When you're the president people expect you to give a lot of speeches. You basically can't walk into a room without people shoving a microphone in front of your face and asking you speak about the state of world affairs.

This gets awkward when presidents need to use the restroom, but they manage somehow. Actually, they manage by having speechwriters…and by giving the same basic speech over and over again with only minor tweaks.

The "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech is unique because Kennedy largely disregarded the speech that his speechwriters wrote for him, which was similar to speeches he'd given before and would give after that day in Berlin.

The speech Kennedy made wasn't entirely written down for him—he was making parts of it up as he went along. The fact that we remember and study something that a president said off-the-cuff one day is remarkable…and goes to show how impressive the structure of the speech was.

This was not a big formal State of the Union or inaugural speech that got carefully worked over for months until it was perfectly succinct and easily quotable. Kennedy gave those, and he was good at doing that type of speech, but this was something different.

"Ich bin ein Berliner" was a quick, hey-I'm-the-president-and-I-just-walked-into-the-room type of speech, the kind of speech that rarely makes it into the history books. Except this one did, because it was just that good. Kennedy doesn't ramble or stray from the topic at all.

He gives a tight little essay about Berlin vs. communists and drops the mic.

How it Breaks Down

Section 1: The Introduction

Sentences 1-5: Getting Your Attention With a Dead Language

Kennedy had just been introduced by another speaker and was on a stage with other important people, mainly fellow politicians. He acknowledges some of these other people and then actually begins his speech with a Latin quote, "civis Romanus sum" (3), in much the same way you might begin an essay with a quote to grab the reader's attention. This line is used to signify that the pleasantries are over and the real speech is beginning.

Section 2: The Body

Sentences 6-22: The Body May Be Thin, But That's How the People Like it

This section also follows the structure of a standard paragraph essay. These are much like the three body paragraphs of a five-paragraph essay that you could be assigned at any minute in school…except that these don't contain a lot of specifics. (Your teacher would likely ask you to rewrite these with more facts and fewer opinions.)

But Kennedy's words are all about emotion. He starts by asking the world to look at Berlin as an example of the failures of communism. Next he criticizes the wall itself. And finally he asks Berliners to hope for a better future. On content it's thin, but this wasn't written to win an essay contest; it was just meant to sound nice and to stir emotions.

Section 2: The Closing

Sentences 23-26: The Ending is the Only Thing Anyone Remembers Anyway

These last three sentences again mimic an essay's conclusion. He is restating his thesis and main ideas.

Oh yeah—he also brings down the freaking house. Kennedy: mic drop.