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Barack Obama's Speech 'Back To School'

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Back to school The road to success isn’t easy and everybody has experienced failure at one point in their life, but what defines you isn’t how many times you fail, it’s how you react to the failure that does. You have to take responsibility for your own decisions and your own life, the world doesn’t owe you success, you have to work hard for it. Being hardworking and therefore experiencing success is a central theme in the speech “Back to school” spoken by Barack Obama on September 8, 2009. The topic of the speech is that children and teenagers has to take school seriously and work hard to achieve success, it is easy making up excuses but they will only drag you down. Furthermore, it is about taking responsibility of yourself and knowing …show more content…

“We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit school- you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.” (P. 8, line 62-64). In the above quote Obama uses patriotism to try to persuade the students, it gives the impression that if they don’t do well in school they will fail everyone, including the country as a whole. Additionally, he says “we” and “you” a lot which sets up to parallel sides and the direct language where he refers directly to the audience causes him to influence their opinions. Obama also makes use of examples of other successful who have had trouble in life but still managed to fight through the problems and achieve success. “I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatment and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours- to do his school work. But he never fell behind and he’s headed to college this fall.” (P. 9-10, line 97-100) This quote is one of the examples Obama uses and it

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Using this quote gave the readers a sense of the main idea, which was about racism. This helped to further improve the quality of Obama’s topic and support the points he was about to make. Then goes to give a brief information about Obama’s speech. He then began with his four rhetorical strategies, starting with allusion.

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“I get it. I know what it’s like. ”(Obama 70) This piece of evidence succeeds at ethos because he is relating to the kids who have daily challenges in their lives. More evidence with ethos is on 70, “ Jazmin, Andoni, and Shantell

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Elie Wiesel winner of the nobel peace prize, in his speech demonstrates hope, despair, and memory and how it affects one life. He brings this to attention when he states that “all those victims need above all is is to know what they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them...that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs”(11). Just like Wiesel’s speech, A long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah shares a view similar to Wiesel , about the importance of hope, despair, and memory and how they can affect the lives of many. This relates to Ishmael Beah, a boy who violently lost his family and sucked into the world of drugs and killing. Both Wiesel and Beah have experienced traumatic events filled with despair,

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Furthermore, President Obama’s first inaugural speech contained patriotism, allusions, and anaphoras to appeal to the effect of pathos. His diction helps to persuade his audience that he is understanding and emotionally connected to the situation that America has been in and the importance of sticking to the ideas that our founding fathers have implemented thus far in America’s

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(Obama 18). In these two statements that Obama made to support his claim, he is trying to say that what environment you are in, what situation you are in should not affect your future and your education because just what you are going through does not directly affect your effort or determination to make your future different from what your future is if you give in to those hardships. Obama’s use of the rhetorical appeal of pathos helps with the supporting evidence for his claim that going to school is a benefit for student’s future, because when he uses pathos that causes emotions in the reader of his speech that of other people can go through many hardships and still get a proper education then they can do it to. It helps them believe that they can do whatever they put their mind

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The 44th and first African American President, Barack Obama, in his Inaugural Address, promotes a call to action. Obama’s purpose is to express his gratitude for his opportunity to become president and discuss his plans for economic advancement. In order to reach the American people of the U.S., Obama adopts a serious and thought-provoking tone to urge them to support his plans for advancement. During this time of economic crisis, Obama clearly conveys to the American people through his use of metaphor, allusion, and anaphora, that it is time to take a stand and make a change in America.

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This is a good rhetorical appeal because everyone knows about Martin Luther King Jr., Obama connects with us emotionally by using the fact that Dr. King enrolled into this college at the age of 15, he used his passion to study harder, and with the help of his college, Martin Luther King Jr. is able to thrive towards his dreams. Another example of pathos is when Obama says, “ I was raised by a heroic single mom, wonderful grandparents…”(Obama 8). Obama uses the fact that he did not grow up with the dream family, the family with two supportive parents. No, he specifically said that he grew up with a “heroic” mother and no father figure in his life. Since almost half of the United States lives with two parents, many people will take on pity

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It is necessary that President Obama extensively describes examples because the reader will understand better. And if the reader comprehends more of the passage, then the speech will be successful. Also, elaborating more on a specific point strengthens Obama's arguments. In general, the use of distinctio allows the reader to understand a greater portion of Obama’s speech.

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The various ideologies of love mentioned by speakers in Plato’s Symposium portrayed the social and cultural aspect of ancient Greece. In the text, there were series of speeches given by Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Socrates, and Agathon about the idea of love, specifically the effect and nature of Eros. Within the speakers, Agathon’s speech was exceptional in that his speech shifted the focus of the audience from effect of Eros on people, to the nature and gifts from the Eros. Despite Agathon’s exceptional remarks about Eros, Socrates challenged Agathon’s characterization of Eros through utilization of Socratic Method.

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Speech for NJHS Induction Ceremony Good evening students, faculty, and family members! Thank you, Mrs. Reece and Principal King, for inviting me to this year’s National Junior Honor Society induction ceremony. Students, tonight we honor your achievements in the areas of Scholarship, Citizenship, Responsibility, Community Service, Character, and Leadership as we recognize and celebrate the choices, and at times the sacrifices, you have made. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "The reward of a thing well done is to have done it."

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Barack Obama’s win for President in 2009 was a historical moment for the United States. His inaugural speech was much anticipated, because this was going to set the tone for his presidency. His speech told the American people that improving the economy is one of his priorities, but there were also other areas he would like to improve like healthcare and the education system. This was a speech that was meant to persuade the American public to take action for them to rise as a nation again, and for them to put their trust into him. His message addressed a couple of specific points like his gratefulness to the American people, the different crises America is facing, how America will overcome these crises, replying to his cynics, addressing the world, and then he reminded America again to be brave like they’ve always been to overcome the hard times (5 Speechwriting Lessons from Obama's Inaugural Speech, (n.d.).

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Pathos and ethos combined to provide the audience with a sense of respect and reverence towards not only Mrs. Obama but themselves. She alluded to the idea of the American dream in her speech as well and used this allusion to strengthen her plea for students in the audience to make societal changes by feeling obliged to reach back and share what they’ve gained from their own successes and opportunities. Mrs. Obama placed an emphasis on the power of diversity and reinforced the part everyone can play in the ideal of the American dream when she said “So, graduates, while I think it’s fair to say that our Founding Fathers never could have imagined this day, all of you are very much the fruits of their vision.” (CITATION NEEDED) She had led up to this quote by speaking of notable individuals with familial backgrounds of immigration like Jonas Salk and Colin Powell.

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On November 13th, 1969, Spiro Agnew, who was the Vice President at the time, gave the speech, Television News Coverage, about how news producers are becoming too powerful (Bibliography.com.) To successfully inform his audience, he uses many rhetorical strategies to keep everyone engaged and attentive. Agnew delivered an exceptional speech by using multiple techniques such as analogies, anaphoras, parallelism, and rhetorical questions to justify this problem to his audience. To help his audience understand what is being addressed, Agnew uses analogies to connect his ideas to familiar objects.

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Instead, his mother taught him at home throughout the week. “I was not as focused as I should have been,” exclaimed President Obama. With many of second chances, he was able to go to college and law school and still succeed even though there were other things in life that tried to hold him back. Looking back on his struggles, Obama

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This is a great way to make his statements. Obama sets a logical argument when addressing the audience. He says this at the beginning of his speech. “Each of us has deeply held beliefs. And when we go through tough times, when we make big decisions as a country, it necessarily stirs passions, stirs up controversy…

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