English 211-H
Name: ____________________________
Speech Communication
Family Heritage Speech
Our identity (the person we were in the past, are in the present, and will be in the future) is determined by
many factors – one of them being our family heritage. This heritage is unique to each of us, molding us in
different ways to shape our individual identities.
Learning Targets
Students Will Be Able To:
- Increase your awareness of their family history and the ways in which it has shaped their identities.
- Practice effective speech techniques to improve public speaking skills.
Talk to family members to construct a formal speech to your classmates. Include one visual to incorporate
during the speech that further illustrates how your family
heritage has shaped your identity.
Presentation:
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Time: Approximately 4-5 minutes
-
Create an outline of your presentation (turned in before
presenting). Practice with this outline to become
familiar with your content. Outlines should be bullet
points, not full sentences.
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Note cards: Yes, you must have them to demonstrate
your preparation (and to calm your nerves!), but
information must be bullet-pointed. DO NOT cut and
paste your full-sentence outline onto your note cards.
Speak to your audience – don’t just read with your head
down!
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Incorporate a visual that brings one aspect of your heritage to life. Be creative with your selection.
Try to pick something other than food, as we will have a “Heritage Food Day” on the last day.
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Know your audience: Define cultural terms with which they may not be familiar.
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Practice effective speech techniques (eye contact/scanning, gestures, tone, rate, pitch, transitions, no
filler words, appropriate use of visuals).
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To smoothen the flow and to calm your nerves – practice, practice, practice!
Outline (Outline must be typed following format in example. A clean copy is submitted
before presenting speech)
I. Introduction
A. Hook
1. Use an effective and creative attention getter as your hook.
B. Bridget
2. Effectively narrow and transition into the thesis.
3. Provide background, such as your family’s origin.
C. Thesis
1. Create a unique thesis statement that analyzes how your family heritage has affected
your identity.
2. Think in terms of your past, present, and/or future.
3. Ultimately, how has it made you into the individual you are today?
4. This is a single-sentence claim that previews your three main points.
II. Body 1: Tradition/Customs
A. What family tradition or custom still impacts your family today?
1. Why has your family held on to this?
2. How does your tradition/custom affect you? This is your deep analysis of the
impact on your identity.
B. Body 2: Morals/Values
1. What values or morals have you followed due to your heritage?
a. Religion
b. Politics
c. Music
d. Occupation
e. Other
2. How have they defined you? This is your deep analysis of the impact on your
identity.
C. Body 3: Influential Person
1. Who is your most unique family member?
2. Why is this person so unique?
3. How does this unique person affect you? This is your deep analysis of the impact on
your identity.
D. Conclusion
1. Discuss how your family heritage has influence/shaped/affected you overall. This
is your restated thesis.
2. Predict how your heritage might affect you in the future to develop a “discovery
conclusion.”
3. End with a clincher that ties back to your hook.
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Steps to the Speech Body Elements
1.
Complete the brainstorming sheet.
2.
Organize your information
o Part I/Body I: Customs and Traditions
 Certain special patterns on holidays? (you can expect something to occur…like watching
a movie together or waking up at 4 AM or baking gingerbread men…more than just
presents on Christmas and birthdays)
 Traditional foods based upon the ethnicity of your family? How much food is made?
 What yearly trips does your family take? Have you visited the same places as your
parents? Grandparents? Why did your parents decide on that?
 What odd remedies does your family use to cure what ails? Where did that come from?
 Personal Analysis: Why does your family keep doing the same thing year after year,
generation after generation? What specific role do you play/do you have with these
customs and traditions? What can you envision using in your own family in the future?
If you have children, what would you like to see them continuing with as far as customs
and traditions?
o Part II/Body II: Values/Morals (definitions adapted from dictionary.com)
 Values (the ideals towards which your family has an affective regard. These values may
be positive, as cleanliness, freedom, or education, or negative, as cruelty, crime, or
blasphemy)
 Morals (your family’s principles concerning the rules of right conduct or the distinction
between what is right and wrong)
 What values and/or morals are important to your family?
 What role does religion play? Why? Has this been the attitude through the generations?
 Does your family do volunteer work? Why? Has this been the attitude through the
generations?
 What political preference does your family have? Why? Has this been the attitude
through the generations?
 What common professions do the adults in your family have? Why? Has this been the
attitude through the generations? Could you find yourself doing the same?
 How important is education? Why do you need a certain grade? Has this been the
attitude through the generations?
 Personal Analysis: How have these values and morals helped to mold and define who
you are? If you had children, will you share these values and morals? Why?
o Part III/Body III: Unique Family Member/the One You Love Most…dead or alive
 Within your family’s history, who has lived an incredible/unique life?
 What stories follow this person?
 What makes this person important enough to use within a family heritage speech?
 Personal Analysis: What impact does/did this person have on your life? Would you
like to emulate certain aspects of this person? Do you want to be the complete opposite
of this person? If you have children, will you share this person’s stories with them? Why
or why not?
3.
Create your outline. I need to see and to hear your content. The thesis and topic sentences must be full
and complete sentences. Everything else should be bullet-pointed phrases. In your speech, you will
elaborate and create complete thoughts.
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EXCERPT FROM A FORMER STUDENT’S OUTLINE:
IV. Body 3: My grandmother, the most unique person in my family, has shaped me into an independent,
family-oriented teenager.
A. She grew up in the Chicagoland area as the daughter of a mobster.
1. Al Capone would come to her house.
a. Shades pulled down
b. Siblings taken to a back bedroom to hide during meetings
2. As a daughter of a mobster, there was a certain image that the family had to maintain.
a. Not allowed to leave the house without gloves and newly shined patent-leather
shoes
b. Not allowed to wear pants
c. Said “Sir” or “Madam”
B. Because she lost her own mother at an early age, she wanted to keep her own family tight.
1. Organized family gatherings
a. Visits on Tuesday with donuts
b. Trips to Chicago every Sunday
c. One week during the summer
2. Her Florida home became a home away from home.
a. Every spring break spent with grandma
b. Brought friend with when older
C. My grandmother was such a positive influence in my life that I do not plan to lose what she has
instilled in me.
1. And so on…………………………………..
Other notes…
 Remember, if you use an A, you must use a B. If you use a 1, you must use a 2.
 Each new idea or fact is a new bullet point.
 Create your note cards to use during the speech. These should have limited bullet-pointed information
on it. Aim for one note card per body point. Do not write on the backs of note cards.
 Practice and time your speech. Practice it as you would want it heard. Practice it in front of others and
ask for feedback. Practice it in front of others and ask them to fill out the rubric. Practice it in front of a
video camera – and watch it – so you can analyze yourself.
 Come to class prepared, confident, and excited to give your speech. Let the audience feel this instead of
your anxiety.
Simply put, I would like to hear about your family and how it has influenced you at fifteen/sixteen and how
you can envision it influencing your future. The concept of identity should be at the forefront when focusing
on your speech. All elements/examples should have a link to your “youness.”
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Family Heritage Speech Brainstorm
List as many details as you can under each heading, in regards to your family’s cultural heritage:
Celebration of holidays:
Traditional foods and eating habits:
Observance of religious customs:
Political preferences:
Music:
Family occupations:
Family trips and vacations:
Cures for the common ailment (cold, flu, stomach ache, etc):
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Answer the following, in regards to your family’s cultural heritage (get help from home!):
When did your relatives immigrate to the United States?
Why did your ancestors leave their home country (if you know this)?
What stories do they like to tell you or have been passed down through the family?
Do you still preserve your family's heritage? How?
Do you still have relatives in your family's homeland? Do you communicate with them?
Have you ever visited your family's homeland? When? If yes, what were your impressions? If not, would you
like to go?
Are there any famous/infamous characters in your family? What are their stories?
Who is the most unique member of your extended family? What makes this person so?
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Speaker’s Name: ________________________
Grading Rubric for Family Heritage Speech
CONTENT:
________ /50
I. Introduction
a. Hook  Quotation, shocking fact, survey of audience, anecdote, etc.
b. Narrowing  Transitions smoothly; prepares audience for thesis
c. Thesis  Analyzes how your family heritage has affected your identity in terms of your
past, present, and/or future; previews three main points in same order they will be
covered in body points.
II. Body
a. Topic Sentences: Opens with a transition word; effectively transitions between
paragraphs; three topic sentences total (one per body topic) that prove how your
identity has been shaped by your family
b. Examples: Includes ample and purposeful details, stories, and artifacts using vivid
imagery to develop speaker’s voice and to make speech engaging
c. Analysis: Connects the examples to the thesis statement by explaining how your
identity has been shaped; The main focus is the speaker rather than the stories
d. Transition words: Purposeful; abundant; smoothly leads audience from one point to
the next
e. Concluding Sentences: Wrap up paragraph; Mirror topic sentence
f. Visual aid: Used during the body of the speech
 Smoothly referenced, incorporated, and explained during speech
 Relevant; reinforces the supporting points
 Unique, thoughtful, and creative
 Large enough to be read/seen by all audience members
III. Conclusion
a. Reiterates the thesis
b. Restates best main reasons
c. Makes prediction about how family heritage will affect you in the future
d. Ends with a memorable clincher statement; makes the reader say, “Wow!”
(over  )
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I. SPEECH TECHNIQUES:
________ /30
A. Enthusiasm and confidence persuades audience.
B. Facial expressions naturally compliment the words without being overdone or
distracting. Be engaged with your own speech! Convey your emotions to your
audience.
C. Eye contact and scanning around audience is ample.
D. Movements and gestures reinforce without distracting.
E. Posture and appearance are professional.
F. Vocal variety (pitch, tone, volume, enunciation) is appropriately used.
G. Rate of speech is neither too fast nor too slow.
H. Filler words (like, um, uh, and stuff, whatever) are eliminated.
I. Use of the effective pause is sophisticated.
J. Delivery, although formal, sounds natural and conversational; speaker does not sound
like a stiff robot.
K. Speech is 4-5 minutes in length. (½ letter grade deducted for every 30 seconds under
4:00 or over 6:00.)
II. PREPARATION:
_________ / 20
A. Outline
1. Complete, detailed, and thorough
2. Typed with correct outline format following the handout (I, A, 1, a, i).
3. Spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are correct and virtually error-free.
4. Complete sentences have end punctuation; incomplete sentences do not.
5. Outline is turned in before presenting.
B.
Note card(s)
1. Thesis is a full sentence; other points are just bullet-pointed.
2. Used as an aid, not a crutch; does not have entire speech written out
3. Neat and readable; logical order
4. Cards have a reasonable amount of information; contain white space
5. No writing on the backs of the note cards
TOTAL POINTS: ________ /100
~ Divided by 2 ~
TOTAL POINTS ENTERED IN GRADEBOOK: ________ /50
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