A Comparison of Two Commencement Speeches Essay

In this commencement speech, Rita Dove confidently advises the graduating class to take charge and work hard throughout their life after graduating. She does this by incorporating symbolism, personal narratives, and her chronological writing style to compel the audience to do as she wishes. In the first half of the speech, Dove uses the chronological style of writing and symbolism to advance her wishes for the students to continue a “ spiritual and intellectual appetite”, a symbol of hunger to want to grow more spiritually and intellectually. How she uses the word Hunger through symbolism calls the audience directly into being persuaded and drawn to her wish stating “I wish you hunger”.

High school and college graduations, best known for their length, and infamous cap, tend to give a “farewell in good luck speech” to the graduates. These speeches can be mundane for the spectators, yet captivating for the participants. Rita Dove’s speech to the UVA graduating class of 2006 is different. She captures the attention of all her listeners. She delivers a unique speech that shares her hopes for the students’ futures.

High school and college graduations, best known for their length, and infamous cap, tend to give a “farewell in good luck speech” to the graduates. These speeches can be mundane for the spectators, yet captivating for the participants. Rita Dove’s speech to the UVA graduating class of 2006 is different. She captures the attention of all her listeners. She delivers a unique speech that shares her hopes for the students’ futures.

In the memorable commencement speech given by Naval Adm. William H. McRaven, ninth commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, at the University of Texas, he addresses the graduating class of 2014 as they begin their journey into adulthood. Craven uses the experiences he learned in basic SEAL training to give advice he believes is necessary to bring onto this new ship the graduates are embarking. Throughout his speech, he reinforces his lesson and experiences by using the rhetorical devices diatyposis, anaphora, and apostrophe. Further, allowing the reader to comprehend what he believes life is about and how they could make the world a better place.

In 2010, Dr. Marc Lamont Hill was the commencement speaker for California State University, Stanislaus. This speech was addressed to the graduating class of 2010, their friends and family who were attending the ceremony, the California State University, Stanislaus faculty and staff, and people who may have not been able to attend the ceremony, but were able to watch it on a DVD recording. This speech was intended to congratulate the graduates and offer them advice as they enter into the “real world” post-graduation. However, the speech also had to address the family and friends of the graduates and the university’s faculty and staff, since they presumably made a difference in the lives of the graduates.

Famous actors, musicians, politicians, artists and authors are often called upon to deliver commencement addresses at prestigious places of higher learning. It doesn't take Nobel-Prize-winning social scientists or psychologists, or speech professors to predict what these elite guest speakers will say on such occasions such as these. The speaker will tell the graduating class to aim high, never give up, make the most of opportunities, and do as our forbearers did: pull yourselves up by the bootstraps. But when Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks showed up at Vassar College to present the commencement address, his presentation avoided those clichés and platitudes. Hanks was refreshing original and yet remarkably pragmatic. This paper critiques Hanks' themes, examines his rhetorical techniques, and editorially analyzes his purpose.

George Saunders’ commencement address deals with a variable of topics but it primarily deals with life. Saunders uses the course of his own life to try and help the graduates make the right choices so they will not grow old with regret for things they did, or things they did not do. In the address Saunders tells the graduates that some of the most memorable things in his life did not have good results and that some the things he regrets the most did not have any repercussions that directly affected himself.

Donovan Livingstons’s Spoken Word Commencement Address at Harvard is short but powerful and proves that to inspire doesn’t need to be long or complicated it just needs to reach you on the level required. The genre that Donovan is speaking in is poetry and is a unique choice for the topic. His audience were the graduates of the 2016 class at Harvard University. He used his chosen genre and knowledge of his audience to manipulate his rhetorical situation to quickly but firmly convey his hopes and inspiration to his fellow graduates.

WOW! So much has happened since June. The SV FFA and ag department had a rough start to our year losing three of our students who were on the FFA officer team to other schools. Even with this bump in the road, the four officers that remained visited Mt. Shasta City and had a blast bonding and learning more about each other at their officer retreat in August. Once school started we found three new officers and attended COLC (Chapter Officer Leadership Conference) where the entire team learned about their diverse leadership styles and were able to bond together as the official Surprise Valley FFA Chapter Officer Team for the 2017-2018 school year. If you see them around, congratulate President Cindy Hinze, V.P. Maddison Seely, Secretary Maya

In order to cure this sickness, we have to be as anti-selfish as we can. The message here is that we should start being kind now to speed up the process, instead of waiting till we become old. He is trying to make the receiver realize the problems existents, and makes us feel stupid for not contemplating about it. Even though this topic is commonly brought up in commencement addresses, which he implies several times in the speech, it is an important reminder. Repetition is an important tool, because the message that is preached is more likely to be remembered by the

Education is knowledge obtained in order to reach one’s full potential. A human being is not in the proper sense until they are educated. Two commencement speeches, “Failure and Imagination” by J.K. Rowling and “Real Freedom?” by David Wallace, and an article titled “The 4-Stage Response to Low Student Achievement” by John Lemuel, all have several aspects of education in common and provide knowledge and inspiration about the real idea and necessity for education. In these works, they all use personal experiences, an informal tone, and provide motivation to show why education is imperative to the development and fulfilment of life. Education is not useful for monetary purposes alone.

A commencement speech is a speech given to graduating students to congratulate them on earning their degree and used to give them a few words of advice before they go. However, commencement speeches do not always have the same message. The speeches will vary between speakers and I will analyze two commencement speeches and show how different they can be from one another. These speeches are: Jim Carrey’s speech hosted at Maharishi University of Management and Bill Gates speech hosted at the University of Harvard. The differences analyzed between the speeches will be the general topic, how the topic is delivered, how the text appeals to values and emotions, how the topics are made credible, and the evidence behind the claims.

Well, this is it, the day all of us have been waiting for has finally arrived. It seems like only yesterday we were picking our noses and flicking them at innocent bystanders or yelling childish phrases like, "Liar, liar, pants on fire!" or, wait, that was yesterday. Never mind. Anyways.

Graduation is an exciting time in a person’s life, especially a high school graduation. When I think of family and friends gathering together to celebrate a joyous occasion, I feel I accomplished my strongest goal. It never occurred to me that graduation would be the end of my youth and the start of adulthood. Graduating from high school was an influential event that gave me an altered outlook on my existence. Life before graduation, preparing for graduation day, and commencement day overwhelmed me for reality.

Good [Morning/Afternoon] Senior Administration, parents, students, and of course my fellow 2017 graduates. We made it. We survived school. All seven hundred and ninety days of it. Every math test. Every QCS test. Every Assembly. We persevered, through the support of those around us. Whether we needed help on an assignment, or just somebody to talk to, we never needed to look further than the people in this room. To all of you, thank you.