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Motivational Speeches to High School and College Students

Submitted by Reckless Liz on Fri, 2007-11-16 21:58.


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When I was younger people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and when I told them I was already working on my dream, they'd laugh and tell me to wait till I grew up. I had already decided what I wanted to be: The voice of those who havent been heard. I had a very clear reason: Watching children in my country, Colombia, leave pencils and dreams to fight a war they didnt understand. I started writing when I was 4 and now that I am 19 I realize, I have proved those people wrong.

I've participated as an invited writer in international book fairs in Guadalajara Mexico, Miami, Fl, Queens, NY, San Jose, Costa Rica and Bogota, Colombia. My words and poems have been published in several anthologies in the United States, Spain, France, Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, among them "Letters of Peace" by Uneda and Unesco, which included me in a selected group of important writers from all over America, next to Mario Benedetti and German Arciniegas, and with a prologue by Peace Nobel Prize Lech Walesa. My words have been presented in more than 40 countries in radio and TV shows, among them Young People who Rock with Nicole Lapin on the CNN blog, CNN Headline News, The Cultural Connect, Primer Impacto, Despierta América, Ocurrió Así, El Show de Martha Susana, Cara a Cara, Bien Positivo, and many other cultural magazines and online blogs in several countries of America and Europe.

Now that I published my new book of poetry and motivational prose, I plan on traveling all over the United States, Central and South America and Europe, to motivate High School and College Students, to develop their own talents, follow their star, and change the world now, and not later.
Because the heroes, the leaders, the people who will make history, are us, the youth. As a frequent speaker and panelist at cultural conventions and community lecture series; the purpose of my project is to distribute my book to schools and universities, and to give a tour of conferences not only here in the US but all around the world, making special emphasis in sharing my message with parents and students, feeding the fire in their hearts with the vision of a better world where individual talents play an important role towards becoming successful in life.

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Vital Stats

Started On:January 2006Ended On:January 2010
People Involved:Kean University, American Eagle, the media, and me.People Impacted:millions
Money Raised:30,000.00  

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Related Cause: Human Rights

Category: Global Impact

Tags: education Arts motivational self esteem poetry change Talents Conferences Using practical skills and talents to help others move forward.

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  • Post nominated for a brick on Wed, 2007-12-26 23:52

VOCAL '08

Submitted by raptorsgorawr on Fri, 2007-11-09 03:56.

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VOCAL is a student-run organization that advocates for and empowers those who are often considered voiceless. We work with the cooperation, knowledge and experience of these people to provide the logistical and financial resources necessary to improve their quality of life.

Our current project is to improve the quality of life for the residents of Waltham, a city that has become a second home to many students. To accomplish this, we are assisting in the ongoing project to convert the Prospect Hill Terrace Apartment’s Day Care Center into a new community center.

The three goals of this campaign are (1) to raise awareness of the need for out of school youth programs and affordable housing, (2) to raise money for our ongoing project to convert the Prospect Hill Terrace Apartment’s Day Care Center into a new community center and (3) to strengthen the relationship between Brandeis University, Bentley College and the Waltham community.

We are planning to raise awareness of and money for the much needed after-school programs and affordable housing through a charity spoken word concert called VOCAL 2008: SPEAKING UP FOR THE FUTURE. The show featuring an all-star lineup of award winning poets of all ages is scheduled for Saturday, January 19, 2008, in the 747-seat Spingold Theater at Brandeis University. In addition, we have started a letter writing campaign to ask for the support and approval of the city of Waltham for the conversion of the Day Care center and to further provide awareness of the issues listed above. Lastly, before and after the show, VOCAL members will hold writing and poetry workshops for youth across the Waltham community.

We plan to use the proceeds from this event to work in conjunction with the Community Engaged Learning Program at Brandeis, the Bentley College, the Waltham Alliance to Create Housing (WATCH), Waltham Public Housing, Community Service Department, and the Brandeis Pluralism Alliance towards converting the Prospect Hill Terrace Apartment’s Day Care Center into a community center.

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Related Cause: Community Centers

Category: Community Building

Tags: education after-school children Arts charity poetry spoken word community center slam poetry out of school programs Waltham

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MCOH ( Middle Children Of History)

Submitted by LaReinaM on Wed, 2007-10-31 19:35.

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The Poetry Club at Hayfield Secondary School is meant to strengthen and nourish the understanding, passion, and confidence in the current young poets who attend. We create a way for teenagers in our proup to express themselves in a unique and constructive way. "Poetry Club" means only to create a way for the young community to find an outlet that they may not be able to obtain anywhere else. We do performances, sessions, and not to mention free food for ALL members.

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Vital Stats

Started On:10/31/2007Ended On:6/12/2008
People Involved:11People Impacted:7
Money Raised:$0.00  

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Related Cause:

Category: Arts & Culture

Tags: poetry

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Lyla won last year's Second Hand Poetry Slam

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Organizing and hosting a poetry slam might be a lot of work, but it will also prove to be an awesome and unforgettable event. A poetry slam is a great way to draw attention to your cause. So choose a cause, like drug abuse to focus on and help create awareness.

Seeing is Believing

Before you do anything, go to a couple poetry slams in your area. This will give you some hints on what to do and what not to do for your own event. If you don’t have any slams nearby, you can try to rent one of the many documentaries on poetry slams.


A Poetry Place

Choosing a place for this event is important. You want to find a place that is big enough to accommodate many people, but isn’t so big that voices will get lost. Your school’s library or auditorium might work. Otherwise, you can check out local places like the community center, town hall, or a nearby cafe.


Go Team, Go

Get a bunch of friends and/or family together to help you with the event. Together, write out a long-term plan of action and designate a certain task to each person in your group. Remember to figure out who will be judging the event, what the contestants will be judged on, and what they might win as a prize. Get judges that you know won’t be biased in their decisions.

Sample Long Term Schedule

Begin to plan your poetry slam about six to seven weeks prior to the day it will be held.

Week 1 & 2 (Sept. 18-Oct. 1)

1) Choose your crew—your friends Sarah, Jack, Anthony and Desiree decide to help you out.

2) Discuss where the event will be held. Make a list of four possible locations. Your school might be a good place to start.

3) Type up an event summary sheet to show teachers, parents and businesses if need be. Break this sheet into five categories: Who? What? When? Where? Why? You want people to know exactly what your poetry slam will include. What is the theme?

4) Find a faculty member who might be interested in acting as an adult helper. Show him/her your event summary sheet. It might be important to other adults that a teacher or parent is helping you with your project.

5) Schedule meetings with your principal and the managers of the locations you chose to discuss your event. Make sure you bring the event sheet with you.

Week 3 & 4 (Oct.2 - 15)

1) Yahoo! Your principal gave you permission to have your poetry slam in the school auditorium on October 28th.

2) You have five weeks to pull all the strings together for this event. Now is a good time to delegate responsibilities to all members of your team. Make a list of everything that needs to be done and discuss these things. Make a deadline for each task.

3) Sarah is in charge of all marketing for the event. She will create colorful posters to post around school, make an announcement at school, ask permission to leave a stack of flyers in local businesses, and will spread the word through peers, teachers and parents. Sarah will also be in charge of recruiting people to read their poetry. She can do this by posting a sign up sheet in your school and other key places.

4) Jack will be in charge of recruiting judges for the event. He will contact any local poets he knows about, creative writing teachers, anyone who did you favors for the event, and should choose a hip college student (who won’t be biased towards any participants). Jack should also write out a sheet on how the poets will be judged (your teacher or advisor can help with this).

5) Anthony will be in charge of decorations for the event. He will have to visit the auditorium and do some sketches of what different decorations would look like in it. If the theme of your poetry slam is secondhand smoke, the decorations should reflect that theme.

6) Desiree will be in charge devising a plan for the winners of the slam. She will be in charge of gathering prizes for the winners. Desiree should go around to local businesses with the event sheet and ask them if they would be able to donate a prize for one of the winners.

7) Be prepared…your team will be reporting back to you at every step so make sure you are making a list of who has done what.

Week 5 (Oct. 16-22)

1) Now that you have all of these important things done, you have the great task of creating a detailed schedule for the day of the event. Look below for a sample Poetry Slam Day Schedule.

2) Make sure posters for the slam are still up all around school. Make sure you have a bunch of people signed up to read at the slam. Some people might drop out at the last minute, so you need to have a lot on the original sign up sheet.

3) Send everyone participating in the event a reminder email or letter.

Week 6 (Last Week-Oct. 23-28)

1) Have someone else in your group read your Poetry Slam Day Schedule to make sure you didn’t forget anything. Using this schedule, photocopy programs that include the names of all the poets for the audience.

2) Collect short bios for all poets reading at your slam. Read these before each poet reads his/her poem on the day of the slam.

3) Have everyone in your group help Anthony execute his awesome decoration plans for the auditorium.

4) The day before the slam, make some brownies and cookies and mix some lemonade to sell as refreshments. All proceeds go to supporting your cause!

5) Prepare for an excellent time!


Hype It Up!

Get people excited about the event by talking about it at school and posting flyers for it everywhere you can. Make sure you ask before you hang up posters. Make the posters big, bright and colorful. Write some rules on the posters like “Your poem must be a comment on smoking”.


Snack Attack

Bake some goodies for the poetry slam. Brownie mixes that come in a box usually take about 10 minutes to make. Yum. Set up a table and sell them during the event. Donate the profits to a charity or organization that benefits the cause you support.


Running Smoothly

Make sure your poetry jam runs smoothly by making a schedule of performances and allowing some extra time between poets. Never let the microphone stand alone; if you are waiting for a poet, it’s up to you to get up there and entertain the audience for a couple minutes.

Sample Poetry Slam Day Schedule

5-5:30 pm- Gather team and go to the auditorium to finish up with decorations, set up the refreshments table and make sure the PA system is working.

6:30- Guests will begin to arrive. Choose someone from your group to stand at the door, greeting people as they come in and handing out programs for the slam. Make sure to tell all judges how they should score each contestant and give them scorecards.

7:00- By this time, most people have arrived and are seated. Grab the mic and introduce yourself, tell the audience what the slam is about and why it is important. Tell them about the prizes and who donated them.

*Introduce each poet with name and a short bio:

7:10- Jason Stillman reads his poem, “Smoke Rings”

7:20- Serena Waterun reads her poem, “cancer stick”

7:30- Darel Rhiner reads his poem, “Tar Scar”

7:40- Holin Jaskop reads his poem, “Nico-tine, Nico-time”

7:50- Juniper Willows reads her poem, “Exhaling”

8:00- Amarillo Rogers reads her poem, “Silent Smoke”

8:10- Simon Druknik reads his poem, “I want my lungs back”

8:20- Brianna Hilky reads her poem, “nameless”

8: 30- Judges get together (preferably in a separate room or hallway) to compare scorecards for all contestants. They choose three winners (or however many you want there to be).

8:50- Announce the winners and give them their prizes. Thank everyone who came and helped out with the event.

9:15- Time for a quick clean up session before you go home and collapse from being so tired.

Next Day- Your event was a success—write about it and submit it to Do Something.


F-U-N, fun

Have fun, enjoy yourself, make sure the crowd is energized and the poets feel comfortable. Take pictures and submit them in a Do Something project!

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Writing a poem about something that really bothers you can be a great experience. It can help you vent without losing your cool; it can put you in touch with why exactly the issue bothers you; it can help you spread the word. Once you’ve written a poem, you should be proud. Then you should go and share it with friends and family. You can even go to an open mic night at the nearest café, or enter to read your poem in a poetry slam competition...to win a prize, of course.

How to start

Picture this! Close your eyes. Picture a scene that relates to the issue you want to write about. Focus on the details of this scene. Focus on how you feel as you picture this scene. Now start writing. Abandon all rules of grammar and language—just let the words come out.

Time for terms

Learn some poetic devices that you can use when you begin to craft your poem. Language is full of surprises. Go to http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/display_rpo/poetterm.cfm for a glossary of poetic terms. Some of these are:

  • Alliteration- the repetition of the beginning letters of words in a line of poetry. “This whale worried about what woeful fish would wander”
  • Onomatopoeia- When the sound of a word imitates its meaning. ie) buzz, hiss, splatter, flush, whoosh
  • Simile- the comparison of two objects or emotions using “like” or “as”. “Her summer hair was like a waterfall of straw”

 

Look it up

Find some words that relate to your cause that might sound neat in a poem. Try to get words that you haven’t heard yet.

 

Words to be heard?

Next you should decide if you want this poem to be heard. Spoken word poetry is meant to be read aloud to an audience—it should be performed. Engineer the words you wrote in step one into a poem that is fun for you to read and even more fun for an audience to see you perform. Use words that rhyme, introduce rhythm, move your mouth and your body, and captivate your audience.

If you don’t want to write spoken word poetry, focus more on the words and their sounds than on how they would feel to read aloud.

 

Take a break

Once you have a first draft, just give yourself some time to reflect on why you are writing. Then revisit, revise, and fine-tune it.

 

Practice makes perfect

Read it to yourself in the mirror, read it to your friends and family, or bring it to an open mic night somewhere. Ask people for their constructive comments and make some changes. Usually, you’ll be able to tell by the audience reaction or your inner gut feeling whether something was successful or not.

 

Loud and clear

If you write a spoken word poem, you’ll want to practice reading it as many times as it takes for you to be comfortable with it. Don’t be afraid of your voice and always remember to speak loudly and clearly. You want your audience to hear every word you spent so long choosing. Memorizing your poem will allow you to show more expression than if you are tied to a piece of paper.

 

Sample Spoken Word Poem

Ciga-Regret

 

Car-CIN-o-gens

BLAST……off, like billions of rockets.

Not to the round face moon, though.

Going to

The tiny vessels in her Cracked lungs,

Now gunked and junked with

Slime, tar, the Inside of a Cigarette.

YUCK, YUCK, cough, cough….

She chokes and smokes, can’t

Tell the difference between the two.

Her daughter has pig tails, sits in a

Cloud of 4,000 chemicals. She sucks

In what mom spits out—second hand.

F-R-E-S-H, fresh air is a word she

Won’t know. She won’t grow,

She won’t ever glow unless we

Slow……or STOP the moms

Who can’t QUIT, They can’t

Fight it

on their own.

 


Check out this cause for more info and ways to do something

Drug AbuseDrug Abuse


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