I attended a speech on Monday, October 11th at 7:00pm. The speaker was HomerHickam, a West Virginia native and author of the Rocket Boys. The audience consisted of peoplein different age groups and backgrounds. It was also a large, voluntary audience, so most peopleseemed to enjoy the speech. Homer Hickam mostly talked about his book Rocket Boys fromwhich the movie October Sky was taken. He also explained how he came to write the book andhow West Virginia made an impact on his life. Before hearing the speech, I had read Rocket Boys so I was very familiar with the eventshe had mentioned in his presentation. Hickam had the necessary qualifications to present thespeech because it was his book and he knew all the facts. My initial impression of the speaker wasa positive one. I enjoyed his book and I respected him as a person as well as a speaker. HomerHickam also had great ethos because he focused on how West Virginia helped him to survive as awriter as well as an individual. This pleased the audience very much because most of them areresidents in West Virginia. The speaker did gain attention effectively. His presence captivated the audience when hewalked into the auditorium. Everyone just became silent and listened. Hickam really did not statea thesis. He just greeted the audience and began reflecting on his life. Hickam did, however, makean attempt to dispose the audience favorably toward the speaker and topic. He stressed the factthat he was from West Virginia and how his book had been developed into a movie. The speakerdid not clearly preview the main points in the introduction. As I mentioned before, he just begantelling stories about his life without really setting up a structure for the audience to follow.The main points of the speech were as follows: his childhood in West Virginia, how he gotthe idea for his book, how his book became a movie and finally, how he became a NASAengineer. The speaker used chronological order as his org...
