How to Nail Your High School Graduation Speech Even If You’re Not that Popular

In his new column, “How to Write Every Speech You’ll Ever Need To Give In Your Life,” Chandler Dean gives partly satirical, partly genuine advice.

Congratulations! You’ve been asked to speak in front of everyone you know, plus a bunch of people you don’t.

Maybe you were chosen because you earned the highest GPA in your graduating class. After all, everyone knows that the best public speakers are the ones who can calculate the Riemann sum of a closed interval in accordance with the trapezoidal rule.

Or perhaps you’re getting up there because you were nominated by a teacher or administrator who sees in you that most inspiring of oratorical qualities: harmlessness.