Transcript Speech Analysis Project - Ms. Walden's English Class

Speech
Analysis
By: Anvitha Mandapati, Macauley
Project Mascarenhas, Arnav Kadam,
Carson Jones, and Ashlyn Lacy
Speech: #5 Address to the Nation
After the Challenger Disaster by
Ronald Reagan
The Close Reading:
Five Words:
Tragedy
Impact
Faith
Nation
Freedom
The Close Reading:
Tragedy is an important word in this text, because seven
people had died in a space shuttle accident. I think tragedy is
the mood of this speech,because it shows how not just the
nation but everyone is mourning for the loss of these seven
astronauts. This is shown in the text, “But we feel the loss,
and we’re thinking about you so very much.”
The Close Reading:
Impact is an important word, because it shows how even
though we mourn for these seven people we have learned and
gained knowledge from this experience. Ronald Reagan is
saying that we don’t know the effects yet, but we are working
towards a better path. In his speech he says, “The Challenger
crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to
follow them.” We have not reached our destination yet as a
country, but we are working towards it as one.
The Close Reading:
Faith is an important word in this text, because it shows that
we should not give up as a country. We have lost people who
were trying to lead us to our future, but that doesn’t mean we
shouldn’t give up. I personally believe that there will be hard
times, but you have to work through the hard times to reach
your destination. To help keep faith and hope in the people
Ronald gives an example of a coincidence. He says, “Well,
today we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication
was, like Drake’s, complete.” He wants to compare the
situations to help keep faith in the country.
The Close Reading:
Nation is an important word, because it describes our country
and the impact and mourn it is going through right now for the
loss of these seven people. Ronald in his speech says, “We
mourn their loss as a nation together.” The word nation also
helps bring our nation together and unite into one. Our
country is very diverse and we all have different cultures,
religions, and even ideas, but we call belong to one nation. No
matter how different each person is, we are all labeled under
being in one nation.
The Close Reading:
Freedom is an important word, because that is what our country is
built upon. All the citizens of the United States have basic rights
that are not guaranteed in other parts of the world. Freedom helps
give the right for the public to know the true story of the seven
civilians and nothing should be covered up. Ronald in his speech
says, “We don’t hide our space program. We don’t keep secrets and
cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That’s the way
freedom is, and we wouldn’t change it for a minute.” Freedom
helps represent our country and is the foundation of our prospering
country today.
Part 2: Contextual Analysis
●
The morning of January 28 was unusually cold, and engineers warned their superiors that certain components—particularly the
rubber O-rings that sealed the joints of the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters—were vulnerable to failure at low temperatures.
However, these warnings went unheeded, and at 11:39 a.m. Challenger lifted off.
●
Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds on the ground, including the families of McAuliffe and the other astronauts on board,
stared in disbelief as the shuttle exploded in a forking plume of smoke and fire.
●
The mission’s launch from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, was delayed for six days due to weather and and
technical problems.
●
Shortly after the disaster, President Ronald Reagan appointed a special commission to determine what went wrong with
Challenger and to develop future corrective measures.
●
Their investigation revealed that the O-ring seal on the Challenger’s solid rocket booster, which had become brittle in the cold
temperatures, failed.
●
The commission also found that Morton Thiokol, the company that designed the solid rocket boosters, had ignored warnings
about potential issues.
●
After the accident, NASA refrained from sending astronauts into space for more than two years as it redesgned a number of the
shuttle’s features.
●
Ten years after the Challenger tragedy, two large pieces from the spacecraft washed ashore on a Florida beach. The remaining
debris is now stored in a missile silo at Cape Canaveral.
Conclusion: These facts explain what exactly happened to the space shuttle and why the problem was there in the first place. It also
explains who could have stopped this from happening and shows how being careless can cause accidents
Part 3: Overall Purpose and Claim
The overall purpose of this speech was to inform the
people about the horrendous space shuttle accident.
His other purpose was to console the families that
were affected by this tragic accident. Regan was also
trying to help the younger school children understand
that such incidents happen in life. "It's part of the
process of exploration and discover" ~ Ronald Regan
Part 4: Rhetorical Devices
● Parallelism:
Parallelism is the use of components in a
sentence that are grammatically the same; or
similar in their construction, sound, meaning or
meter.
o Reagan uses parallelism when he lists the names
of the astronauts who died, and when he tells the
audience “There will be more shuttle flights and
more shuttle crews and… in space.”
o
Part 4: Rhetorical Devices (cont.)
Part 5 (a): Group Impressions
Carson: “interesting and well put together.”
Macauley: “was a good speech that comforted those who were affected
by this tragedy”
Anvitha: “...was an overall good speech and helped motivate the people
move on and look forward to the future.”
Arnav: "this speech was informative to many people, including myself,
about the national loss of the space shuttle."
Ashlyn: “this speech tries to motivate the people still mourning the
explosion of the space shuttle and make them look forward to future
expeditions.”
Part 5 (b): Effective Strategies
Parallelism was used because Ronald Reagan wanted to honor the people
who died in the explosion. Saying the name of every person who fell victim
to the tragesty forced people to think of the people and their lives before it
happened.
Metaphors were used because he wanted people to feel a sense of pride
and hopefulness towards the future of America and what we are going to
accomplish. Also, he brings the country together emotionally by saying that
we all come together with this great loss and how even if we didn’t know
the people personally, we still understand that it happened and how it is a
loss to everyone.
Citations
“Challenger Disaster.” History.com. A&E Television
Networks, 2010. Web. 15 Oct. 2014; I used this to find
my facts about what happened to the Challenger 7.
Thanks for Watching!!!