Graduation Speech : A Rite Of Passage

Good afternoon [name of members of the head table], teachers, parents, students, fellow graduates and distinguished guests. I must first and foremost thank God for this blessing and honor to stand before you today as Valedictorian of the Class of 2011. Yet, today is not only my day to shine. Every graduate present here is deserving of high praise and recognition and I would like to congratulate each of you on reaching this milestone in life. I think I speak for my fellow graduates when I say that this is a moment we have always imagined and one we will remember for the rest of our lives.

Some people have asked to read the commencement address I delivered this morning to the 2013 graduates of Butler University. So here it is.

How are you doing? This is Will, the tall black guy you would sometimes see in service. I'm writing to say goodbye. My project in Carson City came to an end and I've moved back to Texas. Thank you so much for making me feel at home at Hope. Your messages kept me going while I was in Reno. God used your words to truly bless me and also show me where I need to improve. Sorry I didn't get a chance to say goodbye in person, but everything happened so fast.

(Graduates of Saint Joseph’s University class of 2020, I, Nicole Schall welcome you here today to this wonderful celebration. It is so nice to see all of your smiling faces together one last time. I would like to thank President Reed, the administration, and that crazy professor who almost who almost failed me freshman year for the opportunity to speak here today. The one who almost caused me not to be standing here today. First and foremost, graduates, congratulations on all of your achievements thus far. Parents, professors, friends and family you should be proud of each and every graduate sitting here on St. Mary’s lawn today. Give yourself a round of an applause. (round of applause sound effect) Can you believe it is already graduation? Time really does fly when you’re having fun am I right? I can only speak for myself, but I’m sure many will agree with me that freshman move-in day seems like yesterday. But truth be told you all have grown since freshman move-in day, not just in height, or from the freshman fifteen, you are all smarter, brighter, and ready to take on the world.)

As result of creating and implementing this artifact, I realized that the most effective lesson plans are those which initiate with the final assessment in mind. So, I applied a pre-test at the very beginning of my lessons with every different group I would be teaching to measure a starting point or the amount of pre-existing knowledge on the topics to be taught. Based on this, I planned the instruction to deliver and how to differentiate it.

It is said that high school graduation ceremonies most closely resemble the structure and function of a more traditional rites of passage ceremony in the modern world. However, the high school graduation ceremony does not prepare or initiate youth with “the practical skills or discernments necessary to proceed successfully in living outside of the home” (Hamitlon & Hamilton, 2008); it is a superficial event that publically acknowledges a youth’s supposed ‘maturing’ but neglects to include, generally, any of the practical work of identity building that was a central facet of traditional ceremonies. High school graduation ceremonies serve only to signify an academic success or a coming of age, but the popular notion that maturity means to be academically successful or to reach a particular age alone “misses the most important part of the process, which is that work is

Good Morning. Hope your Friday 2/10/2017 finds you well today. So Terry, I believe it almost 3 weeks casting and I try sending to the web week ago, I sent a letter in answer for Hope and Naomi. Even fought whether send the letter to find someone would respond probably and because no one got back to me could you please answer... Then when we got home last night 2/10/17from practice Naomi asking again did someone call, did we receive message it would ok that no call ,if no every said that everyone would receive word. No tears, this week like last week or; they said would call everyone, and even If they did not get in. Hope Elizabeth has slightly autism so she’d believed people when they have said something is going to happen like calling, they

II. Main Point (state as a single declarative sentence): The progress that I have made helped me lead up to writing well-developed essays. The main reason I believe my essays are improved because of the time I take on my pre-writing.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, faculty, staff, graduates of the Class of 2012, families and friends.

Attention Grabbing Step: After years of writing papers, doing homework, taking an occasional pop quiz, and of course taking countless exams, it is that time that we all anticipate…Graduation!

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.

I agonized over writing this speech for a long time, because I felt like nothing I could say would make a difference, first because I don't know if what I could say would be good advice, and second because I don't know if advice about things like being true to yourself and setting goals and all that is actually helpful. How can I give advice that I can't even follow in my own life? And even if you are mesmerized for my two minutes, you would walk out of here and your life wouldn't be any different. Or maybe you'd be inspired for a day, and then forget. But still, the speech had to be written.

In the commencement speech entitled “This is Water,” the speaker came to highlight to the graduates at the commencement ceremony, what the “real world “was like because he thought they are not alert enough to know. He made reference to this through the anecdote at the beginning where the two young fish didn’t know what water was and of course water is life to fishes. Therefore, the speaker found it necessary to tell what life was really about through a commencement speech because of his opinion that they may have limited knowledge concerning it. In paragraph 6 of his speech, he states “The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what ‘day in, day out’ really means. There happen to be whole large part of adult

Colin Powell once said, "There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure." The secret to success is preparation; however, preparation for college does not come easy, and there is only so far you can go by preparing yourself. I tried that, and if you look at my first college semester grades you can see that did not work. High school really is only there to prepare you for college; however, not everyone goes to college, and there is only so far you can go with a high school diploma. You really have to go to college to succeed, but when you come to college everyone is on different levels academically. Some come to college not even knowing what they want to major in. That is absolutely inexcusable of the high school system, which should better prepare students for college and their future careers.

English class seemed to be the most dreadful to take within school. Writing essays for most of my grade in a class is not what I was looking forward too. When I entered college I knew that it would be one of many challenging classes I would have to take. Starting from the lowest English class to moving on up, the writing assignments became longer and more thought out. The time came when I got into this class that I knew more work was going to have to be put into essays and thus brought out what I had not seen before in my work progress.