Updated 30 June 2014.

This is a list of resources and prompt questions I have curated on Speeches. Please feel free to use with credits back to this page. If you have a suggestion please do comment below.

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In introducing students to speeches, I usually screen two ‘acknowledgement’ type of speeches (from popular personalities that they are familiar with) and have students compare and contrast the two, discuss their effectiveness, discursive styles, and audience engagement. We then do the same with two ’emotive mobilizing’ type of speeches.

After some classroom interaction (i.e. sharing thoughts in small groups, writing key words/phrases on the board, presenting short summaries of what they liked/didn’t like), we continue with more ‘formal’ speeches such as Obama’s 2009 Inauguration Address and Tim Minchin’s 2014 Occasional Address. This time, I ask the students to individually pick out some of the discursive styles, vocal expressives, body gestures, and facial expressions they have observed and have them note why/how it was (in)effective in relation to the context, composite of the audience, and social/cultural/political setting of the speech.

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