Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Commencement speeches 8th grade
College graduation speech examples
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In her “Commencement Speech at Mount Holyoke College”, Anna Quindlen employs personal anecdotes and her academic background to effectively build her credibility. Quindlen explains how her strive for perfection in her younger years only served to add needless parasitic pressure. She claims that “being perfect day after day, year after year, became like always carrying a backpack filled with bricks on my back” (Quindlen 1). Drawing from her personal experiences, Quindlen challenges her audience to “give up the backpack”. By building a strong connection through shared hardship, Quindlen appears as an authority on defying conformity to discover one’s own individuality.
Billy Joel is a musician and he is giving the commencement speech at Berklee College of Music in 1993. Berklee College of Music is the largest contemporary music college in the world. Billy Joel is an amazing singer and songwriter so even though he did not attend this college, it is still an honor to be able to speak there. His commencement speech has plenty of rhetorical literary devices such as ethos, logos, pathos, parallelism, antithesis, as well allusions. There are other literary devices such as metaphors, rhetorical questions, and similes.
A higher education pushes individuals to think, question and explore new and valuable ideas. An excellent education teaches students how to credibly think and prioritise when learning. David Wallace, who gave the Kenyon commencement speech, quoted, “[Learning how to think] means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience”. In his speech, Wallace is endorsing the idea that a higher education doesn't just throw knowledge at students, but it teaches them how to selectively compose their thoughts and construct a meaning from knowledge. Wallace also makes the point that individuals need to learn to adjust their “natural default setting” to become less self-centered.
Introduction Hook: I never knew that one day, one idea could have such a big impact. That one thing could change the history, set up the rest of the country to follow suit with this specific topic, and things that need a change in general. Background: Over 50 years ago, on March 7, 1965, now known as bloody Sunday, segregation was still prevalent. At the time it was not allowed for blacks to vote at the time.
Martin Luther King Jr., a minister and social activist, led the Civil Rights Movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. He was an advocate for equality between all races and a civil and economic rights Activist. Because of his leadership, bravery and sacrifice to make the world a better place, Martin Luther King was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. His incredible public speaking skills and ability to properly get his message across can clearly be scene throughout the speech. Tone: Dr. King delivered his speech at the university of Oslo in Oslo Norway in front of a large group of people.
Tim Davis Mrs. Hampton AP English 11: A4 19 January 2017 Obama Rhetorical Analysis In President Obama’s Second Inaugural Address delivered on January 20th, 2013, he eloquently adopts several rhetorical devices for the purpose of looking forward on a “journey”. Excerpts from our Constitution also help him to achieve his purpose. Obama began his address by acknowledging the audience at the Inauguration.
To dream is to desire an achievement which seems unobtainable. Most everyone has trouble convincing themselves that their dreams are within reach. Jim Carrey once said, “So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality.” This is a result of allowing dreams to remain dreams and, instead, opting to take a more reliable path. In doing so, a sense of emptiness that never completely dies out is often developed.
This speech was made for the class of 2014. By that year, Ed Helms was well known for his work on The Daily Show, The Office and The Hangover (trilogy) films. His major success it was The Hangover but in his speech he used a lot of examples of one of his character in The Office because it was someone related to Cornell University. He also was awareness that it was a graduation with a lot of young people and because he is a comedian he did a lot of jokes to try to engaged the audience with the ideas that he wanted to share with them. And finally, in his speech, he also applied pathos which is the emotional quality of the speech or text that makes it persuasive to the audience.
On April 4, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy gave his remarks on the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Robert’s goal was to inform people on Martin Luther King’s journey and to strengthen people’s attitudes on the whole situation. Robert’s main points throughout the speech were how the country as a whole should move forward, why the states should not resort to violence but unity instead, and he also addressed that the country needed unity, love, and compassion.
Rhetorical Analysis Obama Throught President Obama’s speech addressing gun control, Obama effectively uses both the appeal of ethos and repetition in order to persuade individuals into agreeing with him on the topic of tightening gun control. To begin with, in order to increase his credibility on the affair and in hopes of persuading his audience, Obama resorted to the use of ethos. This is seen when he states, ”I’m not on the ballot again. I’m not looking to score some points” (Obama 2). This line refers to the 2016 presidential campaign, and more importantly the fact that Obama will not be, and cannot run again.
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.
McCullough had 3 main points with his first one talking about wedding and his second point the seniors graduating into his last point of how the real world is. His introductions he welcomes everyone thanks everyone for coming, friends,family,teachers and people on the board of education's. McCullough hits his main point then in his conclusion of his speech with telling the students to really live life with selflessness and taking one
It is often meaningless to evaluate a speech without first considering its context and purposes. As Dr. Blizer pointed out, “a work of rhetoric is pragmatic; it comes into existence for the sake of something beyond itself; it functions ultimately to produce action or change in the world”.1 Jobs’ speech was no exception – its basic function as a commencement speech was ceremonial by nature. Compared to other ceremonial speeches such as a testimonial or an inaugural address, a commencement speech is less restricted in terms of topic. It is, however, bound by the occasion and
Nelson Mandela 1. The speech is in the plural ‘We’ and not in the first person. This maybe because both he and De Klerk both won the prize or because he accepted on behalf of the nation as De Klerk had his own speech.
In his inaugural speech given on January 20, 2001, George W. Bush address the country for the first time after being sworn in as the 43rd president of the United States. Millions of people from around the world tuned in to watch the president give his address. The people who voted for and against him are both wanting to hear what the president has to say. George W. Bush gives an effective inaugural address by using biblical allusions, collaborative language, and an anaphora in order to unite the country after a contentious election. Bush used biblical allusions to appeal mostly to the evangelicals who were listening to his speech.