A shy young student, seemingly nervous, begins speaking in a very soft tone and doesn't wait long to share a quote from the person she is speaking about: "Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them." Instead of a boring life history, these carefully selected quotes illustrate Dr. Seuss' personality, values, and wisdom. Tying this in with other facts about Theodor Seuss Geisel really brings the tribute to life while taking audience members back to their childhood days.
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better it's not."
A quote that embodies the self-less motivation of many,
one of the many universal meanings captured by Dr. Seuss.
Meanings that Jessi was able to so eloquently convey,
to an audience captivated simply by hearing the words written by this man,
words so eloquently spoken by Jessi's soft voice,
words chosen in a way that captured who this man was,
words.......rich in meaning.
As mentioned earlier, Jessi's speech was effective in engaging the audience for several reasons. Her use of Dr. Seuss quotes captures who he was as a person and also to take audience members back to their childhood. Her softer tone of voice caught people's attention, almost having them lean in towards her to capture her message. Also, her word choice was eloquent and made the speech easy to follow.
Some areas of improvement include making more eye contact, swaying less, perhaps speaking just a bit louder, and maybe even incorporating pauses or changes in tone/volume for the emphasis of certain parts of the speech. That emphasis would've worked especially well for sharing the quotes with the audience.
Alexander provides many good reasons for his advocacy of poetic responses, most importantly to engage students to reflexively view their own work in an alternative way in comparison to the traditional grading system. It essentially emphasizes the importance of reflecting on the work itself and not so much on the grade or how the work fits stringent rubric requirements. I think it also encourages the teacher to step outside the confines of traditional grading and teaching.
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