Speech Rubric (Teen Leadership)
A “5” will perfect the following...
✴ Dress and Grooming: Think “Sunday Best”! This means..
• Shirts are buttoned and not low cut. No sweatshirts or sportswear.
• No jeans, sweatpants or sportswear.
• Skirts are an appropriate length.
• Shoes fit the dress: no UGGs, flipflops, tennis shoes, etc
**Neatness counts from HEAD to TOE!! Make sure your hair is combed and neat;
clothing is pressed, cleaned, tucked in & fits properly and shoes are outfit
appropriate.
✴
Speech topic: Be sure that your speech remains on target. It’s great to get
creative, but don’t veer too far from the given topic!
✴
Introduction and Conclusion: Although these are two separate parts of the
speech, they should be connected! Think of them as bookends to the body of your
speech. The introduction should be catchy and memorable. This can include posing a
question to your audience, a quotation (with citation!) or a story. The conclusion
should wrap everything up neatly with a nice bow! Again, it should be connected nicely
with the intro. Both of these parts should be memorized to maximize effectiveness!
✴
Delivery Method: Don’t forget the four categories- 1) actuate 2)
motivate/persuade 3) entertain 4) inform (using dates, facts, statistics etc. of course!)
The method should be decided on before the speech is written or be identified early
on in the process.
✴
Time: Stick to the time bracket of one minute to one and a half minutes unless
otherwise specified.
✴
Body language: This includes...
• Posture- Stand up straight, shoulders back, hands out of pockets, head up and
minimal fidgeting/wiggling.
• Eye contact- Think sprinkler! It is important that you establish eye contact with
the whole class. Make sure you’re not just focusing on one person!
• Facial expressions- It’s important to smile, raise eyebrows, open eyes
wider...anything you would do in a normal conversation.
• Hand gestures- Again, these should be natural, like they would be in a
conversation.
• Energy level: Be enthusiastic when delivering your speech! Your audience is
anxious to hear what you have to say, so wow them with your passion!
**Do not be overwhelmed! Hopefully you see how many times, doing one automatically
leads to doing others. For example, if you are enthusiastic, you will be very likely to
have great facial expressions and use hand gestures. Remember to remain as natural
as possible!
✴Vocal Projection: Speak slowly and steadily. Speak with a purpose and use “um”,
“uhhh” and “like” minimally. Use appropriate word selection. Your intonation should be
natural and conversational.
A “4” will look like this...
✴ Dress and Grooming: Think “Sunday Best”! This means..
• Shirts are buttoned and not low cut. No sweatshirts or sportswear.
• No jeans, sweatpants or sportswear.
• Skirts are an appropriate length.
• Shoes fit the dress: no UGGs, flipflops, tennis shoes, etc
One of these may have been forgotten!
**Neatness counts from HEAD to TOE!! Make sure your hair is combed and neat;
clothing is pressed, cleaned, tucked in and fits properly; and shoes are outfit
appropriate.
✴
Speech topic: Speech remained on target for the most part and veered off
course minimally.
✴
Introduction and Conclusion: The bookends were a perfect set! The quotations
didn’t have citations, but the introduction and conclusion were catchy and tied in to
each other well. They were almost memorized too!
✴
Delivery Method: Don’t forget the four categories- 1) actuate 2)
motivate/persuade 3) entertain 4) inform (using dates, facts, statistics etc. of course!)
The method was on target for the most part. Maybe not enough statistics or facts were
used.
✴
Time: Stick to the time bracket of one minute to one and a half minutes unless
otherwise specified.
✴
Body language: This includes...
• Posture- Stand up straight, shoulders back, hands out of pockets, head up and
minimal fidgeting/wiggling.
• Eye contact- Think sprinkler! It is important that you establish eye contact with
the whole class. Make sure you’re not just focusing on one person!
• Facial expressions- It’s important to smile, raise eyebrows, open eyes
wider...anything you would do in a normal conversation.
• Hand gestures- Again, these should be natural, like they would be in a
conversation.
• Energy level: Be enthusiastic when delivering your speech! Your audience is
anxious to hear what you have to say, so wow them with your passion!
Most of these were achieved to an acceptable level. Maybe eye contact wasn’t
always there or facial expressions were lacking.
**Do not be overwhelmed! Hopefully you see how many times, doing one automatically
leads to doing others. For example, if you are enthusiastic, you will be very likely to
have great facial expressions and use hand gestures. Remember to remain as natural
as possible!
✴Vocal Projection: Speak slowly and steadily. Speak with a purpose and use “um”,
“uhhh” and “like” minimally. Use appropriate word selection. Your intonation should be
natural and conversational.
These words only slipped in occasionally and intonation was almost like a
conversation!
A “3” will look like this...
✴ Dress and Grooming: Think “Sunday Best”! This means..
• Shirts are buttoned and not low cut. No sweatshirts or sportswear.
• No jeans, sweatpants or sportswear.
• Skirts are an appropriate length.
• Shoes fit the dress: no UGGs, flipflops, tennis shoes, etc
Two or more of these were forgotten.
**Neatness counts from HEAD to TOE!! Make sure your hair is combed and neat;
clothing is pressed, cleaned, tucked in and fits properly; and shoes are outfit
appropriate.
✴
Speech topic: We almost lost you a few times on the topic. Most of it was on
target but you veered a few times from the main point.
✴
Introduction and Conclusion: The bookends of the introduction and conclusion
didn’t quite match up. The introduction was pretty good, but we didn’t catch the citation
of that quotation you used. The conclusion was there, but wasn’t quite the clincher we
were hoping for. Memorization was a bit lacking- you had to look at your sheet several
times.
✴
Delivery Method: Don’t forget the four categories- 1) actuate 2)
motivate/persuade 3) entertain 4) inform (using dates, facts, statistics etc. of course!)
The method was decided on before you gave your speech, but after it was written.
The method was only almost achieved.
✴
Time: Stick to the time bracket of one minute to one and a half minutes unless
otherwise specified.
✴
Body language: This includes...
• Posture- Stand up straight, shoulders back, hands out of pockets, head up and
minimal fidgeting/wiggling.
• Eye contact- Think sprinkler! It is important that you establish eye contact with
the whole class. Make sure you’re not just focusing on one person!
• Facial expressions- It’s important to smile, raise eyebrows, open eyes
wider...anything you would do in a normal conversation.
• Hand gestures- Again, these should be natural, like they would be in a
conversation.
• Energy level: Be enthusiastic when delivering your speech! Your audience is
anxious to hear what you have to say, so wow them with your passion!
Eye contact was occasional, but the energy level could have used a little “umph”.
You smiled, but didn’t have any hand gestures.
**Do not be overwhelmed! Hopefully you see how many times, doing one automatically
leads to doing others. For example, if you are enthusiastic, you will be very likely to
have great facial expressions and use hand gestures. Remember to remain as natural
as possible!
✴Vocal Projection: The “ums”, “uhhhs” and “likes” found there way into your speech
quite a few times and there was only a little bit of intonation to be found.
A “2” will look like this...
✴ Dress and Grooming: Think “Sunday Best”! This means..
• Shirts are buttoned and not low cut. No sweatshirts or sportswear.
• No jeans, sweatpants or sportswear.
• Skirts are an appropriate length.
• Shoes fit the dress: no UGGs, flipflops, tennis shoes, etc
3 or more of these were forgotten.
**Neatness counts from HEAD to TOE!! Make sure your hair is combed and neat;
clothing is pressed, cleaned, tucked in and fits properly; and shoes are outfit
appropriate.
✴
Speech topic: Speech only hit the target on occasion. We weren’t quite sure
where you were going with what you were saying to us.
✴
Introduction and Conclusion: The bookends of the introduction and the
conclusion are not a matching set! Introduction was there, but we didn’t get a story,
quotation or question. Conclusion was there, but didn’t wrap the speech up neatly or
creatively.
✴
Delivery Method: Don’t forget the four categories- 1) actuate 2)
motivate/persuade 3) entertain 4) inform (using dates, facts, statistics etc. of course!)
The method was decided on right before giving the speech, but was pretty much on
target.
✴
Time: Stick to the time bracket of one minute to one and a half minutes unless
otherwise specified.
✴
Body language: This includes...
• Posture- Stand up straight, shoulders back, hands out of pockets, head up and
minimal fidgeting/wiggling.
• Eye contact- Think sprinkler! It is important that you establish eye contact with
the whole class. Make sure you’re not just focusing on one person!
• Facial expressions- It’s important to smile, raise eyebrows, open eyes
wider...anything you would do in a normal conversation.
• Hand gestures- Again, these should be natural, like they would be in a
conversation.
• Energy level: Be enthusiastic when delivering your speech! Your audience is
anxious to hear what you have to say, so wow them with your passion!
Most of these were lacking. Eye contact was minimal, shoulders were not back,
lots of fidgeting, and there were very little hand gestures or facial expressions
which means there wasn’t a lot of energy.
**Do not be overwhelmed! Hopefully you see how many times, doing one automatically
leads to doing others. For example, if you are enthusiastic, you will be very likely to
have great facial expressions and use hand gestures. Remember to remain as natural
as possible!
✴Vocal Projection: Almost no intonation and not quite natural. Lots of “ums”, “likes”, and
“uhhs” were scattered throughout.
A “1” will look like this...
✴ Dress and Grooming: Think “Sunday Best”! This means..
• Shirts are buttoned and not low cut. No sweatshirts or sportswear.
• No jeans, sweatpants or sportswear.
• Skirts are an appropriate length.
• Shoes fit the dress: no UGGs, flipflops, tennis shoes, etc
Almost none of these were met. Did you just roll out of bed and into class?
**Neatness counts from HEAD to TOE!! Make sure your hair is combed and neat;
clothing is pressed, cleaned, tucked in and fits properly; and shoes are outfit
appropriate.
✴
Speech topic: Speech veered off topic very often. We got the point, but it didn’t
stay on target.
✴
Introduction and Conclusion: These were both read from the paper and lacked
creativity. The introduction wasn’t designed to catch our attention and the conclusion
just dropped us flat. They did not tie into each other at all.
✴
Delivery Method: Don’t forget the four categories- 1) actuate 2)
motivate/persuade 3) entertain 4) inform (using dates, facts, statistics etc. of course!)
The method was decided on directly before giving the speech and wasn’t quite
accurate.
✴
Time: Stick to the time bracket of one minute to one and a half minutes unless
otherwise specified.
✴
Body language: This includes...
• Posture- Stand up straight, shoulders back, hands out of pockets, head up and
minimal fidgeting/wiggling.
• Eye contact- Think sprinkler! It is important that you establish eye contact with
the whole class. Make sure you’re not just focusing on one person!
• Facial expressions- It’s important to smile, raise eyebrows, open eyes
wider...anything you would do in a normal conversation.
• Hand gestures- Again, these should be natural, like they would be in a
conversation.
• Energy level: Be enthusiastic when delivering your speech! Your audience is
anxious to hear what you have to say, so wow them with your passion!
We barely got any of these! There was almost no enthusiasm, which means no
hand gestures or facial expressions. Lots of fidgeting and bad posture.
**Do not be overwhelmed! Hopefully you see how many times, doing one automatically
leads to doing others. For example, if you are enthusiastic, you will be very likely to
have great facial expressions and use hand gestures. Remember to remain as natural
as possible!
✴Vocal Projection: There was no intonation and did not sound natural. Lots of “ums”,
“likes” and “uhs” were present.
A “0” will look like this...
WHERE IS YOUR SPEECH?!!?!?!?!!