Paper 2: Writing - Speech
English Language: AQA GCSE, topic 6.2.5
Speeches
Speeches are usually designed to persuade the audience or sometimes even inspire the audience. Good speeches are not boring and will use lots of emotive language as well as rhetorical techniques.
What is contained in a speech?
- Addresses the audience directly (says ‘you’ or ‘we’) to motivate action or support.
- How can a speaker engage with the audience?
- E.g. Rhetorical questions - ' Should you good people have to put up with this?'.
- Have one or two clear arguments that they link their paragraphs back to.
- A mixture of short and long sentences so that the listener keeps paying attention.
- A clear end to signal that the speech has finished.
- E.g. ' Thank you for listening'.
- A strong conclusion to motivate action.
How to write a persuasive speech?
- Persuasive speeches need a structure that allows the audience to remember their message and be motivated to act upon it.
- Having a key message and a peak or climax in a speech can create momentum, which excites the crowd. Things that are emotive are remembered more easily.
Tips for writing speeches
- Speeches are presented, instead of read like a book.
- This makes the literary techniques like alliteration, rhetorical questions, sibilance, onomatopoeia, repetition, and rule of 3 more powerful.
- Try reading each paragraph in your head after writing it.
Test yourself on Paper 2: Writing - Speech
Which technique would be less effective when used in a speech than when written?