Oral Communication · Oral Communication: Seminars, Speeches and Critical ListeningExtending Understanding: Comparing Values in Speeches and Connecting Public Forums to Experience
1.6About 65 minutes
Learning goals- I can compare the values expressed in speeches from different times and explain an insight from the comparison.
- I can connect issues from a public forum to my own and my peers' experiences.
- I can explain how a discussion or new information changed my understanding of a text.
- I can make connections that respect differences between experiences.
Words to know
values
Beliefs about what matters most, such as equality, freedom, justice or community.
context
The time, place, audience and situation in which a text was created.
echo
A deliberate repetition of words or structure from another text.
public forum
A meeting where community members speak and listen about a public issue.
insight
A new understanding that comes from analysing or comparing.
score
An old word for twenty, as in "four score and seven" (87).
Remember from Grade 10
In Grade 10 you made text-to-self, text-to-text and text-to-world connections and tested them with the "So what?" question: a connection only counts if it helps you understand the text better. Grade 11 asks for effective connections at a higher level: comparing the values in speeches from different times, connecting issues raised in a public forum to your own and your peers' experiences, and noticing how a discussion can change your understanding of a writer's life and work.
Let's start with two famous openings
In 1863, during the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln began a short speech at a military cemetery in Gettysburg: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
One hundred years later, in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington and began his "I Have a Dream" speech: "Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation."
King's "Five score years ago" deliberately echoes Lincoln's "Four score and seven years ago." (A score is 20, so five score is 100.) King is making a text-to-text connection inside his own speech, and inviting listeners to compare the two moments.
Comparing values
Values are the beliefs about what matters most: equality, freedom, sacrifice, community, justice. To compare the values in two speeches:
- Identify each speaker's values from their key words and appeals.
- Find what they share and what differs.
- Consider context: when and where was each speech given, to whom, and why?
- Draw an insight: what does the comparison show that neither speech shows alone?
Connecting a public forum to experience
A public forum is a meeting where community members speak about an issue: a town hall about a bus route, a school board meeting about a schedule change, a consultation about a new park. Listening to a forum, you can extend your understanding by connecting what speakers say to your own experience and to your peers' experiences.
Peers' experiences matter because yours is only one. If a speaker says the bus cut "won't affect many students," you might think of yourself (you drive), but a classmate who takes that bus to her part-time job sees it completely differently. Gathering several experiences tests a speaker's claims against real lives.
Be careful with connections to other people's experiences: don't claim that your experience is the same as someone else's when it isn't ("I know exactly how refugees feel because I moved schools"). An effective connection shows a link and respects the differences.
How a discussion can change your understanding
Sometimes a connection comes from what others say. Suppose you have read John McCrae's poem "In Flanders Fields" many times at Remembrance Day assemblies. Then, in a seminar, a classmate explains that McCrae was a Canadian doctor serving in the First World War and that he wrote the poem in May 1915, after his friend Alexis Helmer was killed in the Second Battle of Ypres. Suddenly the lines "We are the Dead" and "Between the crosses, row on row" read less like a general tribute and more like grief for a particular person, written close to the battlefield. The seminar didn't change the words of the poem; it changed your understanding of them.
Worked exampleLet's compare values in two speeches
Compare the values in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (1863) and King's "I Have a Dream" speech (1963), using the openings above and these lines: Lincoln: "It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work..." King: "Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy."
- Lincoln's values: equality as the nation's founding idea; honouring sacrifice; dedication to an unfinished task.
- King's values: equality and justice for Black Americans; urgency ("Now is the time"); democracy as a promise that must be made real.
- Shared: both treat equality as a promise made at the founding that is not yet fulfilled, and both call on listeners to act.
- Different: Lincoln speaks of finishing a war's work; King speaks a century later of a promise still broken, and he refuses to wait.
- Context: King spoke at the Lincoln Memorial and echoed Lincoln's opening, linking his cause to Lincoln's legacy.
- Insight: the comparison shows that King presents civil rights not as a new demand but as the completion of America's oldest promise.
Both speeches value equality as an unfinished founding promise and call listeners to action. King's adds urgency and frames civil rights as fulfilling Lincoln's legacy, an insight that comes only from comparing them.
Worked exampleLet's connect a public forum to peers' experiences
At a town hall, a councillor says: "Cutting the evening bus on Route 7 will save money and won't affect many people, since ridership after 7 p.m. is low." You don't take that bus. Extend your understanding with connections.
- Self: you don't ride Route 7, so your own experience gives you little to test the claim.
- Peers: you ask around. Two classmates take it home from part-time jobs that end at 9 p.m.; one uses it to get to a community centre for a weekly tutoring program.
- Compare with the claim: low ridership may be true in numbers, but the people who do ride may have no alternative.
- World: this connects to wider questions about how cities measure the value of public transit (number of riders or need of riders).
- Insight: the claim is about how many people are affected; your connections show it should also consider how much they're affected.
Connecting the forum to peers' experiences reveals what the councillor's statistic leaves out: riders who depend on the bus. That turns a simple cost argument into a question about need versus numbers.
Effective connections end in an insight
Ask yourself: "What do I understand now that I didn't before?" If the answer is "nothing," the connection hasn't extended your understanding yet. Keep comparing until it does.
Hands-on activityTwo-speech comparison
You need: an internet connection to find recordings or transcripts (ask a parent which sites are fine), paper and a pen.
- Choose two speeches on a related theme from different times or places, for example two speeches about equality, about the environment, or two graduation speeches.
- Listen to (or read) each and list three values for each speaker, with a quoted phrase as evidence.
- Draw a three-column chart: Speaker 1 | Both | Speaker 2.
- Write a one-sentence insight that comes only from the comparison.
- Ask a family member what they think the most important value in one of the speeches is. Does their answer connect to their own experience? Add it to your chart.
Just for funA weak connection: "This speech is about people. I am also a people."
Technically true. Not yet an insight.
Your turn
1What are values in a speech?
The speaker's beliefs about what matters most, such as equality, freedom, justice or community.
2Why does King say "Five score years ago"?
To echo Lincoln's "Four score and seven years ago" in the Gettysburg Address, connecting his speech and cause to Lincoln's legacy. (Five score is 100 years.)
3Name one value shared by Lincoln's and King's speeches.
Equality as a founding promise that is not yet fulfilled (or: a call to listeners to take up unfinished work).
4Why should you gather peers' experiences, not only your own, when responding to a public forum?
Your experience is only one; others may be affected differently. Several experiences test the speaker's claims more fairly.
5Improve this connection: "The speaker at the forum talked about the arena closing. I play hockey."
Sample: "The speaker said few people use the arena on weekday mornings. My team trains there at 6 a.m. three days a week, so the closure would end our season. That makes me question whether usage was measured at all times of day."
6What did learning about McCrae's friend Alexis Helmer change about how the classmate in this lesson read "In Flanders Fields"?
The poem read less like a general tribute and more like grief for a particular person, written close to the battlefield.
More practice: warm-up
1How many years is five score?
A meeting where community members speak about an issue, such as a town hall.
3Name the three types of connection from Grade 10.
Text-to-self, text-to-text and text-to-world.
4What question tests whether a connection is effective?
What do I understand now that I didn't before? (or So what?)
5In what year did Lincoln give the Gettysburg Address?
More practice: on your own
1Explain why "I know exactly how refugees feel because I changed schools" is a weak connection.
It claims the two experiences are the same when they differ hugely in scale and danger. An effective connection would name a small shared feeling (being new) while respecting the differences.
2Why is context important when comparing values in speeches from different centuries?
Values are expressed in response to specific situations, such as a war or a protest movement. Without context, you might misread a speaker's words or judge them by standards from a different time without understanding why they spoke as they did.
3A forum speaker says a new skatepark "will only attract trouble." Describe how you could test this claim using peers' experiences and the world.
Ask peers who use skateparks what they actually do there and how they're treated; look for information about how skateparks in other towns have worked out (local news, the city's own reports). Comparing these with the claim shows whether it is based on evidence or on assumptions about young people.
4Using the four-step flow (notice, compare, revise, insight), extend a connection between a song you know and a speech about the same theme.
Look for: a specific link (notice), a same/different comparison, a sentence about how the comparison changes your reading of one text (revise), and an insight. Sample: both a protest song and a speech use repetition of a single phrase; the song makes it feel hopeful, the speech makes it feel urgent; I now hear the speech's repetition as a deliberate build; insight: repetition can carry very different moods.
5In a seminar on a poet, a classmate shares that the poet wrote her best-known poems while caring for a sick parent. How might this extend your understanding, and what caution should you keep in mind?
It might make you read themes of loss, tiredness or devotion in her poems more personally. Caution: biography can inform a reading, but the poem's meaning must still be supported by the words; not every poem is about the poet's life.
Challenge
1Write a paragraph comparing the values of two speeches you know (they can be the two in this lesson) that ends with an insight neither speech gives alone.
Look for: values identified for each speaker with quoted evidence, at least one similarity and one difference, attention to context, and a final sentence that states a new insight from the comparison.
2A town holds a public forum on renaming a local school currently named after a historical figure whose policies harmed First Nations communities. Explain how a listener can extend understanding by connecting the forum to self, peers, other texts and the world.
Self: their own connection to the school and name. Peers: classmates, including First Nations, Métis or Inuit students and families, may experience the name very differently. Texts: historical documents, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's reports, or speeches on reconciliation. World: renaming decisions in other Canadian communities. Insight: a name is not just history but a message about who is honoured today. Look for respectful treatment of all perspectives and of Indigenous communities as present-day communities.
3Argue for or against: "Learning about a writer's life always improves your understanding of their work."
Sample against: biography often helps (as with McCrae), but it can also narrow a reading by making every line about the author's life, or replace close reading of the text. It improves understanding when it is used as one source of evidence alongside the words themselves. Look for a clear position and reasons.
Quiz
1. King opened his 1963 speech with "Five score years ago" to:
2. Which statement best describes a value shared by the Gettysburg Address and "I Have a Dream"?
4. Why gather peers' experiences when responding to a public forum?
5. John McCrae, the author of "In Flanders Fields", was:
6. Which connection shows respect for difference?
Big idea: ENG3U expectation 1.6 asks students to extend their understanding of oral texts by making effective connections to personal knowledge and experience, other texts and the world. Curriculum examples include comparing values in speeches by two historical figures and connecting issues from a public forum with their own and peers' experiences.
How to help at home:
- Watch or attend a local council meeting or town hall (many are streamed). Ask your teen how the issue affects people they know.
- Share your own memories of a famous speech or a Remembrance Day poem; family context can deepen a connection.
- When your teen makes a connection, ask: "And what does that help you understand?"
Common difficulties:
- Connections that stop at "me too." Push toward an insight.
- Ignoring context when comparing speeches from different times.
- Over-identifying with experiences that are very different from their own. Encourage connections that respect difference.
This lesson mentions war and remembrance; Remembrance Day can be meaningful in families with service members or veterans, so a conversation about it can be personal.