This course is designed to give students skill, confidence and fluency in public speaking. Speech is as much about training students to think, as it is about oral communication. Students who are trained to speak well are also trained to think well. Throughout the course we will study the structure of great historical speeches and the five cannons of rhetoric: inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria and pronuntiatio. During the course of the year students will have extensive opportunities to speak in front of the class. At the start of the school year we will pay special attention to helping students overcome their fear of public speaking. Our goal is that this class would be a lot of fun and would help students learn the life-long skill of great communication.