El Discurso Del Presidente

I didn't read anything about the speech before I heard it so my observations are unbiased.
One of the most powerful parts of the speech was when the President said that even if you are discouraged or feel that everyone has given up on you, don't give up on yourself. And just before that when he said you won't be good at everything the first time you try it and you may have to go over things a few times before it clicks in your head.

There was definitely an appeal to pathos in the speech. The President talked about when he was a kid and got up at 4:30 to do his lessons with his mother and how he wished he was back in bed. It put him at the same level with us. He made a connection with his past and what we as students deal with now. His tone of voice when he got to this part of the speech, how he got quieter, really created a picture in my mind of him sitting at a table with his mother and made me feel almost sorry for that boy living in Indonesia. I guess that would be ethos as well. And it was pathos and ethos again when he talked about his father leaving, his mother dealing with everything else while trying to raise him on her own, and when he felt lonely and like he didn't fit in.And there was an appeal to logos. The President used the examples of JK Rowling and Michael Jordan to illustrate his statement that you won't succeed the first time you try. He also used the stories of three students in difficult situations to show that you can succeed when faced with challenges and that you shouldn't give up.

I thought that over all the speech was pretty good. Like others have said, it was a very good pep talk. It seemed to me that President Obama was trying to motivate kids to do well and not give up when things got tough. It was like he was saying "I know school can be hard and not all that exciting, but we're all expecting great things from you. We expect you to stay focused and work hard this year. Don't let us down." Throughout this school year, kids are going to think back and remember this speech and push themselves to excel because that's what President Obama told them to do.