Last night I coached Elena via FaceTime in writing her campaign speech. She’s running for 4th grade rep for Student Council. At dinner, her family pitched in questions and pointers for her to consider.
To her dad, she said, (as he told to me later), “Remember they are just little kids, Dad. They don’t know anything about politics.”
She wanted my opinion on this line: “I don’t want for you to vote for me because I’m your friend, or not your friend; I want you to vote for me because you think I’d do a good job.”
“Well, I don’t want to put words in your mouth,” I began, “But maybe you could take out ‘or not my friend’?"
She removed that phrase and said, “That’s actually a little better.”
Together we brainstormed, then organized the points, then polished up every line. Every time she read a line out loud, she started reading from the beginning. She was loving the process. “Writing about something really makes you think,” she said.
Even though I taught college speech classes for many years, this was my favorite speech coaching project ever. We devoted two hours to her finished speech--all nine sentences! Who gets to spend two whole hours with each student in school?
"You did it!" I said. "Fantastic!"
She was glowing.
"But what if somebody else writes a better speech?" she asked.
It's so exciting to see someone you love begin to love writing!
Update: She won!
She's never actually been to Mexico, but her desk top "All About" shows that she has pride in her heritage.
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