There appear to be seven styles of delivering material from the podium in AA. This is distinct from sharing from the floor in meetings, which tends to cover all of these seven, although some in lesser proportion, whilst adding its own styles that are heard from the podium only rarely, for instance updating the audience on events of the past week, transient feelings, etc.
The seven are:
The Sensational
Shocking stories about the pre-drinking period, drinking, early days, and later sobriety. The language is hyperbolic, coloured, and detailed. Stories are often blow-by-blow, or a glitter-cannon of livid facts. The historic present is used. The Sensational serves to bring home the material vividly and create a dramatic contrast with what is presenting, today, at the podium. Gasps and their verbal equivalent are elicited from the audience.
The Sentimental
Sentimental stories usually about later recovery, involving coincidence, attributed to God, or direct intercession following heartfelt prayer. Sometimes a tipping point reached after a war of attrition against a character defect or a breakthrough following the drip-drip of living amends. Births, sickness, deathbeds, funerals, and AAs rallying around impressively, but, for the AAs, it's all in a day's work. Pathos and bathos. The Sentimental serves to bring home the material directly to the emotion. Ahs are elicited from the audience.
The Clownish
Here, the language and content are highly caricatured. The object of the caricature is often one's own folly or selfishness as a drinker or newcomer. The stories may or may not deliver a point about the AA programme, but they do demonstrate that we sure have a lot of fun. Laughs are elicited from the audience.
The Polemical
The speaker is either overtly picking battles, busting myths, and overturning misconceptions or openly battling an invisible enemy. This serves to straighten out crooked ideas and thinking and refocus attention on the programme and away from the undergrowth of ideas and practices that are seen as diluting the message or choking the programme. The tone may be respectful or otherwise. The audience tends to nod vigorously, at least in part. Some people walk out, give each other incredulous looks, or just look bored.
The Didactic
This speaks for itself: The AA programme is set out clearly and straightforwardly, ranging from the dry at one of end of the scale (the fate of most presentations on the Concepts) to riveting at the other. Here, the individual presenting may furnish examples, but they are chiefly a delivery system for the material. The aim is to educate.
The Historical
Stories of AA's history, usually surrounding Bill Wilson; sometimes, Dr Bob; sometimes, the Big Book and the Traditions and Concepts. Certain movements within AA, e.g. Fellowship of the Spirit or Big Book Awakening, have proponents who set out the history of the movement. The delivery may take any of the above forms and usually combines more than one of them. As with the didactic, the historical can be dry or riveting.
The Explanatory
Whereas the Didactic focuses on the material, the Explanatory leans more heavily on the individual's experience. The aim is to deliver the same material as the didactic, but the method is essentially story-telling with didactic punchlines. This is arguably the most practically useful of the methods.
Assessment
Most speakers combine the above approaches in different proportions. Each has its place and its audience, and an individual audience member will derive different things from different styles at different points of their journey. The first four appeal to a great extent to emotion. These often appeal most either to those who are bored or jaded with AA or to those with significant unresolved 'material', with the emotion creating a channel to that material. The last four are content-focused. The polemical delivers content using emotion. The Historical and Explanatory take the listener on a content journey, but the punchlines, if dramatic, will often involve emotion. If they do not, they elicit the more intellectual pleasure (which is itself accompanied by emotion) of the penny dropping. Over time, many people find themselves drawn more to the explanatory than to anything else, particular where the content relates to living ordinary life sober and how to apply the many principles to everyday scenarios, situations, and experiences.