Civic Artifact Speech Outline

Introduction

  • Thesis: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address articulates powerful examples of strong emotional appeals of confidence and hope, the Kairos of the tense political atmosphere of 1933, and the commonplace that an inaugural address usually lays out the President’s promises and intentions for the upcoming term.

Rhetorical Situation/Kairos

  • First Inaugural Address (1933)
  • He won the election by a relatively large margin
  • Great Depression
  • This is unlike his previous campaign speeches because he doesn’t have to convince anyone to vote for him, he knows he has enough of their approval.

Ethos

  • Trying to boost confidence and hope
  • Famous quote: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”
  • This is the part of the speech that would look at specific quotes from the speech
  • It’s normally difficult to be seen as “relatable” as a politician when people are struggling with unemployment.

Commonplaces

  • The Inaugural Address is where Presidents usually make broad claims about what they are going to get done during their upcoming term.

Conclusion

  • Dynamic between a newly elected official and the citizens

Gratin Dauphinoise

For my first content post on this blog, I’ve decided to start with a particular food that I’ve grown up eating. This week I made a gratin, which is a French staple, especially in this ever so slightly cooling weather. I’m going to be honest and say that I didn’t really find enough time to go out and do enough research on the other dishes I was recommended, and I want to do them justice so I’ve decided to hold off on writing about them for the week. I really do plan to make a version of every food I write about so that I have something personal to contribute to each recipe. I promise, though, that I will make them.
Anyways, back to the gratin. So a gratin is a very broad category of food and I will be looking particularly at the “gratin dauphinoise” which is basically a type of gratin from the specific region in France. This dish is baked layers of sliced potatoes, cream, and various spices in a casserole dish which I promise tastes better than it sounds, especially during the cold winter months. According to various recipes I looked at, my mom’s input, and accounting for a couple of mistakes I made along the way, making this recipe shouldn’t take more than 25 minutes followed by about a little less than half an hour in the oven. Then, you get a nice baked dish with a perfectly crisp top layer that is definitely the best part.
I think this is a good recipe to start off with considering it’s actually pretty simple and hard to mess up once you figure out how to cut the potatoes which I definitely struggled with myself at first. If you ever plan on trying this recipe out, I’d recommend waiting for a nice cold night because this is definitely not a light dish. Every time I think about a gratin dauphinoise I can only imagine coming home from a long day snowboarding and having this as a meal to warm us up. I wouldn’t consider it ideal for the 75° weather I made it in earlier this week.
I’ve also attached a link to a step by step detailed recipe in case anyone is interested in making this at home. If you do I’d love to hear about it. As always, if anyone has any recommendations for a future post feel free to let me know!

Recipe: https://www.thespruceeats.com/gratin-dauphinois-recipe-1375736

Kairos: FDR’s First Inaugural Address

Just like my last post, I have again decided to look at a speech as a civic artifact. This time, I’ll be looking at President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address and how the rhetorical situation in that time and place, as well as the purpose of the speech, determined the Kairos of the piece.
At the time of FDR’s election and inauguration in 1933, America was deep into the Great Depression. Morale was down, and people were desperately struggling to hold on. They had just elected a new president and were in desperate need of a change. FDR presented this speech for that very reason, therefore revealing the true works of Kairos in this civic artifact. The rhetorical situation that this speech was created in allowed for an effective means of having its message greatly received.
FDR utilized various methods to now only convey deep connectedness with the people and their struggles but also uplifting them and inspiring them to look to the future with ambition and hope. He saw the American people as needing to be motivated and excited about the future. FDR had a few different purposes with this speech other than just inspiration though. Even so, he knew that the best way to get the American people on board with any particular political plan that they came up with was to have them actively engaged and enthusiastic about life after the Great Depression. For this reason, he in a way snuck his political plan in the speech between words of passion and magnitude. Considering his political motivation within the speech as well, it is essential to realize that this speech was also directed at members of Congress and other political figures as a way to inspire them to follow his plan as well.
Overall, the Kairos of this piece can be looked at in multiple ways to establish the true purpose and rhetorical situation in which this piece was presented to its audience.

Cultural Dining

After a week of going back and forth, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever end up being able to pick my passion blog topic. Yet, here we are and I can say that I have finally picked one that I am completely happy with and look forward to writing about for the rest of the semester. Without further ado, I can now say that my passion blog will revolve around a central theme of cultural dining.
I plan on probably looking at one particular food from a certain culture to start off, and then broadening out to explain more about the cultural background surrounding it. I also thought that maybe as a way to keep this blog upbeat I could even look at some dishes that would not be traditionally considered “cultural”. For example, why not look into a particular food from one of the Harry Potter movies. I could then go on to look into its origin, hows its made, and stuff like that. Let me know if you think that would be a fun thing to incorporate into the blog every once in a while.
Another thing that I still have to figure out is how else I’m going to chose what cultures or dishes in particular to blog about. For now, I think I’ll stick close to what I know, and then hopefully eventually I get some requests or recommendations that lead me somewhere else. I don’t just want to blog on foods that I already know about because I too hope to learn something while writing for this blog. That being said, if anyone has any ideas or wants me to look into a particular meal just let me know in the comments or something because I’d be happy to do that anytime.
I imagine this blog ending up being a condensed version of a lot of research I end up having to do on each of these cultural dishes and traditions. I hope to take that broad and dense information that is scattered all over the internet and bring it here where I can reformat it into a much more consumer friendly format that doesn’t give anyone a headache trying to read. I think most of this blog will sort of find its own pattern as I move through it and will create its own sort of format for a “typical” post. So basically, all I need now is a suggestion for a dish or culture (fictional or real) for my first informational post so if anyone has any, drop a comment.

Possible Passion Blog Topics

Topic 1 – Presidential Election/Historical Context
As we all know, this upcoming year is a pretty big election year. As someone interested in politics, I will definitely have a lot of possible content to talk about on my passion blog in terms of current events involving the election and historical context relating to some things brought up during the election. I also really love political history, including old elections, government methods, and how specific laws have come to be. I think this might be a fun and also an informative lens to use on our current political climate, especially as things escalate going into November. I am also considering maybe a more specific part of the election to focus on, considering that it might be a little overwhelming to try to cover such a broad amount of information in short passion blog posts. Instead, if I find a specific area of the election or history that I am particularly interested in, it will allow me to delve deeper into the content.

Topic 2 – Recipes/Cultural Food
As a second possible topic, another thing that I’m always happy about it having some really good food. I think that this might be a fun topic to explore because it would be both informative in a way that people might be able to actually go out and make some of the food I talk about or learn something about a particular culture. My friends and I come from a very diverse ethnic background, so we have an extensive range of cultures, and with that comes some really great recipes. I think this passion blog topic would be a fun way to learn myself about a wide range of cultures and then use that information to share with my passion blog audience. This blog doesn’t even have to focus solely on the actual food. Instead, it can also look at the cultural differences in perceiving food and its social purpose differently across cultures. Maybe each post would be formatted as sort of a cultural background explanation with a little recipe at the end to tie it together. I also really think that this would be a fun blog topic to receive comments from because people will be able to share their own experiences or ideas too. This is probably the topic I’m leaning towards the most for my passion blog out of the two so far, but we’ll see.

JFK: I Am a Citizen of Berlin

President John F. Kennedy’s speech at the Berlin Wall in 1963 includes many elements of rhetoric to convey a powerful message. Now regarded as a very famous speech, especially of its time, the components used to be so influential are interesting to observe. Kennedy’s most famous line of the address is the German translation of “I am a citizen of Berlin”. This line not only appeals to a sense of community and commonplace but also to powerful patriotism, which we are accustomed to in America, but not in Berlin. This line is a significant emotional phrase that also feels like a call to action. This sense of solidarity and coming together as one with a common goal or ideology are all commonplace ideas that drive this speech and its underlying power. It’s interesting to consider how patriotism is used to address another country, considering nationalism is such a big thing in America. It would be incredibly interesting to understand and consider how a US President might view the effect of patriotism differently than a citizen of Berlin. It is also notable to consider how commonplaces change from country to country, for example, and how people addressing people from other parts of the world chose to administer rhetoric differently or similarly.
This speech also influenced many other public addresses in the future, including President Regan’s address at the Berlin Wall. President Kennedy’s speech instilled such strong commonplaces, especially among the people of Berlin, that he remained a cherished figure even after his death. This speech continued his legacy even after his death because people saw him as being able to bring people together. Therefore, commonplaces and rhetoric used in his speeches were arguably able to continue his memory and legacy, at least for the people of Berlin.