Essays and Short Stories

UIL Essay

The first time I spoke in public was in my social studies class. We had to make an acrostic poem about the Silk Road or Aral Sea. I worked all night on that poem. It felt like I worked on that poem for eternity! I did mine on the Silk Road. After I had picked a topic I had to figure out which word(s) I wanted to do. I pondered this thought for a moment and I came up with something. I was going to do a poem about trade because there was trading along the Silk Road. I remember my teacher saying that we needed to describe our topic in sentences like for example; Slowly walking along the Silk Road with my camel loaded down, then we had to draw a picture to match. I did this with all five letters of the destructive word, TRADE. My poem did not rhyme because my teacher said it does not have to rhyme so I was happy

            Monday came and I was frozen in my seat because I thought mine was unsatisfactory, lifeless, indifferent, and not worthy of a good grade. My instructor picked the first five kids to go first. I gulped as she was going around picking out kids one by one. She got to the fifth kid and I saw her head turning at almost a ninety degree angle towards me, she looked at me with her cold, deadly, beady little eyes and she called me up. I started walking up, shivering, wobbly and I felt as hard as a rock at the thought of talking aloud about this lame composition, to the miniature podium I went. Everyone was walking like turtles up to the podium because nobody in our class wanted to share our creation that we made. Everyone went, then it was the moment I was dreading. It was my turn.

                I took the microphone from the kid who had just finished, I took deep breaths and I let it all out. The words just fell out of my mouth like a word ocean. All the words fell right into place. I presented perfect and it was actually easy. I was thinking to myself after I was done and I said to myself “that wasn’t so hard, why was I worried.”           

               Everyone was finished now and the class had to pick the five people to make it on the wall of fame, there were seven people who followed the teacher’s requirements. Your poem had to have drawings, color and more than one word or a sentence for each letter. I made it into the top seven because I had all those things. I went to the front of the class again and I had to keep my poem facing the audience so they could judge me. The top five got to be on the wall of fame. I thought my poem was not going to go on to the wall of fame. The class kept voting until there were only two spots left on the wall of fame. The whole congregation shouted my name so I stepped forward saying YES! But I was exploding inside with exhilaration like an atomic bomb. I guess my composition was worth of a satisfactory position. I do not know what I was distressed about because I should have not been distraught. I felt silly when mine was picked because I was worried for nothing. Everyday I come into class I see my sensational acrostic poem on the wall and I feel happy.

                 The advice I would give a friend for public speaking would be to just relax and breathe in and out so you calm yourself down so you don’t stumble over your own words. I would also say speak with projection so everyone can here you but not too loud that their eardrums explode. Mix your inside and outside voice together. Imagine the audience are one or many of your best friends and act like you’re speaking in front of them so you feel more comfortable. Make sure while you’re speaking you look the audience in the eye but occasionally look down at your paper so you don’t stutter and forget where you were. That’s the advice I would give my friend if it was their first time speaking in public.

WROTE THIS IN 6TH GRADE FOR UIL