Designed to help students build confidence in their public speaking skills, our Public Speaking Institute trains students in public speaking, logic and rhetoric through an interactive and dynamic curriculum that encourages incremental progress through ongoing practice and exercise. Over the course of the program, students will participate in three main courses: Debate, Persuasive Speaking, and an elective.

Note: Overnight and day camp programs are offered at Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Tufts, and Georgetown. Day camp only programs are offered at  MIT. Day camp programs do not include evening electives. 

Debate 

Learn the art of verbal combat! Students will learn how to construct persuasive positions, defend against and attack each other’s arguments, and cross-examine effectively. Students will debate a variety of age- and experience-appropriate topics, form teams, and pit themselves against their co-campers. Past debate topics have included: school uniforms (elementary school), pre-emptive strike policy (middle school), and the legal drinking age (high school).

Persuasive Speaking

This useful activity teaches students to craft and deliver convincing speeches. Students start by performing a number of pre-written speeches in order to learn delivery, timing, and intonation. When students display comfort with delivery, they will begin to construct speeches based on their interests. Students learn to choose topics, establish captivating introductions, organize speech content, and deliver compelling conclusions! The focus is on speaking in a natural voice, with few or no notes, rather than writing an essay and merely reading it out loud, the form of "public speaking" taught by most teachers. All students end the week by presenting a speech in front of a large group of fellow campers.

Electives: In the evenings, students will get to choose from at least two of the following four elective speaking activities:

• Model Congress: This event provides an introduction to diplomatic and legislative speaking. Students role-play as members of Congress. Persuasive speaking, negotiations, and compromise are all stressed in a forum that allows students to sample the most exciting part of the political process!

• Negotiations: You can't always get what you want... or can you? The negotiations activity stresses public speaking as a business and personal tool. Students will role-play scenarios in which their abilities to compromise and persuade are developed.

• Reader's Theater: In this fun and popular event, students write and perform a short play (or learn and perform a play for younger students). Students create their characters, devise plot twists, write dialogue, and deliver partial practice performances followed by the whole play.

• Improvisational Speaking: This type of speaking requires students to think on their feet to deliver speeches with little or no preparation time. In the opening class, students are given ample time to prepare for short speeches, and over the course of the program, the time to prepare will shorten as the speeches lengthen. Fun and challenging topics are chosen, often with hilarious results!

Public Speaking Institute students experience university life during their week on a college campus. Students live together in the dormitories, experience campus dining, and relax on campus with a wide array of sports and arts activities. Additionally, the camp will take one mid-week excursion to a local attraction, such as an amusement park or sports venue. The most recurrent comment made by students after camp is, “ I never knew I would have so much fun!”

A few words from our Public Speaking Institute 9th-12th campers!

“Unlike many summer camps, your staff clearly demonstrates they are subject matter experts, not just bodies filling an open position.” — Nandini R., parent

“Carrie was somewhat hesitant to go to this camp, believing speaking publicly was simply something she wasn’t good at. She has now decided to join speech and debate and school.” — Gail S.R., parent