How to Add Humor to a Graduation Speech

Many great speakers mix humor in with the messages they have to share with their audience. Humor has the power of capturing people's attention and helping them connect with the speaker. When you add humor to a graduation speech, you can liven up the graduation ceremony, at least while you have the microphone. Unfortunately, very few people are naturally funny with perfect comedic timing on the fly. With a little forethought and planning, you can get some appropriate laughter from the crowd. Read on to learn how to add humor to a graduation speech.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Find the right place for humor in the graduation speech. Wait until you have thanked various groups of people for their help through the educational process.
2. Jot down several of your most embarrassing moments during school. Telling a story about yourself will add to the connection with the audience.
3. Look for funny headlines or stories relating to common school experiences. Write down all of the funny things you find.
4. Compare your graduation speech with the humor you may add to the speech. Look for stories that will complement the message or theme of your graduation speech.
5. Write out the jokes or funny stories you will tell into the text of the graduation speech. You might want to run your jokes by another individual to get feedback on whether or not they are appropriate for the audience and the occasion.
6. Pay special attention to the humorous parts of the graduation speech as you practice the speech. You may want to highlight certain words or phrases to help you with your comedic timing. A big part of comedy is delivering the line with the proper words accented.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't tell jokes you received via email. Chances are, other people in your graduating class received the same email. Nothing is worse than telling a joke other people already know.
• If a joke bombs, own up to the bad joke. Make fun of your inability to tell a good joke, and many people will start laughing. Say something like, "There you go. Always listen to your mom's advice. Mine told me not to tell that joke," and shake your head.
• Never announce you are going to tell a joke. You set the audience's expectation for something funny. If you don't deliver, your graduation speech may nose dive from the end of the joke to the end of the speech.
• Don't make fun of the people in the audience. This is especially true of the people sitting on the platform. You can tell a humorous story involving various people but don't make them the butt of the joke.
• Too much humor will limit the amount of time you have to share an important message with the graduates. Remember, you're not on Comedy Central. You need to inspire the graduates with a good message.