Source A: Speaking without the script

An original contemporary non-fiction-style practice text, written for this question.

I had written a short proposal for the residents’ meeting. It concerned the waste bins behind our block, a subject which did not appear to require courage until I imagined saying it aloud. I stammer. Some words begin when I want them to, and others seem to stop at a doorway which I cannot see. A printed sentence has no knowledge of that difference. It waits on the page looking easy.

Before the meeting, I replaced several useful words with less accurate ones because they felt safer to start. I shortened an explanation until it nearly disappeared. Then I practised a cheerful opening, hoping that if people liked me quickly they might wait for the rest. By the time I reached the hall, I had spent more effort preparing the audience’s comfort than explaining the bins.

The chair asked who wanted to speak. I raised my hand before I could redesign the proposal again. At the first pause, a man near the front supplied the word he thought I needed. It was the wrong word. I shook my head, and he supplied another. He was trying to help, but each suggestion made the sentence farther from mine. The chair asked him to let me finish and said there was time.

That was all. She did not tell the room to admire my bravery or invite applause for my first paragraph. She simply kept the space open. I found the word, explained where the bins stood and described why the present collection point blocked a narrow path. Someone asked how often it happened. For the first time that evening, the question concerned the proposal rather than the way it was arriving.

I did not become fluent. I lost another word, looked at my notes and began the sentence differently. The meeting agreed to inspect the path before deciding what to request. This was a small result, and not a victory over speech. It was a decision about bins, reached partly through information which I had nearly removed from the room in advance.

On the way home, a neighbour said she would have been nervous speaking too. I knew what she meant, but nerves were not the whole explanation, and courage was not the whole remedy. I wanted a world in which a person could be hesitant and still be worth listening to. The next morning, I restored the precise words to my written proposal. They belonged there, even if I would need time to say them.

Source B: Young and dyslexic? You’ve got it going on — Benjamin Zephaniah

Read Source B in the official Pearson anthology (printed pages 12–13).

Compare how the writers present their ideas and perspectives about how other people’s expectations can restrict someone’s voice.

Support your answer with detailed examples from both texts, including brief quotations.