Alison and Debbie have greatly enjoyed working on a project with the British Library called “Speaking Out”
This is a terrific resource that the library has put together with digitised recordings and transcripts of speeches throughout history and articles on oratory. Noisy Classroom has worked with the British Library to select five speeches to analyse, looking at content, delivery, language and structure – the same criteria we use to judge our public speaking competitions today. The speeches we looked at by, two of the most famous orators, JFK and Barak Obama, alongside lesser know speeches by Jess Phillips, James Baldwin and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie show a variety of powerful voices and encompass classical rhetoric, humour, lyricism and passion. The articles and other resources can be accessed at the Speaking Out website