ROCHELLE — Drama, prose, speech! Kids at Rochelle Middle School can find a stage to showcase their voice and speaking skills by getting involved in the RMS Speech Team.

Speech Team helps students grow their public speaking skills, linguistics, argumentative skills, and confidence. Students can choose from a variety of topics including prose, poetry, duets and radio.

Last year, the seventh grade speech team achieved first place in each of the categories in which they competed. We are so proud of our seventh graders!

Mercy Hunley competed in the impromptu speech competition and earned the first place award. Mercy showed her excellent writing ability as this competition requires the student to write a short essay on the spot after being given a topic of interest. She enthralled the listeners with her friendly personality and gentle voice.

Yeretzi Brizuela competed in the prose competition and won first place for her emotional reading from the novel “The Giver.” Her dramatic flair and ability to connect with the audience made her reading interesting and easy to follow. She also competed in poetry where she read from a poem called “The Wolf Motives” originally written in Spanish. Her audience was captivated by her energetic and intense reading. She earned a first place award which was also well-deserved.

We are looking forward to the RMS Speech Team this year and can’t wait to see the performances of our students!

The seventh grade speech coaches are Mrs. Theresa Crystal and Ms. Jessica Hickey.