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The Greatest Inauguration Speech

Assessment Model Print

Okay Speech

In this inauguration speech, a student parodies ineffective speech making but as a result creates a less-than-effective piece of rhetoric.

Title: The Greatest Inauguration Speech

Level: Grade 11, Grade 12

Mode: Persuasive Writing

Form: Speech

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Student Model

The Greatest Inauguration Speech

My fellow Americans, you've heard a lot of inauguration speeches, but you are about to hear the Greatest Inauguration Speech. Of course it is. What else would you expect to hear from the Greatest American President?

People said I should listen to other inauguration speeches to find out what I should say, but why? Learn from their mistakes, I guess. You know, during the commercial breaks for NFL playoff games, everybody goes to the bathroom. Puts a strain on the sewage system. All I can tell you is there must have been an even worse strain on the sewage systems of our country during those other speeches. But that won't happen with this speech. Those sewers are going to stay dry till the very end, I can tell you, but then get ready for the flood. Not that the infrastructure can handle it. It's in terrible shape after the last president. I'm going to change that. When I'm finished, we'll have a sewage system that can handle even my best speech.

What'll be so great about this speech? Well, first of all, there's me. Take a look at this face. It's a face that has seen a lot. If this face could talk . . . which is what it can do, lucky for you, or this would be a very quiet speech. Then there's this crowd. Wow, look at this crowd. There's never been a crowd like this. There never will be again, until my next inauguration speech. Then that crowd will make this one look like nothing. But it's not nothing. This is quite a crowd. And don't forget the things I am going to say in this speech. Those things are going to be great. The greatest.

I have a friend who told me a story. He said that a guy came up to him and said, "You know the next president?" And my friend said, "Sure," because, you know, we're friends. And the guy said, "Hey, would you give him this for me?" and gave him a box and walked away. He just walked away. So my friend thought, "Well, who knows what's in the box? It could be anything. It could be something good. It could be really good. Or it could be bad. Really bad." And since this happened in New Jersey, my friend thought it maybe wouldn't be so good. So he gave the box to the Secret Service. They do a great job. I'm friends with a lot of them. So they put the box in the middle of a cement room, and they send in the robot. It creeps up there and sticks out its little gripper and flips back the lid, and there's this cake. Angel food, of course, because, look at me. Sprinkles on top. Icing that says, "Congratulations!" Well, still, what is it? It could be deadly, you know. Some cakes are. So they send in the bomb-sniffer dog. It sniffs the cake. It's all good. No problem. But they still weren't sure if it might have something bad in it. So they send in the drug-sniffer dog. Same deal. Everything seems fine. But what if it's not fine? Because that's their job, the Secret Service, to figure nothing is fine. So they let the dogs eat the cake. I know. Can you believe it? After all that, the dogs eat my cake. They got congratulated instead of me.

That's not just a story. That's about America. There's not going to be any question anymore about whether a cake is a cake or something bad. All the cakes are going to be good cakes. Delicious. And all the icing will say "Congratulations!" And all cakes will be eaten by Americans, not dogs. You know a lot of them aren't even American—the German shepherds and the English bulldogs and the cockerel Spaniards. No more cake for them. Just for us. That's what I'm promising you. Now isn't that great? Isn't that the greatest? Of course? Who doesn't like cake?

By the way, if you want to send me a "Congratulations" cake, don't bake it yourself. Just send the payment to my White House Chef. He takes credit, money order, PayPal, whatever. The more you send, the bigger the cake he makes, the fancier the icing. He'll even put my name on it. And then you'll know I'll get to have it rather than giving it to the dogs.

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