When we were offered a chance to review one of many helpful offerings from Hewitt Homeschooling Resources, I brought the choice to my 13-year-old son: Would you like to do this review, and, if so, which product would you most like?
With little hesitation, my succinct son said, "Yes. The Speech one."
As soon as our copy of Lightning Lit & Comp Speech came in, my son slowly began to pace himself through it, and, the other day, narrated a review of the program as follows.
Recently, I decided to get Lightning Lit & Comp Speech.
I wanted this curriculum for a few reasons:
- I am going into highschool and need high school credits
- I need to learn speech as I am in a speech and debate club.
For this review, we received physical copies of Lightning Lit & Comp, Speech Student's Guide and Lightning Literature & Composition Teacher's Guide to the Second Edition of Speech.
We also needed to get Lend Me Your Ears Great Speeches in History by William Safire from our library.
This book is a necessary part of the curriculum, which uses speeches from the book to teach different speech writing skills.
In the curriculum, there are four units. Each unit has two lessons.
Each lesson follows this basic pattern:
- Read specific speeches.
- Answer comprehension questions about those speeches.
- Read about how to write speeches drawing from the speeches you read earlier in the lesson.
- Complete a choice from given writing exercises.
Lessons focus on such things as speech openings, content, research and factual arguments, organization, word choice and style, and more.
In the book, there are suggested schedules for completing the curriculum over the course of a full year or a single semester. At first, I didn’t notice these and I nearly made myself do extra writing exercises. Then, my mom pointed them out to me, I fixed my mistake, and I am now progressing through the semester plan.
The student guide is a 145 page softcover book with an Introduction that tells you how to use the guide. Then, there are the four units followed by appendixes that offer discussion questions, additional reading, and schedules.
The Teacher Guide is a stapled, 3-holed punch pile of 59 pages. Helpful features in it include grading tips, schedules, answers to the comprehension questions and checklists for writing.
So far, I have liked two of the speeches in this curriculum: Vice President Spiro Agnew Castigates the Media (which had content I totally agreed with) and General Douglas MacArthur Reminds West oint Cadets of Duty, Honor, Country because I was a powerful speech with a lot of meaning in it. It was moving and inspiring, but not complicated.
The curriculum helps me to write better by giving me multiple examples of powerful speeches, even though some of the people’s perspectives are opposite to mine. So far, I have worked on Openings and Content, learning such things as how to use humor and “bad news and good news”.
I would recommend this curriculum to those who want to earn high school credits and read impressive speeches. I think it is a great tool for those who need to learn speech writing skills and want to earn high school credits with an easy-to-follow independent study.
Back to Mom:
I, too, think it is a well-written curriculum. I appreciate how it uses real speeches from history that are collated in one volume and helps students study examples of strong Openings, Content, Research and Factual Arguments, Organization, Audience considerations, Words and Sentences, Rhetorical Styles, and Conclusions.
I also like that the curriculum ties in practical speech skills such as looking your best, sounding your best, and using visual aids, asking students to write and give their own speeches.
Further, I love how easy Lightning & Lit Comp Speech makes it for motivated students to progress with independent study while Mom or another mentor or teacher check in using tools such as Checklists, Grading Templates, and Answers to Comprehension Questions.
The curriculum also, of course, could be used for 1:1 study time, large group, or classroom study. It even has Discussion Questions to aid with such partner and group studies.
I would recommend the curriculum to any high school student interested in learning more about Speech - both by reading quality speech examples and also by writing and delivering your own speeches.
My son, although young for the curriculum, is stretching his skills with it, and, I believe, will be a more adept Speech and Debate club member next year due to his Lightning Lit & Comp Speech studies.
