Grade 10 · secular
This is a talking-and-listening course, not a report-writing course. Your child learns to figure out what a specific listener already knows and cares about, build a spoken case for that exact person, and control how they sound and look while saying it. Every speech gets recorded and sent to a real person — a grandparent, an aunt, a sibling — instead of being given to a classroom. Then your child watches their own recording and grades it against a specific checklist instead of just going with "I think that went fine." By the end, they're building an argument that answers pushback out loud, delivering it to someone real, and comparing what they thought of their own performance to what that person actually thought.
The whole year, in plain English. Tap any unit to see every skill inside, nothing is hidden.
Your child spends most of this unit listening to other people's recorded speeches, not making their own. The goal is to build a shared vocabulary — claim versus support, organizational pattern, bias, audience profile — that every later unit in the course reuses. Think of it as sharpening the ear before asking the mouth to do anything.
Given a short transcript or recording, students state the speaker's central claim in one sentence, distinguishing it from the supporting reasons offered for it.
Given a recorded excerpt following a previously modeled organizational pattern (problem-solution, chronological, cause-effect, or comparison), students name the pattern and point to the specific signal phrase the speaker used to indicate it, using the same signal-phrase test demonstrated in the worked example.
Students classify a short speech excerpt as following a problem-solution, chronological, cause-effect, or comparison organizational pattern, and identify the specific phrase or transition that signals the pattern.
Students identify at least one instance of bias or unsupported assertion in a recorded speech and explain, in writing, what specific evidence is missing that would be needed to support the claim.
Given two recordings of speakers arguing opposite sides of a similar issue, students compare how each speaker's choice of organizational pattern and use of evidence serves their differing points of view.
Students construct a written audience profile for a real, named individual (e.g., a parent, grandparent, sibling), specifying that person's likely prior knowledge, values, disposition toward a given topic, and at least two specific likely objections, with a one-paragraph justification for each prediction grounded in evidence about that person rather than a stereotype of 'people like them'.
Students distinguish between a self-rated impression of how well a speech communicated ('it went well') and a criteria-based evaluation of the same speech using a named rubric, and explain at least one instance where the two would disagree.
Given two never-before-heard recorded speeches on unfamiliar topics, students independently complete a structured listening guide identifying claim, organizational pattern, and at least one instance of bias or unsupported assertion for each, without teacher prompting during listening.
Students explain why predicting an audience's likely objections by assuming shared characteristics of a demographic group (e.g., 'grandparents don't like technology') produces a less accurate profile than gathering specific evidence about the named individual.
Now your child builds their own argument — for delivery, not for reading. The core idea: a listener only gets one pass, in real time, they can't re-read a sentence, so everything about how support is chosen, ordered, and phrased has to be built around that. This unit uses the real audience profile from Unit 1 as its foundation.
Given a spoken claim and three candidate pieces of evidence, select the two strongest for a specific named audience and state why the third is weaker for that listener.
Recall the three organizational patterns for spoken argument taught in this unit (problem-solution, comparative/point-by-point, cause-effect) and state one defining feature of each.
Given their own Unit 1 audience profile and a set of three supports, justify in writing which of the three organizational patterns best fits this specific listener and purpose, connecting a named feature of the audience profile to a named feature of the pattern.
Distinguish a written essay outline from a spoken-argument outline by identifying which features of a sample written outline would fail if delivered aloud without modification (e.g., dense subordinate clauses, absent verbal signposts, citation-page dependence).
Compose two verbal signpost phrases (a preview and a transition) for a given point in a spoken argument that a reader's paragraph break or header would otherwise signal in print.
Cite a source aloud within a spoken sentence (naming who, what, and why-credible in under two seconds of speech) rather than reading a citation as a reader would see it on a slide or page.
Critique a peer's draft spoken outline by identifying one place where the chosen organizational pattern does not actually match the stated audience profile, citing a specific mismatch rather than a general impression.
Given a 3-minute recording of their own draft delivery and their written outline, identify at least two specific points where the structure audible in the recording diverges from the structure written in the outline.
Given an unfamiliar persuasive scenario and an audience profile the class has never analyzed (e.g., a workplace, civic, or cross-cultural listener), select and justify an organizational pattern for that new context using the same reasoning taught for known audiences.
Evaluate a claim about how far an argument can be adapted to an audience before it stops being 'the same argument,' using a specific case (e.g., the same claim reshaped for two audiences with opposing values) not discussed in class, and take a defensible position with reasons.
This is the unit about how something is said, not what's said. The big idea your child needs to actually believe, not just agree with on paper, is that feeling confident while speaking is not the same as communicating clearly — a recording will show filler words, lost eye contact, or a pace nobody could follow, even when it felt smooth in the moment.
Given a short recorded speech excerpt, identify the organizational pattern used (e.g., problem-solution, chronological) and state whether delivery choices obscured a structural transition.
Define and correctly label each of the nine delivery criteria (rate, volume, articulation, vocal variety, filler words, pause, gesture, posture, eye contact) when shown an isolated example of each in a short video clip.
Given the definition and a labeled worked example of each of the six vocal-delivery criteria on the reference card, match a new one-line audio description to the correct criterion name using the taught definitions, without needing to detect the behavior in a full unscripted clip.
Given a paired set of clips of the same script delivered with strong vocal delivery versus weak vocal delivery, rate each clip against the vocal-delivery portion of the rubric (rate, volume, articulation, vocal variety, filler, pause) and cite the specific moment supporting each rating.
Explain why a clip with confident, fluent-sounding vocal delivery and a clip with hesitant vocal delivery can receive the SAME organizational-pattern score, using specific evidence from both clips.
Given a video clip where a speaker's verbal claim (e.g., confident assertion) and physical delivery (e.g., avoided eye contact, closed posture) conflict, predict what a listening audience would most likely believe and justify the prediction using named physical-delivery criteria.
Using the full course delivery rubric, self-evaluate a recording of one's own delivery of the Unit 2 spoken argument, citing a specific timestamp as evidence for each of the six required criteria ratings.
Given one's own self-evaluation results, name the two lowest-scoring, most fixable delivery behaviors and generate a concrete rehearsal plan (specific practice actions, not general intentions) targeting those two behaviors.
After a delayed re-recording at least one week later, compare the new self-evaluation ratings on the two previously targeted behaviors to the original ratings and determine, citing timestamp evidence from both recordings, whether the targeted behaviors changed.
Everything comes together here — audience profile, structure, delivery — plus one brand-new skill: answering a real objection out loud, inside a live-feeling speech, without falling apart or restarting the argument. The final task is delivered to an actual family member and then checked against what that person actually thought.
Given a mixed-unit warm-up quiz covering audience profile, claim/support, organizational pattern, and delivery-criteria vocabulary from Units 1-3, students correctly define and apply each term to a short example.
Given a recorded speech excerpt, students identify which specific piece of evidence or claim in it is most vulnerable to counterargument.
Students distinguish a straw-man objection from the strongest real objection an audience is likely to raise, when given three candidate objections to a sample argument.
Given a new claim/objection pair structurally identical to the Day 6 worked example (one candidate rebuttal that merely restates the claim, one that directly engages the specific content of the objection), students correctly identify which rebuttal actually answers the objection.
Students generate the single strongest likely objection a specific, named real audience member (not a generic audience) would raise against their own draft claim, using that audience member's profile.
Students write a rebuttal segment that answers the identified objection without abandoning or restarting their argument's existing organizational pattern.
Students apply the cumulative Units 1-3 rubric (audience adaptation, argument structure, delivery criteria) plus the new rebuttal criterion to score a peer's rehearsal recording, citing timestamped evidence for each score.
Students explain why anticipating a counterargument is a structural addition to an argument's case rather than a delivery-polish technique.
Students self-evaluate their own delivered address against the cumulative rubric using timestamped evidence from their own recording, before seeing the listener's response.
Given their own self-evaluation and their real listener's recorded or written response to the same address, students identify specific points of discrepancy and generate a plausible explanation for each.
Students propose a general principle for deciding whether self-evaluation or audience response should govern revision when the two disagree, and test that principle against a hypothetical higher-stakes scenario (e.g., a job interview or public testimony) not covered in class.
From the parent guide
This is a talking-and-listening course, not a report-writing course. Your child learns to figure out what a specific listener already knows and cares about, build a spoken case for that exact person, and control how they sound and look while saying it. Every speech gets recorded and sent to a real person — a grandparent, an aunt, a sibling — instead of being given to a classroom. Then your child watches their own recording and grades it against a specific checklist instead of just going with "I think that went fine." By the end, they're building an argument that answers pushback out loud, delivering it to someone real, and comparing what they thought of their own performance to what that person actually thought.
Unit 1 · what to expect
Your child spends most of this unit listening to other people's recorded speeches, not making their own. The goal is to build a shared vocabulary — claim versus support, organizational pattern, bias, audience profile — that every later unit in the course reuses. Think of it as sharpening the ear before asking the mouth to do anything.
The full guide covers all 4 units: where kids get stuck, what to say, and how to tell it's working. Included with the course.
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