On Tuesday, Nov. 7, Kingswood Oxford students watched the Speakers’ Forum finals take place in Roberts Theater. Every year, sophomore students in their English classes go through an interpretive reading unit, culminating in a final round with the entire school as the audience.
This year’s finalists included sophomore Lia Prahl, who took home first, followed in second by sophomore Jason Chen. Sophomore Sam Almeida placed third, sophomore Leo Kollen was in fourth place, and sophomore Shreya Adlakha in fifth place.
Speakers’ Forum has been a long-running tradition at KO. It was started by English teacher and Forensic Union Advisor Robert Googins, who taught at KO for 42 years and originally started this annual event by wanting to bring public speaking into English classes. The first Speakers’ Forum was held over 25 years ago and has happened annually since.
The unit started in the middle of October in English classes, leading up to early November’s final. Students started by picking any piece of fiction or poetry that interested them with exceptions being any piece meant to be performed, nonfiction pieces, or any inappropriate pieces.
They then abridged the pieces to fit a time constraint, practiced them diligently, and then performed in front of their class. The top two scoring students in each section went on to the semifinals on Nov. 6. Finally, the top five high-scoring students at the semifinals got a chance to participate in the final reading the next day in an all school assembly.
This year’s final reading included a wide variety of pieces. Lia read an excerpt from “The Hate You Give” by Angie Thomas; Jason’s passage was from “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu; Sam chose a passage from “The Giver” by Lois Lowry; Leo read the poem, “Being Human,” by Naima Penniman, and Shreya chose “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros.
Despite this year’s final being only the day following the semifinals, English teacher Catherine Schieffelin shared that this year’s readings were some of the most impressive. At the finals, a panel of community members were chosen to be judges. This year’s finalshjii0-= judges included math teacher Denise Garcia, Head of the Upper School Lisa Loeb, creative arts teacher Greg Scranton, Associate Director of College Counseling Matt Waldman, and senior Forensic Union Officer Minnila Muthukumar.
Many students chose pieces to read that resonated with them and had deep meanings, brought alive through the student’s interpretation. Lia shared why she chose to read her piece.“It’s a really powerful piece,” she said. “I just thought that a lot of kids are very ignorant to what happens, especially police brutality, so I wanted to show how immediate it is.”
Ms. Schieffelin shared how Speakers’ Forum provides an opportunity for kids who may be more reserved in English classes to gain confidence and find their voice in the classroom setting. “I see kids come out of the woodwork every year,” Ms. Schieffelin said. “Students who I wouldn’t necessarily expect would love something like this do, and they run with it. It allows different students to shine in different ways in the classroom.”
Starting last year, the Speakers’ Forum, previously held in the spring, was moved to the fall when the English department decided the fall would better suit it due to other second-semester units like “Macbeth” with public speaking elements. Ms. Schieffelin shared how this change has been a really positive one. “Students develop so much confidence throughout the process that there’s so much community building in the classroom,” she said. “It’s perfect in the fall.”
The assembly was emceed by seniors Audrey Karasik and Bassil Chughtai. In between readings, Audrey and Bassil provided the audience with some humor as the finalists were being scored and their scores were being tallied.
In the end, the winners were announced and got their picture taken with their newly presented plaques, while the audience applauded their classmates for all their hard work and fantastic readings all around. Overall, this year’s Speakers’ Forum was a great success, showcasing the students’ hard work and preparation.
