Assignment task:
For this mini speech, you should choose a publicly available non fictional speech and analyze it in terms of both the speaker's public speaking abilities and their ethics. A list of potential speeches is available at American Rhetoric.
Ideally, you will choose a lesser-known speech by a lesser-known speaker, as most people will probably be pretty familiar with famous speeches given by U.S. presidents, other world leaders, or influential social movement leaders-with some pretty obvious examples of good and bad people speaking well there. The goal is to teach your audience something new about communication and ethics, so please stay away from those kinds of obvious examples.
In this mini speech you should begin by briefly summarizing the rhetorical situation that the speaker is responding to and how they respond to that context in their speech. You should provide enough detail here that someone who is unfamiliar with the speech could understand the basics of the text in its context.
From there, you should briefly analyze and evaluate the speaker's public speaking skills, using either the five canons or Aristotle's modes of proof (ethos, pathos, and logos). Make some evaluative judgments about what the speaker is doing well and what they might do differently in their public speaking.
From there, briefly analyze and evaluate the ethics behind the speaker's response to the context based on some of the ethical principles discussed in this lesson.