A Rhetorical Response

This is the first action project of the school year and we have started off with such an exciting topic. Our current class, Rhetoric, has been going really well. We have been talking about how to think rhetorically in any given situation. What to think and what to do, were all big ideas that we were trying to comprehend. For this action project, we decide to take a look at our presidential candidates and use speaking techniques of the rhetorical variety, to give a speech that would answer a certain question while appealing to a certain demographic. The target audience of the speech I wrote and recorded was high school Juniors, through college freshmen. See the video and script attached below.

Q: Thank you everyone for being here. This is a speech that one of our presidential candidates here, will be delivering in response to a single question. So without wasting any time at all let’s get right to it. Mr. Trump, how do you think the ongoing reign of COVID-19 will affect the admission of students into college, and will that change after a vaccine is released?

A: Well first, I just want to say that COVID19 is quite the tragedy that Americans are dealing with at the moment. 7.15M of Americans are or have been, diagnosed and I want to extend my dearest and sincerest condolences to them and their families. I know it is difficult. I think that COVID will not affect the admission of students into college, but I do think that it will affect the graduation rates of these schools and our country itself. Times are tough and students are learning online which makes it even more difficult. In all honesty, many students won't do as well as they had hoped. I assure you, however, we are doing everything in our power to make sure that education can be delivered as efficiently as possible without the confinement of COVID. But yes, when the vaccine for COVID is released, everyone should be able to have access to a genuine college education. That is something that should definitely change. I’m estimating that the application of the vaccine would cost about 30 dollars per citizen which should be affordable for every citizen of America. For the average American citizen, COVID is such a pain, and again we are working tirelessly to eradicate this atrocity. Once the vaccine is released and a decent percentage of the population, say 43%, get the vaccine we will send out a notice stating that colleges can go back to their normal ways of teaching. But obviously, that isn’t the case so I would like everyone to know that I stand with you.