Memory Vignette about languate for CO301D

We were terrified. My partner and I stood frozen outside the door. Our turn was next. It’d been years since anyone has made it to the final rounds in a speech tournament from our school. We were competing in improvisational pairs. We got our two characters, a brown bear and a polar, and our setting, at the zoo. From this we were to prepare a 7 minute skit with only 5 minutes of preparation time that would be better and well developed than the other 5 teams competing against us. The door opened, “Will the team of Johnson and Click please come in the room,” the judge asked. We entered. The judge gave us the “go ahead” signal and we began. My partner and I glanced at each and just started speaking. We had a rough outline of what we wanted to happen, but the words flowed out of our mouths effortlessly and effectively. No only did we make the judge laugh with some of our jokes and silly phrases, but we also left him with a moral, something to think about. Seven minutes went by quickly and our use of language seemed to guide us through it easily.

Three hours later, and the awards ceremony, they called the 6 of us improve pairs teams up on stage. One by one, starting with 6^th place they began to give out awards. As they got down to 2^nd place there were only two teams standing; my partner and I, and a team of two boys whom we had befriended. Our whole team awaited anxiously in their seats, holding their breath. I could see my coach was on the edge of her seat. “2^nd place, from Lakewood High school, the team of Morris and Smith,” the announcer called.

My partner and I were floored. The next thing we heard was that we got first and we were given our huge first place trophies. My team was on their feet clapping with joy. This was the first award Standley Lake High School’s forensics team had gotten in over six years! Because of our use of language, we were able to bring some fame to our school and make our coach and administrators proud. Our administrators even caved in and gave us some more funding for tournament fees and we were able to buy team t-shirts. Once the rest of our school had seen what could be done in the Speech team through language, more and more people joined. That year there were eight members of the Speech Team. Today I went back to visit and the team is now up to well over thirty members!