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Lesson 3

How might you follow your heart and intuition? We will examine the structure and ideas of a 2005 commencement speech presented by Steve Jobs to graduates of Stanford University. We will use a question set to analyze the speech and its use of three stories from Jobs’s life to deliver its message, and then we will consider whether that message might serve as a compass for us as we think about how to live a life well-lived.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I critique characteristics and structural elements of Steve Jobs’s 2005 Stanford University commencement speech, such as clear thesis, effective supporting evidence, pertinent examples, commentary, summary, and conclusion?

  • Can I critique characteristics and structural elements of Steve Jobs’s 2005 Stanford University commencement speech, such as the relationship between organizational design and author’s purpose?

  • Can I evaluate Steve Jobs’s purpose and message within his 2005 Stanford University commencement speech?

Texts

Core

  • Unit Reader
    • “Advice to Graduates,” George Saunders, The New York Times Company, 2005
  • Digital Access
    • “Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address,” Steve Jobs, Stanford University, 2005

Materials

Tools

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Discuss – Listen

We will listen to a reading of a commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs at Stanford University in 2005 and consider initial impressions of the speech, its message, and the way it is structured as a series of personal stories.

Step 1

Access the first prose text you will read in this unit, a personal essay delivered as a commencement address by Steve Jobs at Stanford University in 2005. Begin by discussing these general questions as a class:

  1. Why are graduation speeches often referred to as "commencement" addresses?

  2. What are graduates—of high school or a university—"commencing" after they finish their schooling?

  3. Given that this is a commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, what do you anticipate his message might be?

Step 2

Before listening to the entire speech, independently read the first paragraph, considering these guiding questions:

  1. What do you learn about Steve Jobs and his purpose for writing and presenting the speech?

  2. What do you learn about how Jobs has organized his speech? How and why do you think he might use three stories from his life to present his message to the graduates?

As a class, discuss your responses to these questions.

Step 3

Listen and note key details as either Steve Jobs or your teacher presents the speech to you. Try to follow the three stories Jobs tells, noting what you learn about his life. Consider this guiding question:

  1. How might you summarize the three stories, their details, and the main ideas that they seem to convey?

Step 4

As a class, discuss your first impressions of the stories Jobs tells and their potential meaning. Note that near the end of the speech, he tells the graduates, "Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."

Discuss what you initially think Jobs might be saying to the graduates, and then discuss the following question:

  1. How might you follow your heart and intuition as you strive to live a life well-lived?

Activity 2: Read – Discuss – Write

We will use a question set to do a close reading of the first section of the speech with a reading partner.

Step 1

With a reading partner, prepare to examine Steve Jobs’s first story, which he presents in Paragraphs 2-9, by thinking about these text-specific questions:

  1. At the end of Paragraph 4, we learn that Steve Jobs’s mother "refused to sign the adoption papers." Why did she do this, and why did she "relent" a few months later?

  2. What were the reasons why Steve Jobs decided to drop out of college? Why does he say doing so was "one of the best decisions I ever made"?

  3. What are the "dots" that Steve Jobs connected between his post-college experiences and his designing of the first Mac computer?

  4. What do you think Steve Jobs means in Paragraph 9 when he says "you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward"?

Use the Responding to Questions Handout to analyze what type of question each is, and what kinds of details you might be looking for.

Step 2

Individually, read Paragraphs 2-9, paying attention to the details from his own life that Steve Jobs presents in his first story. As you read, focus on either Question 7 or 8 (with each of you taking one of the questions). Annotate or make note of key details related to your question.

After reading, share the key details you have noted about Steve Jobs’s life. Discuss what you have learned about him and his early and college life. Develop some observations about how you think his experiences as an adopted child and a college drop-out might have affected him.

Step 3

As a reading pair, consider Question 9, about "connecting the dots." Note key details related to this question in the text, then use an Attending to Details Tool to develop an observation from those details in response to Question 10:

  1. What do you think Steve Jobs means in Paragraph 9 when he says "you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards"?

In the last row of the tool, state an observation you can make from details in the text about why Jobs might say you can only connect the dots in your life "looking backwards."

Step 4

Join with another reading pair to form a four-person discussion team.

Read and compare the observations you each recorded on your Attending to Details Tools. As you present your observation to the other pair, use the tool to explain how you "connected the dots" among the key details you noted in the speech to arrive at your observation.

As a team, discuss what message you think Steve Jobs is trying to deliver in his first story, about "connecting the dots." Discuss what trying to "connect the dots" might mean in your own lives, and how doing so might relate to the unit question:

What does it mean to live a life well-lived?

Activity 3: Read – Discuss

We will work in reading teams to examine the second story presented by Steve Jobs in his 2005 Stanford commencement address.

Step 1

In the four-person reading teams from the previous activity, prepare to read the second story Jobs presents, about love and loss, in Paragraphs 10-15, by reviewing these guiding and text-specific questions from the question set:

  1. What details or words suggest the author's perspective as Steve Jobs tells his second story about love and loss?

  2. What claims do you find in this section of the speech? How might they relate to the idea of living a life well-lived?

  3. In Paragraph 11 we learn that between age 20 and 30, Steve Jobs experienced great success and great failure. What does the text tell us his successes were, and how did his failure occur?

  4. Why does Jobs claim that "getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me"?

  5. What does Jobs mean when he makes the claim, "Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick"? He then tells his audience two things not to do, beginning his sentences with the word "Don’t." What does Paragraph 15 suggest he is trying to tell the Stanford graduates?

  6. What is Jobs suggesting at the end of Paragraph 15 when he tells the graduates to "keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle"? How does this advice relate to the stories he has told and what he said earlier about "connecting the dots"?

Step 2

Individually, do a first close reading of this section of the speech, thinking about Questions 11 and 12 and noting key words or details that suggest Steve Jobs’s perspective on the stories from his life and the claims he states, either about his own life or life in general.

As a team, discuss what you have found, then divide the other four questions among members of your team and individually reread the part of the speech related to your question. Develop a text-based observation in response to your question that you can share with your team.

Step 3

As a reading team, review the four text-specific questions, the details each of you identified in response to your assigned question, and the observations you have developed from those details.

Develop a team conclusion about the message you think Steve Jobs is delivering to the graduates through telling his life stories about love and loss. Consider how this section of the speech might relate to the unit’s Central Question:

What does it mean to live a life well-lived?

Step 4

As a class, compare and discuss your team conclusions and present what you have learned from this section of the speech about the literal details from Steve Jobs’s life, about the claims he has made and advice he has presented, and about the meaning of his stories as they relate to the unit’s Central Question about living a life well-lived.

Discuss how Steve Jobs has made his points, through telling personal stories from his own life, and how those stories might have been "compasses" for him—and potentially for the Stanford graduates, or for you.

Activity 4: Read – Write – Discuss

We will examine closely the final story and section from Steve Jobs’s commencement address, and we will individually develop a text-based observation from the details of the story.

Step 1

As a class, review the questions from the question set that relate to the third story and section of Steve Jobs’s speech, which he tells in Paragraphs 16-22. For selected questions, use the Responding to Questions Handout to analyze what type of question each is and what kinds of details it might cause you to look for.

  1. In Paragraphs 19 and 20, we learn important details about Jobs’s life and health. What is the sequence of life-changing events that he tells his audience about in his third story, about death?

  2. In Paragraph 17, what question does Steve Jobs claim he has asked himself every morning "for the past 33 years"? How might Jobs’s diagnosis have changed his perspective and the way he thinks about this question?

  3. What does Jobs mean when he refers to death as "a useful but purely intellectual concept" in Paragraph 21? How might the events of Jobs’s recent life have changed his previous perspective on death as an "intellectual concept"?

  4. At the start of Paragraph 18, Jobs makes a claim: "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've everencountered to help me make the big choices in life." How does he explain and support this claim?

  5. How does Steve Jobs explain the puzzling claim he makes in Paragraph 22 that "Death is very likely the single best invention of life"?

Step 2

As a class, begin by rereading Paragraphs 19 and 20 in response to Question 17. Make a list of the life-changing events he describes and how they are related to the third story from his life being "about death."

Step 3

Individually, reread Paragraphs 16-22. Focus on one of Questions 18-21, as assigned to you by your teacher, and complete an Attending to Details Tool in response to your question.

Step 4

Join a discussion team with other students who were assigned and focused on the same question as you.

Begin by sharing the observations you made in the bottom section of your Attending to Details Tools. Explain how the observation was developed from your analysis of the details you identified and considered.

Discuss the differences in the details you each attended to and how those differences might have led you to different text-based observations and responses to your question.

Also discuss how each of your observations addresses the criteria from the Responding to Questions Handout.

Develop a team conclusion that combines and synthesizes ideas from your individual observations that you can share with the class.

Step 5

In a class discussion, guided by the order of the text-specific questions, present your team’s responses and conclusions.

  1. In Paragraph 17, what question does Steve Jobs claim he has asked himself every morning "for the past 33 years"? How might Jobs’s diagnosis have changed his perspective and the way he thinks about this question?

  2. What does Jobs mean when he refers to death as "a useful but purely intellectual concept" in Paragraph 21? How might the events of Jobs’s recent life have changed his previous perspective on death as an "intellectual concept"?

  3. At the start of Paragraph 18, Jobs makes a claim: "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've everencountered to help me make the big choices in life." How does he explain and support this claim?

  4. How does Steve Jobs explain the puzzling claim he makes in Paragraph 22 that "Death is very likely the single best invention of life"?

As a class, discuss how Jobs’s personal story about his own brush with death helps frame the messages he wants to share with the graduates. Discuss also the irony that just six years after giving the speech, in 2011, Jobs passed away from the pancreatic cancer he discussed in his speech and discovered firsthand how "death is the destination we all share."

Activity 5: Read – Discuss – Write

We will individually finish reading the speech, interpret the final advice Steve Jobs delivers to the graduates, and reflect on its meaning for us as we consider how to follow our heart and intuition and what it means to live a life well-lived.

Step 1

In preparation for reading the final paragraphs of the speech on your own, consider these final questions from the question set:

  1. Using the context of what Jobs says in Paragraph 23, what does he mean when he says "Don’t be trapped by dogma"? (Add a context-based definition of dogma to your Vocabulary Journal.)

  2. Why might Jobs suggest that following "your heart and intuition" takes courage?

  3. Jobs relates a final story in the conclusion to his speech, about The Whole Earth Catalog, a 1970’s alternative magazine whose last issue featured "a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous." How might this descriptive image be a metaphor he wants the Stanford graduates to think about?

  4. How might the caption beneath the image of the country road – "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."—be a compass that Jobs is sharing with the graduates? What message might he be implying?

Step 2

With a discussion partner, compare your responses to the final questions and to the speech as a whole.

  1. What do you think Jobs is saying to the graduates through the telling of his three stories and his closing advice?

Step 3

Thinking about Steve Jobs’s commencement address, its stories, and its advice to the graduates, write a short personal response in your Learning Log that stems from one of the following prompts:

  1. What story from your own life might you share if you were giving a graduation speech? What message might be inherent in your story?

  2. What might it mean for you to "follow your heart and intuition" as compasses in your future? Where might they take you?

  3. Thinking about what Jobs learned when he was 17 and has considered ever since, how would you finish this line: "If today were the last day of my life…" What would I want to do?

  4. Imagine yourself ten years from now, having tried to live your life following Steve Jobs’s final advice to "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." Where has that advice taken you, and has it led you to live a life well-lived? In what ways?

Activity 6: Read

For homework, we will do a first reading of a speech by George Saunders titled “Advice To Graduates.”

Step 1

For homework, do a first reading of another graduation speech that noted writer George Saunders delivered to the Syracuse University graduating class of 2013. As you read the speech, imagine being a graduate yourself and thinking about Saunders’s advice.

Consider these two text-specific questions as you begin to read the speech:

  1. Knowing that this speech is titled "Advice to Graduates" and that it was delivered at the Syracuse University graduation ceremony in 2013, what do you anticipate the speech will generally be about?

  2. In the first three paragraphs of the speech, what do you notice about how Saunders introduces his speech, himself, and his topic?

Step 2

In response to the second question, use an Attending to Details Tool to record key details from the first paragraphs of the text. Think about these details relative to the question about what you notice in the introduction, then make an observation about how Saunders introduces his speech, himself, and his topic. You will use this tool in an initial discussion of the speech in the next lesson.