On this new episode of the Heights Herald’s teenVoice podcast, staff writers Laila Smith and Livie Powers take a look at the inner workings of the award-winning Columbia Heights High School speech team, including how some of the categories work and some fun traditions of speech. Fellow team members Elliott Carruthers, Finn Sandvik join too and share about how they deal with speech and the judge comments. Who knows? Maybe after a listen, you’ll want to join speech next year as well! And if you find yourself interested, talk to Mr. Hollermann in the music hallway or Ms. Mann in the English hallway!
Read a partial transcript of the episode’s opening minutes below!
Hello, Hylanders. Welcome back to another episode of teenVoice. You’re here with staff writers Livie and Laila, and today we’re going to talk about the Columbia Heights High School speech team and what it’s like behind the scenes. For our first guest, we have Finn Sandvik.
Hello!
So, Finn, what’s your category?
I’m in informative speaking.
Can you tell us a little bit about what informative speaking is?
Yeah. So, informative speaking in speech is—it’s one of the three writing categories, and it’s basically like, you can choose any topic, and it’s like an informative thing. You know, you’re not arguing something, but you’re giving information about stuff. It’s also the only category with a visual aid or props. So you get, like, foam boards, and you can put images and, like, move stuff around.
Okay, what made you choose this category?
I think the reason I chose info is because I’m not really a good actor and, like, I like writing a lot, and so I think it was only thing I was really comfortable with, because I wasn’t very comfortable being a, like, performer yet.
That’s really interesting. So, for my first question: How was it when you first joined speech? What did you expect it to be like?
When I first joined speech, it was, like, I kind of joined just on a whim. Like, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I kind of just went because all my friends were doing it. So, like, I didn’t really know what to expect. I knew that it was like public speaking, but I kind of thought it was like in a group, so I kind of went into it with, like, no expectations. And I think that was probably the best way.
Okay, so for all the people not in speech, what is a speech room in a competition like?
So basically, you go with your team at the school, bring you to the competition, and then you guys do like a warm-up around the school, where you guys just do, like, tongue twisters and stuff like that. And then you’ll go to your first round. There’s three rounds, three prelim rounds, where you do your piece for different judges, with different people in each round, and then you’ll get scored, and then whoever has the lowest score. So, if you have, like, a one in your first round and one in the next and the one in your third round, then you’ll have the lowest possible score, and you’ll get into finals from the constant critiques from judges in the scoring.
How do you manage it all? What are some remedies you do to keep it balanced throughout the speech season without letting critiques get to you?
Yeah, so, judges will give you critiques along with your scores. So they’ll tell you what they think you could do better or what they think was wrong with your speech. And a lot of times it’s like you can take a little bit from each judge, but no judge is going to have the same opinion on what will make your speech better. So, unless it’s like a recurring issue, I try not to, like, worry about it too much, because then I’m just trying to be perfect for everybody. When I know that, if it’s good enough for me, then it’s whatever.
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