In the western world, education is seen as a human right. It is seen as something that a human cannot be without, and it is especially seen as something everyone should have the opportunity to get an education. Whether you are American or European, there comes a time in your education, where you will have to take responsibility for your own education. President Obama talks about the importance of this responsibility in his speech Back To School from 2009. He encourages students to take their responsibility seriously, as well as understanding the importance of it.
President Obama seems to know exactly whom he is speaking to; throughout the entire speech, he addresses his audience in the right way. From the very first sentence , he has set the tone of the speech. He starts out by making himself approachable by speaking less formally, which is an important stylistic device, as he is the president of the United States of America, and therefore not someone most people can relate to. He continues to make himself approachable, by putting in a personal story, of when he says: “I know that feeling” and then continues to tell a story of his earlier life, where he lived in Indonesia . This gains the attention of the audience, not only because he makes himself approachable, but also because he makes himself relatable. This he continues to do throughout the speech – for example, he mentions activities the audience knows well (watching TV, playing Xbox ) as well as successful people the audience knows (J.K. Rowling, Michael Jordan ) and mentioning their failures. He is aware that the audience he is speaking to are in various ages, and that some of them are quite young – this is obvious, when you look at his choice of words. The words of his speech are not complicated, which makes it easily understood.
The values President Obama advocates in his speech all relate to