My name is Devon Brooks, and for In-depth 2020 I have decided to do public speaking. Currently my presenting skills are average at best, and I am interested in how to engage your audience and make your presentation interesting while still keeping it informational. Over the course of the next 5 months my goal is to improve my speaking skills, get some experience, and try to get rid of some of the nerves that I have while presenting. I would practice presenting a couple speeches, and then write a final one to be presented on In-depth Night, on the stage.

My Mentor, Teresa (Teri) Towner is a City Councillor, and a part of a public speaking group called Toast Masters. She can help me improve my speaking skills because of her large amount of experience, and can guide me in how to structure speeches for public talking. I would meet her at either my house or a public place (e.g. Starbucks), and I would practice presenting with her and potentially in front of my classmates. I would be meeting with my mentor around every couple weeks, and then working on my speaking skills in between while also figuring out what to talk about. I would do my final presentation on May 25th (In-Depth night), and will have practice sessions with my mentor/family as practice for presenting. I am not very confident with public speaking, so this is a good opportunity for me to both improve my speaking skills and at the same time improve my confidence. Public speaking is an important life skill, so I thought I could get a head start on life by practicing a lot now, instead of having to deal with the nerves a lot later in life.

Currently I’ve been researching what topic to choose and listening to TED talks on topics I enjoy to get some idea on how to make talking interesting. I have a meeting planned with my mentor for this Thursday after school, to get all the papers signed and start working on becoming a better speaker. My next steps after this is to practice my talking a lot and learn to be a bit more self-confident, and then I’ll start work on writing my speech. I’m changing my project to focus more on the actual talking part, seeing as we’ve already done a lot of work on writing with Mr. Morris.