In President Barack Obama's Third Annual Back to School Speech, his primary audience is every high school student across the nation. I infer that it's primarily high school students, because the speech addresses trying new things and appreciating every class, instead of addressing arts & crafts. Obama is able to connect to the high school students he is speaking to by referring to him as "you guys", and talking about video games, band, basketball, Facebook and Twitter. This is an effective way of connecting to the audience because one of these things- sports, music, video games and social networking- is a typical common interests for high school students.
Obama's primary argument, is education needs your complete focus if we want to better our nation. His factual reasons to support this argument include him stating that 60% of jobs will need more than a high school diploma, as well we have now decreased from 1st to 16th in proportion of young people who have a college degree. Some basic assumptions in this argument include everyone should want to better the United States' international standings, as well as education is the best way for us to do that.
By using a variety of appeals, Obama tries to convince students about the significance of an education. He
uses Pathos to describe how teachers are "cramming their days" for you, which implies we should not let them down. He argues with Ethos by citing specific examples of highly successful teenagers who have bettered their home communities, as well as the scientific community, with their hard work. Obama even uses Logos by citing a fact stating how important post high school education is for getting a job.
In his speech, Obama uses concise language, and doesn't just read a script, but rather discusses education at a slow pace. He gets his points across in very few words, and speaks slowly so it can be processed before he jumps to his next thought. Obama leans to his right, slouches, and appears to have his left hand hand in his pocket when he's letting us high school students in on his little secret, that he "wasn't always the best student." This movement makes his personal story seem more sincere, while also appealing to the audience's character. He explains how one hour you can be an artist (as he leans to his right), and the next you may want to be a scientist (as he leans to his left). He pauses before saying Twitter, which builds suspense to the comedic aspect of the prestigious President of the United States referencing Twitter. He sets up parallelism by stating "You wonder. You question. You explore. You color outside the lines every now and then."
By keeping his intonation relatively high and constant by saying "although [earning A's] is a good goal to strive for," this sentence stands out from the typical cadence at the end of his sentences. He also raises his intonation when he speaks about how some might be wondering how you'll pay for college, which suggests having questions about such matters is okay, since you typically raise your intonation in a question. His cadence is especially noticeable when he talks about how important his ethics class is to him today, with that falling intonation and pause adding to his sincerity. Obama ends his speech by changing his tone to that of a pre-game pep talk. A noticeable syntax change with much shorter sentences occurs, which was very effective in drawing my attention. Without looking at his paper, and by using great eye contact, his pointing out on how our country is depending on us high school students is a very uplifting conclusion.
Not to be that guy... but Rick Perry 2012. I had to say it after being so complimentary.
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