Synopsis
Inviting Transformation discusses presentational speaking in diverse contexts and settings. The primary purpose of such speaking is to invite growth and change for both speaker and audience. Readers are encouraged to choose communicative options that create an environment characterized by safety, value, freedom, and openness. The short work presents five interactional goals: asserting individuality, building community, articulating a perspective, securing adherence, and discovering knowledge and belief. Sample presentations reflect diversity in speakers, organizational patterns, forms of elaboration, and contexts. Inviting Transformation assumes students are already competent communicators; it thus provides only essential information for making choices in inventing, planning, and developing presentations. If the choices contribute to the creation of the environment described above, the resulting interaction will enable all involved to consider changing in some way leading to further conversations that produce greater understanding, more creative solutions to problems, and more opportunities for transformation.