I am an English teacher in a small rural school in southern Iowa. My students are 90% white farm kids. We do have some racial ethnicity with Spanish-speaking students and foreign exchange students.
With an enrollment of nearly 250 students, 106 of them are involved in the drama and speech department that I am in charge of.
We do two shows a year (every other year a musical) and participate in four speech competitions a year. This year, the speech competitions were completely full, with our students competing in every available contest.
The speech competitions allow students to showcase their talents, whether they are short films or storytelling. The plays and competitions cost quite a bit, and that leaves little money for us to purchase things that will help us to create the speeches we want to.
My Project
Each year, our high school students participate in the state speech contests. They participate in large group and individual contests. Our speech teams have grown to over 45 students, and we now have a varsity and a freshman team.
Each school is required to supply their own items for the contests including carts for their video productions and stools for kids to sit on for storytelling performances.
Our students like to look their best and feel that holding their scripts in binders or on black construction/card stock paper will not take away from their performance like a brightly colored paper might.
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