes' in works of fictions), or when we start developing introductions to persuasive essays. The skill of being specific and concise is one that is needed time and again in the process of communication--whether we are speaking or writing. This is our first foothold in the development of that skill!

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