Rhetorical Analysis Of President Obama's Speech

By what mean does President Obama try to win, keep and persuade his audience in this speech
President Obama try’s to win, keep and persuade his audience in this speech in many different ways and using many different techniques and I am going to outline some of those ways below.
Firstly, he changes his register when talking to the students. “Hello everyone- how’s everybody doing today?” he is changing his register to an informal, colloquial and humble tone to make everyone feel relaxed and comfortable. “You won’t click with every teacher” I think he changes his register here because he is trying to relate with his audience by using the same language as the youth. He also tries to relate with the audience by talking and giving examples
of his life. “I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning. Now wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, ‘This is no picnic for me either, buster.” I think that over here he is trying to send a message out by letting his audience that he went through it and knows what it is like to wake up early in the morning but at the same time he is also trying to tell them that it is worth it. He also uses a little bit of humor in the speech ‘buster’. I think he uses this word instead of ‘brat’ because buster it a friendly word which isn’t humiliating and also it makes the audience laugh with the contrast of what he is today.
Secondly, emphasizes how important education is “… I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a goof job. You’ve got to work hard for it and train for it and learn for it” I think this persuades wins and keeps the audience because it makes everyone focus and push themselves harder to do what they want to do in life and to be the best they possibly can be
Thirdly he uses people for examples to help prove his point about working hard in school, “Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas.
Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and in now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being DR. Jazmin Perez. I’m thinking about Ando I Schultz, form Los Alto , California, who’s being fighting brain cancer since her was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer- hundreds of extra hours- to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall. And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of hangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.” I think he uses the examples because it proves his point about working hard and that there are no excuses about not working hard. I also think he uses these examples to prove his point because if they can do it then everyone else should be able
to!
In conclusion I think that President Obama persuades, wins and keeps his audience in this speech.