i need an attention getter!?

Question

i need an attention getter for my speech. my speech is about teachers having the rights to carry a weapon to school for security. my position is for it......please help me with an attention getter...i've already tried to do research on the average on how many school shootings there are in a year and how many ppl die in these shootings, but there is not any current info to be found.......


i will appreciate any help u can provide me....thank you! =)

Answer 1

Anecdotes are good attention-grabbers. I might start with the shooting at Pearl High School in 1997. The shooter had killed 4 people and injured 7 before the assistant principal stopped him with a gun which he'd run out to his car to retrieve. What if the assistant principal had been carrying the gun, instead of having to go to his car? Would there have been fewer casualties?

Answer 2

Well, first: the position has been assigned to you, or you chose the position because that is you belief? If you chose it may be easier to find an attention getter, so if you can't find anything, you may give out your own opinion (strongly written, of course).

However, in my personal experience, people tend to respond better to an emotional attention getter. So, maybe you can find a quote by someone famous defending your point (guns as a way to seek security). Other idea is to find an interview on teachers and how they fear going to work, and how they eager for some protection.

And now, a disclaimer: I don't support the idea of the speech, however, I hope I help with your homework.

Answer 3

You could begin the speech from a first-person point of view as one of the students that were there at the VT shooting, (or any other school shooting or school-in-peril situation you like, that was just the first thing that came to mind,) write it as if you were one of the students there and describe the feelings of terror and such. Third person would work too, just make sure you tell it like a story though, you want to make an emotional connection with people. Then go into how many people die from school shootings, etc, etc, then state your position on it, yada, yada. (I agree with you, by the way.) Show them how much better it would be if teachers can carry. Don't just tell, show. Do you understand? (I'm really bad at explaining things so I hope you can understand my ramblings. =P) I wish you all the best with your speech, good luck.

Answer 4

Obviously you can't walk into a classroom with toy guns on your belt or even pictures of guns. What you can do is walk into the classroom with two black shoes hanging off your belt. (You can substitute any other objects about the size of handguns.)
Instead of where you would say the word "gun" or "weapon" in your presentation, substitute the words "black shoes." (It is understood that you have been assigned the pro-stance of this issue, but one wonders if your audience could concentrate on their studies if their teacher addressed them with "black shoes" on his or her belt.)
Since you are having trouble finding research for this particular, and narrow topic, you might look into the legislation that regulates where people can and cannot take guns in public, plus regulations about gun permits.
Then you might do some original research by taking a poll in your school asking students, teachers, administrators, parents and local law enforcement officers about how they feel about teachers carrying guns to school for protection. You will need to design a few, short and neutral questions that don't lead people to answer pro or con. Then in your presentation, you can outline the research and announce your findings. ("In a survey of people who have a vested interest in this topic, 20 students, 20 teachers, 20 student parents, 10 administrators, and 10 police officers were surveyed and these were the results...")
(As another aside, an interesting question for the police officer would be what the consequences would be if a teacher carrying a weapon for protection actually fired it on school premises for perceived self protection and struck a student bystander.)
The black shoes become your metaphor and your attention getter.

Answer 5

here's a website that may be of some help. Stats like these are done periodically so you may have to refer to them differently. Things aren't as violent as people think and although i don't think teachers should have weapons--because it makes matters worse--I'd like to help:

http://youthviolence.edschool.virginia.edu/violence-in-schools/national-statistics.html

I will also say as a journalist, that the most critical info your looking for is in books and if its on the web studies will help you. If your in college use your schools library as a resource. Librarians are the best at this stuff. People just don't ask. They'll give you tons of info on this if your humble enough to ask.

Also check Youtube or something and maybe u can get a video of a movie, like Lean on me or something with a clip of a teacher getting beat up.