Activities - NJCL Convention - 2009 - Creative Arts Passages

2009 NJCL Convention Creative Arts Passages

Ms. Amy Elifrits, NJCL Creative Arts Chairman, has announced the dramatic interpretation and Latin oratory selections for the Creative Arts competitions at 2009 NJCL Convention to be held at the University of California at Davis. Use the links below to obtain the passages in Acrobat PDF format.
Boys Dramatic Interpretation
Girls Dramatic Interpretation
Latin Oratory

Oratory Overview

Three styles of oratory

• Asiatic - elaborate, artificial, and emotional
• Attic - clear, forceful, and direct
• Rhodian - combination of Asiatic and Attic

Three kinds of orations (according to Cicero)

• Demonstrative - praises or criticizes
• Deliberative - supports or attacks a measure or proposal
• Judicial - employed in the courts

Five qualities were essential to the orator

• Invention - the power to gather facts and line up arguments
• Disposition - the ability to arrange contents in the most effective order
• Expression - the choice of words most suitable to the thought and occasion
• Memory - the firm grasp of content, words and arrangement
• Delivery - the perfect control of voice, features, gestures, and bodily movement to reinforce each phase of the speech

A typical oration:

• Introduction
  • Exordium - win the attention of audience
  • Narratio - summary of the facts
• Body
  • Partitio - outline of the treatment of point to be proved
  • Confirmatio - affirmative argument
  • Refutatio - rebuttal against opposite side
• Conclusion
  • Peroratio - conclusion (brief recapitulation, arousing emotion, appealing to the sympathies of the audience)

Body language:

• Hands not too expressive
• Arm extended forward a bit
• Stomp foot at the beginning or ending of an energetic passage