Coming up: vocabulary quiz (handed out on Monday, April 3; another copy below)
In class: group work and presentation on excerpts from famous speeches, including literature.
Directions: with your group, read the assigned speech. Be prepared to explain to the class three reasons why the speech is "great".
While rhetorical devices are important (look at your vocabulary sheet); consider diction, syntax and pronoun usage.
Excerpts
from famous speeches to analyze
Martin
Luther King I Have a Dream 1963
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious
racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of
interposition and nullification – one day right there in Alabama little black
boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and
white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I
have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted and every hill and
mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the
crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be
revealed and all flesh shall see it together.
What makes this a great speech?
In this grave hour, perhaps the most fateful in history, I send
to every household of my peoples, both at home and overseas, this message,
spoken with the same depth of feeling for each one of you as if I were able to
cross your threshold and speak to you myself.
For the second time in the lives of most of us, we are at war.
Over and over again, we have tried to find a peaceful way out of
the differences between ourselves and those who are now our enemies, but it has
been in vain.
Winston
Churchill We shall fight on the beaches 1940
we
shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the
beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields
and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and
even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it
were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and
guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good
time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue
and the liberation of the old.
What makes it a powerful speech?
Chief
Joseph Surrender Speech 1877
We’ve included this speech because there is something extremely
raw and humbling about Chief Joseph’s surrender.
Combining vulnerability with pride, this is an unusual speech and deserves
attention.
Tell
General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in my heart.
I am tired of fighting. Our Chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Ta Hool
Hool Shute is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes
or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold, and we have no
blankets; the little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them,
have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where
they are – perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my
children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among
the dead. Hear me, my Chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where
the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.
Teaching ideas:
What makes this a good speech?
Emmeline
Pankhurst Freedom or Death 1913
Traditionally silent, women tend to have been left out of
rhetoric. All that changed, however, with the advent of feminism. In her
struggle for the vote, Pankhurst and her fellow protesters were compelled to find
a voice.
You
have left it to women in your land, the men of all civilised countries have
left it to women, to work out their own salvation. That is the way in which we
women of England are doing. Human life for us is sacred, but we say if any life
is to be sacrificed it shall be ours; we won’t do it ourselves, but we will put
the enemy in the position where they will have to choose between giving us
freedom or giving us death.
What makes this a great speech?
John F.
Kennedy The Decision to go the Moon 1961
We
choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the
other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because
that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and
skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are
unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
What makes this a great speech?
Shakespeare The
Tempest Act 3 Scene 2 c.1610
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I
cried to dream again.
What makes this a great speech?
Shakespeare Henry
V Act 3 Scene 1, 1598
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise
fair nature with hard-favour’d rage
************************************************************************
Device Definition
1. anaphora the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses
2. epistrophe the repetition of a word at the end of each phrase or clause: “I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
3. analogy the comparison of two pairs that have the same relationship. The key is to ascertain the relationship between the first so you can choose the correct second pair. Part to whole, opposites, results of are types of relationships you should find
4. apostrophe interruption of thought to directly address a person or a personification: “So, I ask you, dear reader, what would you have me do?”
5. * imagery language that evokes one or all of the five senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching
6. counterpoints contrasting ideas such as black/white, darkness/light, good/bad
7. * hyperbole exaggeration or overstatement
8. irony an expression, often humorous or sarcastic, that exposes perversity or absurdity
Aristotelian Appeals
9. logos appeals to the head using logic, numbers, explanations, and facts. Through Logos, a writer aims at a person's intellect. The idea is that if you are logical, you will understand
10. ethos appeals to the conscience, ethics, morals, standards, values, principles
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