What’s in a Speech
Medium Post 4
Eloquence is a substantial part of English. People read Sylvia Plath or C.S. Lewis, and they strive to write like them. So, how do people incorporate that eloquence into their own writing? Big words, lots of cliché metaphors, and sentences that dance around the point like a ballerina. Ironically, the article “Donald Trump and George Orwell Walk into a Bar…” by Chika Umeadi discusses why the stereotypical version of eloquence does not mean better writing. He discusses an essay entitled “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell that basically says keeping it simple is the most impactful way to make speeches. Umeadi then goes on to talk about phrases used frequently in Donald Trump and Bernie Sander’s presidential campaigns that also follow George Orwell’s ideas on affective speech writing.
Students reading this article could immediately apply what they read in the article to actual speeches written throughout history by having taking a paragraph and using the points from Umeadi listed as a writing frame for which lines should stay and which ones need to be changed and how. The lesson could expand by having students do research on the context and outcome of the speech, and how they think the language may have hindered or helped the speech’s goal.
In order to include the Indian Education for All sixth Essential Understanding, students could have to analyze speeches made by Native Americans or about Native Americans around Andrew Jackson’s presidency to analyze how history has distorted or erased those speeches in order to create an image about the history of Native Americans in the United States.
Creating this lesson would also connect with the ERC’s Grand Challenge, “understanding the American experience” because students are using documents to interpret how national milestones came about and the American identity was formed.
The lesson also connects with the Montana content standard for freshman and sophomores:
L.9–10.3 Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.
Focusing so heavily on language and the American experience is important because it shows students how the words they use can make a large impact. Maybe they’re saying something that is fine to say, but the way the way they phrase it causes it to be less impactful. By the time students finish this lesson, they should be asking themselves how they command language, how they use it for the betterment of others, and what impacts language had on big life moments.
