Patriotic Speech, anyone?

My students have to write a patriotic speech tomorrow...and whenever I tell them I get groans and "do we have to?"[insert whine] This year I thought I might try to inspire them with a patriotic speech of my own.  Wondering if I'll get into trouble though because my musing took me into some controversial subject area...I'd love to know what you think...as long as you are constructive and not a basher...

Read on.......

According to David McCloud, the Chief of Staff of the Governor of Virginia, Great speeches are primarily emotional, not logical.

Small shifts in tone and phrasing make an enormous difference to the audience, so you sweat the details.

A great speech has a clear voice speaking throughout.

A great speech conveys one idea only, though it can have lots of supporting points.

And most of all: a great speech answers a great need.

Most of you will think that writing a speech on a patriotic topic, assigned to you arbitrarily by a teacher or maybe two, does not answer a great need.

I tell you, however, that in this country, in America, the "Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave" there is a need that is greater than no other and that, my friends, is to be loved again.

America is a land like no other, a land of opportunity and of privilege.  A land of suffering and pain and homelessness.  A land where you can rise from the bottom and fall from the top.  

This is a land where freedom rings and young black men are shot by the police and by each other and sometimes we don't know the difference. So we hang our heads and wag our fingers and shout out blame that America is no longer the land of the free or the home of the brave.

But when we lift our heads the flag is still flying because the very officers that we proclaim have misused justice stand in front of the bullet meant to tear that flag to shreds and leave it tattered on the ground.

This is a country where our children sit in classrooms with teachers who have been told or at least led to believe that they are inherently wrong because of test scores and data and politics, yet our children like no other country's children receive a free and appropriate education from dedicated men and women that often times are the only smile that child will receive from an adult that day.  That school the only place of warmth and full bellies.  

Only in America can a child of any color, race, religion, or not, rise up to become the leader of the free world.  Win a race against circumstances and change the face of politics to right the wrongs of injustice and work toward a better tomorrow.

"Our country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing"...What our country needs, clearly needs, greatly needs is to be loved again.  To be sung of in the halls of Montezuma and on the shores of Tripoli.  

America is in a crisis of economics and freedom, and great need and unrelenting want, of the entitlement of youth who feel they deserve to win not because they have worked to climb the ladder but because they  just showed up. 

America is in crisis because our love for her has waned in the midnight of tomorrow, and yesterday, and all the days to come.

So it is for us to take time from the business of living and stop and think about our love, some call it patriotism, for the great and not so great country that we live in.  To stop and consider the possibility of what can be and the potential of the unending opportunity to rise above the ashes, to sit in the clouds, to linger in tomorrow and see what makes our country great and build that love into the towering successes of America.

According to David McCloud, the Chief of Staff of the Governor of Virginia, Great speeches are primarily emotional, not logical.

Small shifts in tone and phrasing make an enormous difference to the audience, so you sweat the details.

A great speech has a clear voice speaking throughout.

A great speech conveys one idea only, though it can have lots of supporting points.

And most of all: a great speech answers a great need.