How Obama engages her audience

Note that you are specifically asked to focus on the strategies Michelle Obama uses to engage her audience if you are studying her Commencement Address in connection with the exam question from August 18th, 2017.

Obama uses a number of different strategies to engage her audience. We have already discussed some of them in previous sections of this guide, but we will collect the most significant points in this sec…

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Conversational style

As mentioned previously, Obama’s speech is characterized by a number of conversational interjections that occasionally break up her narrative. By using these interjections, she makes parts of the speech sound more like an intimate conversation (rather than…

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Direct address and specific references

When Obama directly addresses the people sitting in her audience, the speech becomes much more personal and relevant for those people in particular. The first example of this occurs in the very beginning of the address, as she specifically mentions President Burnim, the head of the university, as well as the class…

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Appeals to pathos and ethos

Obama’s use of pathos and ethos also helps her engage her audience. In particular, her many personal stories often manage to include both kinds of appeal.

They strongly engage the emotions of the audience because they are tales of terri…