Rhetorical Analysis Essay Kaebre Sullivan Why Students Should Have Mental Health Days Analysis I chose a persuasive speech by Hailey Hardcastle called Why Students Should Have Mental Health Days This speech is from a TedTalk Hailey Hardcastle is a young adult female that struggled with mental health throughout k 12 and college She touches on persuading the audience that students should be allowed mental health days To begin the speaker uses logos within her speech when she says we found out that suicide is the second leading cause of death for youth ages 10 to 24 This is considered logos because the speaker is giving a fact or a statistic for the listener s logic This quote is beneficial to the speech because it supports the speaker in her claim that mental health days are needed for teens Mental health is linked to suicide so this fact helps listeners understand that mental health days are needed since suicide is the second leading cause of death for teens To follow the speaker uses pathos within her speech This speech consists of a lot of emotional appeal for the audience The speaker evoked a feeling of sorrow or empathy pity for the audience She told a story about how she struggled with mental health growing up and benefited greatly from taking mental health days off from school This immediately made the audience feel connected by hearing her story and wanting to hear out what she can An example of what she said was I was worried about a lot of other things that most kids weren t and school got really overwhelming sometimes She also states that she struggled with anxiety and clinical depression This overall helped emotionally tie the audience in Finally the speaker uses ethos within her speech I think that Hailey Hardcastle was able to use goodwill within her speech for her credibility There was a positive intention of the speaker s intention towards the audience A great example of this is when she says So please look after each other look after the kids and teens in your life especially the ones that look like they have it all together Mental health challenges are not going away but as a society we can learn how to manage them by looking after one another The speaker provides a sense of care for the audience and puts across that she is giving this persuasive speech because she wants to help other people and prevent others from struggling I think that this tactic was very useful because she started off by giving her own story and then brought it together by relating her story to struggles that everybody else has and ending it with saying that she hopes others can have less struggles and expresses that she wants others to have more positive experiences by getting mental health days To conclude Hannah Hardcastle used pathos logos and ethos to complete her speech on Why Students Should Have Mental Health Days She used statistics for logos drew in empathy from her audience for logos and used goodwill for her ethos Overall this speech drew me in and I learned about mental health in school along with the analysis of ethos logos and pathos