Journal #5: My Speaking Inspiration

    To be completely honest, I hardly know any celebrities or public speakers. I have never been engaged in that sort of thing (after all, isn't it a little odd how these peoples' lives are put on a pedestal just because they're super dramatic or controversial or entertaining, meanwhile normal people, many of whom are just as interesting, fade into obscurity 10 times as fast once they die? Maybe I'm just cynical, but it irks me). 

      That being said, I do know a lot of fantastic public speakers in real life, so I'll instead be showcasing them rather than some random celebrity. Namely, my high school Rhetoric teacher Mr. Adam Depew. What a legend, that fellow. Although the class was primarily for writing essays and analyzing literature, what times he did give a lecture were always so engaging.

    

    Usually, he'd give lectures after an essay when introducing our next topic, or as we were reading The Sea-Wolf, our novel for the class. What really stuck out was how animated he was as he gave speeches, both in his physical presentation and his inflection. He'd place emphasis on certain words, crack self-deprecating jokes every now and again, and act out scenes from the novel we were reading so we could have a visual of what he was explaining. He was most definitely a theater kid. Often when he'd use a story as an example, he'd use someone in the class and tell a story about them, like "Say Kevin over there was taking care of his grandma's dog for the weekend..." to make sure we were paying attention; oftentimes he'd choose someone who was clearly zoned out, so when he said their name they'd be all up and alert wondering "why is he saying my name?"

    One aspect of him as a speaker that always stood out to me is how he used evidence. I recall, before assigning us to write a paper about the American school system in some way, shape, or form, he gave us a big slide full of statistics about schools in America. He had us read through some of them (revealed one by one so it wasn't just a huge information dump) and then asked us what the quotations explained. The answer? Nothing. All of the statistics he showed us were useless on their own, he said, because the purpose of evidence is to be interpreted by the speaker. They needed explanation, they themselves were not an explanation enough.

    I'm using that example because it always stuck out to me every time, I used evidence in a presentation or essay. It really showed me that evidence needs to be interpreted, not just used for the sake of "it supports my claim so I'm putting it here since it's credible". Mr. Depew is by no means an exceptional or god-sent speaker; if anything, he's probably fairly average. Still, to someone who is more closed off like me, I found his ability to subvert expectations and deliver speeches in such an energetic manner to be very intriguing.