Lesson video

Hello, Miss Howard here.

Welcome to lesson two of our Rhetoric and Motivation Unit.

Now, if you remember last lesson, we looked at the iconic figure of Winston Churchill, we explored a little bit about his background, but more importantly, the evacuation, the really important historical event of Dunkirk and the speech that Winston Churchill gave as a result of that evacuation.

We explored and analysed the opening section of that speech, and maybe ended up a little bit perplexed, by that I mean confused around why he didn't open in a more motivational manner.

In fact, he sounded quite negative at the start around this impossible, dangerous situation.

And we've yet to see any sort of kind of glaring motivation coming from our prime minister at the time.

Today, we're going to explore that speech, the second section with a hopeful and optimistic mind that things are going to get slightly more motivational.

Otherwise, why would I have included it in the unit? For now, close down any distractions or conversations or apps that you might have running in the background, if you know how to do so.

You'll need a pen and a piece of paper for this lesson.

Find yourself a quiet space where you know you won't be disturbed and when you're ready, resume and press play for the lesson and we'll get started.

So, as I say, we'll continue today to read Churchill's speech, exploring how Churchill uses key rhetorical devices to refer to the enemy before then moving on to motivate his audience.

Now, if you recall, we discussed this last lesson, didn't we, about the fact that it's unusual that he doesn't open in a motivational way.

Instead, and we'll revisit this in just a moment, he lingers on how serious and dangerous the situation was, and he also shares his fears, that he thought that he'd be in a position to share this event as one of the worst military disasters of all time.

So it's not the most positive start.

So we made our predictions, didn't we, about how we hoped this speech will go in order to warrant it as a motivational speech.

We'll explore how his speech is structured.

So by looking at that, that second section, and we'll consider the fact that it does remain one of the most famous war related speeches of the time, and today we'll be looking at a pivotal moment.

So the point that the speech changes in tone and changes to lift the mood.

So a little bit of a spoiler alert for you there.

But in my defence, you would wonder why I decided to look at Winston Churchill's speech for the motivation unit if it wasn't motivational.

So we're going to have a little bit of review of rhetoric.

Then we're going to explore Churchill's motivational methods and the analysis of this pivotal point.

We'll end by having a think about what our predictions are for the final section of the speech that we'll be looking at next lesson.

Now, remember when we're exploring rhetoric, we're always looking out for these three aspects, and to what extent a speaker manages to create an equal parity, so equal demonstration of these three key aspects, ethos, logos, and pathos.

Now remember, really effective rhetoric, so the best speakers using rhetoric creates a blend of all three aspects of this triad.

We can't just focus on building ethos if we don't have knowledge to back up our argument or our ideas or opinions.

We cannot just fire facts and figures and build lots and lots of logos because we haven't come across as trustworthy.

Equally, we can't just appeal to pathos and make our audience feel empathy or guilt or sympathy if they don't trust us in the first place, and if they don't understand why our argument is important.

So this blended approach is really, really key here.

Let's see how much you remember.

Winston Churchill crossed the floor during his career, which means he, pause the video here.

See if you remember what cross the floor meant.

Fantastic work if you've got option one, switched political parties, so cross the floor, it was the idea that you kind of literally walked from one side of the House of Commons to the other to join the other political party.

So we know that Winston Churchill crossed parties during his career, left the conservatives for the liberals, and then controversially, crossed the floor again to go back to the conservative party at which point he was elected as prime minister.

Facts and figures help to build what? Pause the video here.

Option one again, fantastic work if you've got two out of two, logos, facts and figures help us build logos, they help us to prove our argument.

So let's have a little bit of a recap of Winston Churchill's motivational methods.

And we said, didn't we, that it is a little bit difficult to work out how at this point, this is going to be a motivational speech, so let's hope for better today.

Churchill uses rhetoric to build a bleak, hopeless image as he describes the situation at Dunkirk, if you remember.

And so he says, "I feared it would be my hard lot "to announce the greatest military disaster "in our long history." He shares, he confides that he was afraid of that, that that was what he had, his biggest concern that this would be an epic disaster.

He says, "For four or five days "an intense struggle reigned." We've gotten that king of really powerful adjective intense, but also describing it as a struggle.

Reigned means if, we usually use that to describe kind of a queen or a King reigning over a kingdom.

So it's almost this kind of magnitude, this reign means this kind of inescapable hold that this situation had over the British troops.

And then, if you remember, he used that really vivid imagery of this situation as an appendix, as almost part of our intestinal system, and "they hurled themselves in vain upon the ever-narrowing, "ever-contracting appendix within "which the British and French armies fought." So this idea that the British and French army were forced into this kind of corner, this crevice, as they were contracted, squeezed into a corner by the enemy, and you've got that repetition, that anaphora is ever-narrowing, ever-contracting.

So the new word that we'll need today for our analysis is pivotal.

Now pivotal means of crucial importance in relation to the development or success of something else in the context that we're going to be looking at.

You might also come across pivotal as to pivot is to kind of move something around, so to turn something around is pivoting.

In this context today, the way that we're going to be looking at pivotal moment is of crucial importance.

The point where, as the picture shows, a situation could go one of many ways.

So it's that kind of moment before something important happens, the pivotal moment where that decision is made and in which direction a situation's going to go.

And so it's taken from the late Middle English, from French, probably from the root of a dialect for pue, which is tooth of a comb or the Spanish puy, which is point.

So it's this idea of being a point, at the very tip of the point before you then have to make a decision.

We also have some new words within this section of the speech.

So you may want to pause the video here and make sure you write them down, so that you understand what they mean, and when Winston Churchill is speaking.

So we've got strained.

This idea of showing signs of tension or tiredness, if a situation is strained, it's difficult.

Ceaseless is constant or neverending.

If something is ceaseless.

Devotion, which is love or loyalty or commitment to somebody or something.

If you're devoted to something, you have love or loyalty to them.

And fidelity.

Now the fidelity of someone is how faithful they are to a person, an idea, or beliefs.

You might talk about fidelity to religion.

You might talk about fidelity within a relationship between two people being faithful to that person.

Now, I just want to hear you say them to make sure that you're quite happy to speak them out loud.

Say ready? Strained.

You say it, strained.

Fantastic, you're doing brilliantly so far.

Ceaseless, ceaseless, fantastic.

Devotion, devotion.

Brilliant work, last one.

Fantastic job so far.

Fidelity, you say it, fidelity.

Brilliant, okay, don't forget, if you need to write any of those down, pause here before we move on.

So at this pivotal moment in Churchill's speech, what I'd like you to do while we listen is make notes about what happened during the evacuation at Dunkirk.

So think about the key events that Winston Churchill describes during his speech.

[Winston Churchill] The British and French Armies fought.

Meanwhile, the Royal Navy, with the willing help of countless merchant seamen, strained every nerve to embark the British and Allied troops.

220 light warships and 650 other vessels were engaged.

They had to operate upon the difficult coast, often in adverse weather, under an almost ceaseless hail of bombs and an increasing concentration of artillery fire.

Nor were the seas, as I have said, themselves free from mines and torpedoes.

It was in conditions such as these that our men carried on, with little or no rest, for days and nights on end, making trip after trip across the dangerous waters, bringing with them always men whom they had rescued.

The numbers they have brought back are the measure of their devotion and their courage.

The hospital ships, which brought off many thousands of British and French wounded, being so plainly marked were a special target for Nazi bombs, but the men and women on board them never faltered in their duty.

Meanwhile, the Royal Air Force, which had already been intervening in the battle, so far as its range would allow, from home bases, now used part of its main metropolitan fighter strength, and struck at the German bombers and at the fighters which in large numbers protected them.

This struggle was protracted and fierce.

Suddenly the scene has cleared, the crash and thunder has for the moment, but only for the moment, died away.

A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valour, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquerable fidelity, is manifest to us all.

The enemy was hurled back by the retreating British troops.

He was so roughly handled that he did not hurry their departure seriously.

So, we must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory.

Wars are not won by evacuations.

But there was a victory inside this deliverance, which should be noted.

It was gained by the Air Force.

Many of our soldiers coming back have not seen the Air Force at work, they saw only the bombers which escaped its protective attack.

They underrate its achievements.

I have heard much talk of this, that is why I go out of my way to say this.

I will tell you about it.

This was a great trial of strength between the British and German Air Forces.

Can you conceive a greater objective for the Germans in the air than to make evacuation from these beaches impossible, and to sink all these ships which were displayed, almost to the extent of thousands? Could there have been an objective of greater military importance and significance for the whole purpose of the war than this? They tried hard, and they were beaten back.

They were frustrated in their task.

We got the Army away, and they have paid fourfold for any losses which they have inflicted.

So before we talk about the speech in little bit more detail, how did you get on with making notes about what happened during the evacuation itself? You may have had, and this is, this is just an example.

There was lots in there.

You may have heard about the 870 boats that were involved.

You may have had the fact that he said the rescue missions went on for days and days, and the men weren't able to rest.

You may have heard that comment that Winston Churchill made around, he said that the Nazi bombs targeted the hospital ships in particular as they were evacuating the injured out.

He also said 335,000 men were rescued and evacuated.

And he also made a comment around that this event, this evacuation was only possible and only successful because of the work of the Air Force who were kind of overseeing overhead and keeping the German bombers away while the ships evacuated the people.

So let's move on to this analysis of the pivotal point of this speech, where has it changed so that Winston Churchill is starting to become more motivational, more positive than maybe he was last lesson when we looked at the opening? Now this is where he's really appealing to pathos.

This is Winston Churchill's opportunity, after opening to say that it was a bleak, hopeless situation, He starts to marvel at the servicemen's efforts.

He starts to compliment them at this pivotal point where he changes tone.

So for example, he said, "our men carried on with little or no rest "for days and nights on end making trip "after trip across the dangerous waters." So you've got that appeal to pathos there, with this kind of long elongated sentence, and that use of the word dangerous, across the dangerous waters.

He comments about their devotion and their courage.

And so he's using really kind of strong adjectives to describe the British troops.

Also, you have this powerful verb, "they never faltered in their duty." Now if you falter, you pause or you hesitate in some way, you stop.

And he's saying that they didn't stop.

Even in the face of danger, they didn't hesitate.

They didn't think twice, and they just carried out their duty.

So these are all incredibly complimentary of the British troops in this situation.

He marvels, he shares how impressed he was.

He also uses says this, which is really memorable, and if anybody quotes from this speech, they usually use this particular line, or the final parts of the speech, I'm not going to talk about that because otherwise I'll ruin it for the next lesson for you.

So he says that the situation was, "A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valour, "by perseverance, by perfect discipline, "by faultless service, by resource, "by skill, by unconquerable fidelity, "is manifest to us all." So let's just unpack that in a little bit more detail.

So before we analyse this section of the speech, we need to make sure that we understand this particular word.

Patriotic, you say it, again.

Patriotic, you say it, fantastic word.

You're picking up words so quickly.

A devoted support for your country.

So this idea, if you are patriotic, if you support your country, you are patriotic.

So let's have a look at this statement in itself to try and understand what Churchill is saying, and how he is using rhetoric to marvel, and so to marvel, to compliment, to kind of be astounded by, to marvel at the efforts of the service men.

"A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valour, "by perseverance, by perfect discipline, "by faultless service, by resource, "by skill, by unconquerable fidelity, "is manifest to us all." First up, we have this hyperbole, a miracle of deliverance.

So he describes the situation as a miracle.

Now, usually we associate miracles with acts of God or biblical references, biblical stories.

If you remember, if you know any stories from the Bible, a great deal of them describe miracles that happen as an act of God or either the actions of Jesus Christ.

And so he describes this as a miracle deliverance.

It really is as though it was a holy act, as something incredible happened that day that was almost out of everybody's control.

It was so amazing and against all odds in what they thought was an impossible situation.

So that hyperbole of lifting, of elevating this situation into a miracle deliverance, deliverance as in the British troops were rescued and delivered back home.

It really describes it almost as though it was a holy act.

We also have the use of collective nouns to imply this was an effort from everybody listening when he says, "is manifest to us all." It's almost as though it's very much playing on people's patriotism, so being patriotic, because he understands that everybody listening would have liked to have felt as though they will part of this effort in some way.

Maybe not directly, they weren't, they weren't there in the evacuation, but they were thinking of their loved ones.

They were supporting them.

They were praying for them.

And so he's explaining that this was an effort from Britain as a nation, not just the troops that were there that day.

Lastly, we have this repetition and this are entire a run on sentence, which exceeds a tricolon, doesn't it.

We have more than three things that Winston Churchill makes reference to.

And we'll have a look at those.

But it emphasises the finest qualities of the serviceman.

The fact that he exceeds three quantities when he's complimenting them demonstrates to the audience how incredible they are, the fact that he can't just stop at three.

So he says by perseverance.

So their perseverance, they didn't give up.

By perfect discipline, by faultless service, so those two compliments are very much, they are impeccable.

They are perfect in their role as they were that day.

By resource, by skill, resource, and when it says, what it means by resource, it means the amount of people that they had available, and how good those people were.

By skill, by unconquerable fidelity, so if you are unconquerable, you are, it isn't possible to defeat you.

And we know what fidelity means, do you remember? That's right, yes.

This idea of being faithful.

So they are unconquerably faithful to the cause to their duty as soldiers.

But we have that repetition of by, by, by, by, by.

that run on sentence and that use of repetition that it demonstrates that they exceeded the expectations that were put upon them that day, their actions were so impressive that he can't just limit his compliments to only three.

So let's just pause here and have a go at this true or false.

Churchill says the German forces were of a poor quality.

Churchill describes the evacuation as a holy act.

Churchill tries to appeal to the patriotism of the people.

Brilliant work, if you've got two and three.

Fantastic.

So false, Churchill says the German forces were of a poor quality, he didn't explore the German forces in that way, and we'll have a look at that.

Churchill describes the evacuation as a holy act.

Yes, he does with that miracle of deliverance.

And he tries to appeal to the patriotism of the people by saying, doesn't he, he says us all, he involves us all in this speech, not just the troops that were there on the day.

Then he does something very, very interesting.

He goes on to compliment the German forces.

Now keep in the back of your mind, why would he do this? Let's explore what he says, first of all.

He says, "the Royal Air Force engaged the main strength "of the German Air Force and carried over 335,000 men, "French and British, out of the jaws of death and shame." What an incredible use of imagery there, the jaws of death and shame, that figurative language.

Brilliant, let's have a look.

He says that the main strength of the German Air Force.

So he's acknowledging the strength and power that the German Air Force have, this idea that they're powerful.

He's acknowledging that they have that, he's not referring to them all as weak at all.

Then he goes on to say, and ask this rhetorical question, "Can you conceive," can you conceive is can you think up, "Can you conceive a greater objective for the Germans in the air then to make evacuation "from these beaches, impossible and to sink all "of these ships, which were displayed almost "to the extent of thousands." So he's saying this, this is going to be, this was going to speak for the Germans, the best kind of project ever.

This was going to be the best operation of their time.

If they'd been successful, it would have been their biggest achievement.

And so, and he, in his words there when he says, can you conceive a greater objective? It implies that the German Air Force or the German forces were so skilled that this would be a huge achievement for them because of the fact that their achievements were so incredible in the first place.

He then refers to them, and we have this kind of run on sentence again.

He says, "They tried hard and they were beaten back.

"They were frustrated in their task." But lastly, he says, "we know that they are a very brave race." So he admits this kind of bravery.

He compliments them in that bravery, in their strength and their courage.

Why would he do this? Well, when you see what he says afterwards, it might make you look a bit more sense as to why he would flatter the German forces in this way.

He closes with, "all our pilots have been vindicated as superior." By faltering the German forces and demonstrating that they are so impressive, and they are so powerful and so courageous, and the fact that we still managed to evacuate the British troops out, British and French troops out, makes us sound all the more amazing, quite simply, as he says, superior.

Pause the video here.

If you want to make notes, or you may want to skip to the last part of the video to have a look at the quotations, there may be particular quotations that you want to write down.

We're going to use this section in order to write our own analysis today.

So Churchill flatters both the German and the British armed forces.

Why does he do that? This is Winston Churchill's pivotal point is where he moves from being quite negative, describing quite a bleak, hopeless situation to then flattering both sides.

So what we're going to do now is build up our own written analysis of why Winston Churchill flatters the German and the British armed forces in this way.

We're going to use what, how, why in order to build a our analysis.

The what is what device? What rhetorical device is Churchill using in the particular part of the speech that we look at? The how is how does he use it to compliment the German forces, or how does he use it to compliment the British forces? The why is why he would flatter the German forces at this stage or why he flatter the British forces at this stage? So let's have a look at an example, there's some sentence starters here to get you started.

Churchill compliments the German forces using the rhetorical device, which is evident within the line, and then your quotation.

When you're thinking about how he uses it, it really is down to how he's describing it.

So this suggests, this emphasises, this implies, that's your analytical language there, your analytical verbs.

When we think about why, I would very much go back to that quotation that he uses afterwards.

"All our pilots have been vindicated as superior." You can only really explain that somebody is superior if you've described why the other side was so impressive to begin with.

Let's have a look at the example before you get started.

Churchill compliments the German forces using the rhetorical question.

There's our what.

"Can you conceive a greater objective for the Germans?" I've cut it short there because they just need part of the question, which is why I've used the ellipses, the dot dot dot there.

So that is their what.

The question implies that he understands how this was a significant moment in German history, as well as the history of great Britain.

There's the how.

Earlier in the speech, he also uses hyperbole to depict the effort from the British army as a miracle of deliverance, what.

Suggesting that the evacuation was a holy act.

How? By flattering, what he does.

Both countries in equal measure until the line, " All our pilots have been vindicated as superior." Churchill is portrayed as honourable and reasonable by demonstrating empathy with the enemy.

That's our why.

Why does Churchill do it? Well, he wants to be seen as a reasonable and honourable gentlemen, doesn't he, by acknowledging the German effort.

Why? Think back to the original purpose of the speech.

It wasn't just to build up the morale of the British people.

Churchill was worried that the Nazis were going to invade Britain next.

He was appealing to America, and this person has remembered that, fantastic.

Let's read on.

This could be to help in his appeal to America, as it indicates that he's keen to establish peace and work with others, brilliant work.

So we can see that they've got the what, what's being used, here's a rhetorical question, hyperbole, flattery.

They've got the how, where they explained, so suggesting that the evacuation was a holy act implies that he understands, but then they've included the why, and thought about the purpose of the speech to begin with.

Churchill needs to be presented as honourable and reasonable if America is going to want to support and help him.

Pause the video here, and I'd like you to have a go at your own analysis.

You may want to use quotations from the green boxes that I've put onto the screen, or alternatively, you may want to go back in the video and have a look at the other areas that we looked at, such as the miracle of deliverance.

Best of luck.

Can't wait to see what you do.

Don't forget to press play when you're done.

So let's see if you remember the answer to these.

How does Churchill appeal to pathos within this speech? He flatters the enemy.

Why might Churchill flatter the enemy? Two answers here.

To appear as honourable to then reveal Britain as superior, fantastic work if you've got both answers.

Brilliant if you just got one.

So what are our final predictions of, the predictions for the final parts of this speech? What do we think he's going to say? Before we think about our predictions, I just want to say incredible work, your analysis.

That was a really challenging task, and you rose to the occasion brilliantly, so well done.

So let's think about our predictions.

First parts of the section, of the speech, Winston Churchill talked about how horrific and impossible the situation seemed.

He shared his fears about how he thought it might be the biggest disaster in British history.

Then he moved on and complimented both sides of the war, but the German troops and the British and the French before finishing up and saying that we were superior.

I don't know where he's going to go next.

You'll have to find out next time.

I'd like you to do two things for me before you finish with the lesson today.

I'd like you to write down your prediction for next time, and we'll see how accurate we were.

I'll write mine down, and I'd like you to also carry out the quiz, I'd love to see how much you've learned, and you should as well, because you've worked really hard.

I'll see you next time.