Obama Speech

Here's a link to the speech. It begins at 3:30. Or try THIS ONE.

Apparently he gave his speech at 1:30 this afternoon. Sorry about that. Still, watch it (it should be posted/made public and/or replayed soon) and the assignment stands as is. HERE is a transcript of his speech for your reference, but you still need to watch it. Also, I tweeted a Washington Post article and a Huffington Post article that respond to Obama's student address (it's over on the right in that Twitter box that's usually empty) and HERE is another article about it just for good measure.

Do I need to read those? You're wondering. Well, no I guess not. You don't need to read them if you don't want to be informed about the world and don't care about your education and thus your life. (Logical fallacies of sentimental appeal and non sequitur and probably ten others.) But in all seriousness, I do think these are valuable to read, look at, and take up in some way, but no part of the assignment it particularly tied to any of them. They're just informative and thought-provoking.

Your assignment is this: Watch Obama's address sometime when you can (so, when it is made public and repeated, and You Tubed, and archived on news websites like CNN.com) and perform an informal, yet substantive and thoughtful rhetorical analysis. Post said analysis on your blog by Sunday __:00 (time to be determined, see poll). You may post it sooner if you wish.

Whaaaaaa? You say. No worries, you have the resources you need. You were given a "Rhetorical Analysis" sheet not too long ago and you are reading through the chapter in EAA all about speeches (Chapter 17: Spoken Arguments) and it literally walks you through how to do this. Speech analysis = rhetorical analysis of a speech. Make sure you comment on the following: tone, intonation, cadence, posture, gestures, general appearance, use of appeals, argument, diction -- okay, so that's like everything. But because this is spoken, you need to comment on how it sounds and how he looks while speaking, in addition to the usual stuff.

Don't freak out, this isn't huge. Your usual blog posts are 5 points, this one is 10 points. Use this as practice for those cryptic "things to come" that matter a whole lot. 

If you have questions, email me. It's way easier than commenting on my blog. It's also private so people can't see your questions. You also should ask those questions sooner rather than later. If you wait until Sunday, I will be crabby with you. This weekend is Homecoming. Just to it tonight if at all humanly possible. If you cannot, do it tomorrow night. I know that on Friday you will be all busy with the parade and the football game and then on Saturday you have to go get a spray tan and get your nails and hair done and get all gussied up for the dance -- oh, wait, it's a blacklight dance so you'll all probably just come in jeans.

In any case, it's a busy weekend. Don't wait.