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Oprah Winfrey's Commencement Speech

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In Oprah Winfrey’s Harvard Commencement Speech, like most graduation speeches aims to inspire the new graduates to enter the world with confidence and optimism. She encourages the graduates to force themselves to think the same way about failure as she does, or not see a lack of success as failure. For many, it will be the first time experiencing the real world, so she encourages all in the audience to not only redefine failure and hardship but also use their acquired knowledge for the benefit of all people. Oprah uses humor, optimism and inspiration, and life stories to help her audience understand how to define and overcome their own failures. Causing laughter twice within the first two minutes sets up a lax tone for the rest of her speech. Oprah is a well-known and respected businesswoman and celebrity, and the speech was given at one of the most prestigious colleges in the …show more content…

In her call to action, Oprah talks about a little boy who became a quadruple amputee but overcame this struggle and joined his school lacrosse team. Upon hearing about the victims of the Boston Marathon, he created a fundraiser “to raise $1 million for other amputees”. She also mentions a 9-year-old girl who collected change “to help other people in need.” By including these similar anecdotes in her speech it shows that anyone can make a difference, even those without a lot of power or education behind them. This inspired those with a Harvard education to realize their potential and never settle until they have made a positive influence on another’s life. By ending her speech mentioning these two devoted children, she inspires all to find the innocence and compassion of a little kid and pour their passion for whatever they majored in. Using anecdotes, Oprah calls the Harvard class of 2013 to go out into the world and find a way to help people using their

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David McCullough, in his Wellesley High School Commencement Address, utilizes imagery to convey to his audience that each individual possesses the same common potential. While addressing the graduating class of 2012, McCullough makes a point to emphasize how unexceptional the students are. By bringing to light the fact that the students are all wearing the same “ceremonial costume…shapeless, uniform, one-size-fits-all” (McCullough 1), he illustrates the conformity of the crowd. By depicting the cap and gown, McCullough demonstrates that each student at the ceremony are at the same level.

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In her 2013 “Bowie State University Commencement Speech”, found in They Say/I Say, Michelle Obama, the current First Lady of the United States, uses several rhetorical strategies, including historical references and appeals to emotion and history, in order to drive her central message of the importance of education and the responsibly of her audience to deliver the legacy of education to the next generation. Throughout the piece, Obama relays a historical analysis of the progress made in education for African Americans, including an exploration of the toil and sacrifice made over the decades so that that progress could come to pass. She concludes by calling the graduating students to action to carry on the legacy of educational excellence that

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Ambition is defined as the strong desire to achieve a specific goal and is often driven by determination. It can guide people to achieve goals and aspirations, and some are willingly to do anything in order to satisfy their ambitious personalities. The French military and political Napoleon Bonaparte successfully defined what ambition truly is by stating, “Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.”

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Cecily Strong is a comedian of the famous and popular show Saturday Night Live on NBC. She often works with her coworkers to made fun of what happening in the world. As a comedian, many of her jokes fall into the category of dry sarcasm. So, it is important to take that into consideration when watching the speeches she gives.

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By providing a specific number, $200, Singer demonstrates how simple and reasonable it is to save a child in poverty. Additionally, he repeats, “to save a child’s life,” which demonstrates exactly what a $200 donation could do for a child in poverty. As an example, Singer references a credible philosopher, Peter Unger, and acknowledges that “by his calculation, $200 in donations would help a sickly 2-year-old transform into a healthy 6-year-old.” Next, he establishes, “if you were to give up dining out just for one month, you would easily save that amount.” Singer emphasizes this to show the reader how simple it is to save $200, and, more importantly, save the life of a helpless child.

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In-Class Essay Practice Rosa Parks once said, “I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free.. So other people would be also free”. Rosa Parks was the Civil Rights Activist , who refused to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger, spurring the Montgomery boycott and other efforts to end segregation. The author of this speech, Oprah Winfrey, shows how thankful she is, and how Rosa Parks change the world through her eulogy. To remember her life to change our world, Oprah Winfrey delivers eulogy for Rosa Parks.

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In my school, a girl named Shelby died fighting cancer. Our school did everything in their power to help her family, a family that had decided to raise money to help not only themselves but other families that are fighting cancer. They started selling bracelets, shirts, and other merchandise to raise money. “Fight like a girl,” this was their title. Everyone knew of Shelby and how strong she had been.

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The Unusual Message Reading the commencement speech “This is Water”, written and delivered by David Foster Wallace to students and their families at Kenyon College was nothing like what I was expecting it to be. I can imagine the listeners that were present were just as shocked as I was when they finally grasped the message he was presenting to them that day. Normally when someone delivers a commencement speech to students graduating, it's more along the lines of “be all that you can be” or “You can do it” with emphasis on the word “you.” No one really tells you to think of others first at that point in your lives. However, Wallace did just that.

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Winfrey shifts her eulogy by expressing an appreciative and admirable tone to depict the great impact Rosa Parks had on African Americans nation-wide. Winfrey

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This film administers what brutal, yet factual documentaries should all do. After the film, Barbie accepted a honorable scholarship to Esperanza College in Philadelphia, where she is currently a Presidential Scholar. Not only did this documentary encourage citizens to participate in ending poverty, it also allowed barbie to express the disturbing reality that many families and individuals are confronted with each

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Oprah’s display as an orator should not go unnoticed. Throughout the entirety of her delivery, Oprah projects herself with a clear, calm, and strong yet soft emphasis. Oprah maintains stern eye-contact with the audience, and presents herself in a strong, iron-body demeaner. These oratorical techniques coincide to further captivate the audience and continue to ease the audience into the persuasion of the viewpoint presented in her speech. Given controversies of sexual assault in recent times, as well as ideas of feminism and female

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Co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc, Steve Jobs, in his commencement speech at stanford university, illustrates three distinguishable points of his life. Jobs’ is very successful in his approach to inspire the graduates by speaking on the experience and insight he has gained. Jobs has a simplistic yet elegant tone and diction to convey his hardships to communicate how much life has to give and teach us in an inspirational way. Jobs begins his speech by dethroning himself as the well-known self made billionaire to create a connection to the graduates. He starts by putting the audience on a higher plateau with “I am honored to be with you”(1) and “ this is the closest I have been to a college graduation”(2) and when speaking of himself and his speech, he states it is “No big deal”.

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The Rhetorical Analysis of the commencement speech at Harvard Famous fantasy author J. K Rowling, the “mother” of Harry Potters, addresses the commencement speech at Harvard in eighth June, 2008, which is titled “The Fringe Benefits of Failure” She genuinely talks about her personal experience to helpfully instruct the graduates. As the audiences have high achievements in academic study, but unfamiliar with normal failures, Rowling shares her valuable experiences on her heartbroken failures. The purpose is to share her mature views with the upcoming graduates to prepare for future unavoidable failures which everyone will face. Rowling’s colorful speech flexibly adopts abundant rhetorical devices, such as persuasive pathos, strong ethos,

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952 Words | 4 Pages

Oprah Winfrey - An incredible example of moral courage Oprah Winfrey once said “Excellence is the best deterrent to sexism and racism.” (brainyquote.com) This statement is a great example of moral courage. Being able to move past those who want to put you down and do it with a smile. Oprah has always shown moral courage, not just in her career, but in her whole life.

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In the speech “Steve Jobs Commencement Address to Stanford University, Class of 2005” , Apple CEO Steve Jobs provides his audience with personal experiences and the rough periods he went through in his early years before founding apple that helped him succeed. With the use of his stories Jobs creates a character that prevails through obstacles and manages to achieve his goals, which inspires his audience to look up to him and show that failure is sometimes necessary to succeed. At the beginning of his speech, Steve Jobs begins describing his life with a series of stories that helped him reach his success, this helps Jobs create ethos because his audience will understand the hardships he went through to be where he is today, instead of just thinking of Jobs as the founder of Apple and not really knowing about the struggles he had to go through.

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