SOAPStone analysis for speeches
The purpose of this exercise is to analyze these speeches in order to gain a more practical
understanding of the art of Rhetoric. Fill in the table for each speech.
Speech Examples from speech
Speaker Barack Obama from the Congressional Black
Caucus all
the way to the Oval Office
Occasion: both Selma March 50th anniversary As John noted, there are
immediate and extended places and moments in
America where this nation’s
destiny has been
decided. (…) Selma is such a
place.
Audience People of color If you think nothing’s
Minorities changed in the past 50 years,
American people ask somebody who lived
through the Selma or Chicago
or Los Angeles of the 1950s.
Ask the female CEO who
once might have been
assigned to the secretarial
pool if nothing’s changed.
Ask your gay friend if it’s
easier to be out and proud in
America now than it was
thirty years ago
Purpose To celebrate and honor the We gather here to celebrate
memory of Selma March and them.
Civil Rights Movement
To argue that everyone should be
voting
Subject What Is America? You are America.
America’s history and progress
Civil Rights and Voting Rights
Tone: Be very careful Inclusive, hopeful, powerful Yes, we can! We… we…//
here! And the change these men
and women wrought is visible
here today in the presence of
African Americans who run
1
The purpose of this exercise is to analyze these speeches in order to gain a more practical
understanding of the art of Rhetoric. Fill in the table for each speech.
Speech Examples from speech
Speaker Barack Obama from the Congressional Black
Caucus all
the way to the Oval Office
Occasion: both Selma March 50th anniversary As John noted, there are
immediate and extended places and moments in
America where this nation’s
destiny has been
decided. (…) Selma is such a
place.
Audience People of color If you think nothing’s
Minorities changed in the past 50 years,
American people ask somebody who lived
through the Selma or Chicago
or Los Angeles of the 1950s.
Ask the female CEO who
once might have been
assigned to the secretarial
pool if nothing’s changed.
Ask your gay friend if it’s
easier to be out and proud in
America now than it was
thirty years ago
Purpose To celebrate and honor the We gather here to celebrate
memory of Selma March and them.
Civil Rights Movement
To argue that everyone should be
voting
Subject What Is America? You are America.
America’s history and progress
Civil Rights and Voting Rights
Tone: Be very careful Inclusive, hopeful, powerful Yes, we can! We… we…//
here! And the change these men
and women wrought is visible
here today in the presence of
African Americans who run
1
