Rory Gilmore – A Speech to Remember Speech

- Megan Filipowski

Purpose: To inform my audience about why Rory Gilmore’s speech at her graduation is effective

Organizational Pattern: Topical

  • Opening: [RHETORICAL QUESTION] How many of you remember what the valedictorian said at your graduation? [PAUSE]
    • Don’t remember.
      • Fictional character speech resonated
      • [PLAY CLIP]
      • quote word for word
      • love show and speech.
    • Rory Gilmore = fictional character.
      • I relate to.
      • Time in front of TV, not making own memories
    • Character understand
      • live in a world of books.
      • people be characters in my reality.
      • Very similar
      • What would Rory do?
  • Rory was the girl that when she headed to school in the morning her backpack was so stuffed with books that she often couldn’t fit in her textbooks.
    • She had multiple books. [Gilmore Girls Guide Season 2]
      • Big part of her live
      • Leave them out
      • surprised.
    • Allusions are memorable [Stylistic Devices]
      • Books I want to read
      • The world I enter
      • The world she enters.
    • Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain and William Faulkner.
      • famous authors.
      • easily recognize and know the works of.
      • Even the plot lines give away the title
    • Allusions are successful
      • Out of thin air
    • Without them not so memorable
  • Rory not only lived in this imaginative world, but she also had people play characters in the story of her life.
    • Love and support no matter what.
      • World I wish I lived in.
      • Fiction to heartstrings
      • Cried before
    • Pathos. [Rhetoric Document, Aristotelian Appeals]
      • Real and important
      • Describes using metaphors
    • Makes me think about own relationships
      • Has my emotions & emotional connection [WATCH HAND GESTURES]
      • In the speech mom’s a crying mess.
    • Unbreakable emotional connection
      • looking into my soul.
      • calling me out on my actions
      • Her use of pathos is effective
  • Rory Gilmore may be made-up, but if I were valedictorian at my school, I would try to reword this speech to make it mine.
    • you don’t forget.
      • I haven’t forgotten
      • [PARALLELISM] When I’m in need of a good cry, I turn it on. [PAUSE]
      • [PARALLELISM] When I miss my mom, I turn it on. [PAUSE]
      • [PARALLELISM] When I wish that things were different, I turn it on. [PAUSE]
    • character that I won’t forget.
      • Relationship with her mother
      • No fighting and does everything together
      • Single mom and her teenage daughter [Gilmore Girls Profile]
      • Discover how they grew together.
    • I can relate to the life that Rory lives
      • [STORY] episode where Rory goes away to college.
      • Calls mom.
      • I didn’t do that.
  • Closing
    • My world has books and real characters
    • Sums up what my life was like through high school.
    • I may not remember what my valedictorian said, but I will always remember what Rory Gilmore, and not just at her graduation, but in all seven seasons of the show.