Rhetorical Analysis Of Rita Pierson: Every Kid Needs A Champion

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Rita Pierson: Every Kid Needs A Champion

Rita Pierson has been a child educator for over forty years, teaching junior high, elementary school, and special education. She was also a testing coordinator, an assistant principal, and a counselor, bringing a special energy into every role. Rita Pierson gives this speech to an intended audience of educators throughout the world, showing how relationships can affect a child’s academic studies. I believe Rita’s speech is appropriate for her intended audience because there are some educators out there who do not believe in relationships can alter a child’s view on education.
Rita opens up her speech with ethos, telling her audience that her mother and her grandparents were educators and she has been …show more content…

Pierson, you were so excited we just let you go’” (2:23). This anecdote was effective in various ways such as creating humor and an example to support her idea. The use of humour in this anecdote also showed use of pathos and …show more content…

In Rita’s speech, she once heard a colleague say “They don’t pay me to like the kids, they pay me to teach a lesson and the kids should learn it. Case closed” Rita then says, “Well I said to her, well kids don’t learn from people they don’t like” (1:36) This creates a sense of humour, keeps the audience’s attention, and supports her main idea of children needing a healthy relationship with their educator. Rita sounds as if she is arguing with her colleague as her colleague has a different feeling for student­teacher relationships. She attacks her colleague in her speech to show that Rita disagrees with her colleagues thoughts about relationships with students. Rita’s message is to show that making connections as a teacher to a student can be very effective in a child’s education. “Teaching and learning should bring joy. How powerful would our world be if we had kids who were not afraid to take risks, who were not afraid to think, and who had a champion? Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists on that they become the best that they can possibly be” (7:01). Rita uses logos in this speech by telling her audience of how powerful the world would be if kids enjoyed learning. She makes a point with the word “champion” by telling the audience that they can be

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