This multi-session instructional activity features the opportunity to analyze a variety of famous speeches. Students will look carefully at tone, rhetoric, propaganda techniques, and historical context as they write an analysis paper....

This is the text of Robert La Follette's speech to the Senate, "Free Speech in War Time" delivered on October 6, 1917, in the U.S. Senate Chamber, in Washington, D.C.

This site is provided for by the Brigham Young University. Almost anything you would want to know about rhetoric and speech is here with great examples and explanations. Intended for a college-level audience, but plenty for younger...

This is a practice activity to see if students can identify the writer's rhetorical context.

How do you get what you want, using just your words? Aristotle set out to answer exactly that question over two thousand years ago with a treatise on rhetoric. Camille A. Langston describes the fundamentals of deliberative rhetoric and...

This site from EdChange.org gives the speeches of many American speakers on various topics related to social justice.

Wonderful exercise uses lines from Book II of Vergil's "Aeneid," to test mastery of rhetorical devices that pertain to syntax. Encourages practice of many skills.

This lesson focuses on the parts of effective speeches: introduction, body, conclusion and analyzing a contemporary speech. It discusses types of introductions, types of effective conclusions, and the steps to writing a good speech. It...

An excellent online resource that contains a large collection of links to speeches and rhetorical artifacts all pertaining to September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America. Presented in a timeline of events with material in audio,...

This lesson focuses on John F. Kennedy's speech, "We Choose to go to the Moon," delivered at Rice University on September 12, 1962. It features links to JFK's biography and Wikipedia entry, the National Geographic: "Moon 101" video, the...

[Free Registration/Login Required] This flipchart gives students the opportunity to analyze Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech and identify the rhetorical devices that make them...

Analyze the persuasive impact of rhetorical structures and devices in famous speeches.

This is the text and audio of Arnold Schwarzenegger's victory speech as Governor of California delivered October 8, 2003, in Los Angeles, California.

This is the text, audio, and video [4:02] of Ronald Reagan's speech, "A Time for Choosing" (aka "The Speech"), which aired on October 27, 1964, in Los Angeles, California.

This is the text and audio of Abraham Ribicoff's speech nominating G. McGovern for President delivered on August 28, 1968, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

This is the text, audio, and video of General Ann E. Dunwoody's speech upon her promotion to 4-Star General.

This is the text of Huey P. Long's radio speech entitled "Every Man a King" delivered on February 23, 1934.

Video and text of Al Gore's speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention delivered on August 28, 2008, at INVESCO Field, Mile High Stadium, in Denver, Colorado.

This is the video [18:11] of Art Monk's induction speech to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2008.

This is the text of President Woodrow Wilson's last speech in support of the League of Nations delivered on September 25, 1919, in Pueblo, Colorado.

This is the text, audio, and video [5:11] of Geraldine Ferraro's acceptance speech as the nominee for Vice President delivered on July 19, 1984, at the Democratic National Convention, in San Francisco, California.

This is the text and audio of William Faulkner's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature delivered on December 10, 1950, in Stockholm Sweden.

This is the text and audio of Spiro Agnew's speech "Television News Coverage" expressing his disappointment in the news media's behavior after a Presidental speech on Vietnam; it was delivered at a Republican Midwest regional meeting on...

This is the text and video of Arthur W. Coviello's keynote speech at the RSA Conference delivered on February 25, 2014, in San Francisco, California.