Commemoration of the Gettysburg Battlefield
The Gettysburg Address
About | K-12 Objectives | Materials Needed | Procedures | Assessment | Standards
Procedures
1. As a class, teacher and students construct a timeline that puts Gettysburg into historical context with other major events of the era.
2. Divide students into expert teams to search for primary resources
and to synthesize their findings from the primary resources. Student expert
teams should include the following groups: newspapers, letters, photographs,
and maps.
Newspaper expert team. Students should use the newspaper database
search engine to locate newspaper articles that address the Battle
of Gettysburg.
Search suggestions: use the keyword "Gettysburg" and select "all" for
the dates.
Print out copies of the visual organizer
to help students classify information from the newspapers
Letters expert team Students should use the Civil War Letters database
search engine to locate letters that address the Battle of Gettysburg.
Search suggestions: use the keyword "Gettysburg" and select 1861-1865 for the dates.
Print out copies of the visual organizer
to help students classify information from the letters.
Photograph expert team
Battlefield Photographs:
Students should use the Civil War Images data
base search engine to locate images from the Battle of Gettysburg.
Print out copies of the linked questions
to help student interpret the photographs.
Modern Day Photographs:
Imagine you are a tourist visiting Gettysburg. Select one of the photos and write your own postcard to describe your visit. Include in your postcard descriptions of the landscape of this National Park and the war monuments.
Battlefield map expert team:
Students should answer the linked questions before and after viewing the 3-dimensional map of the Battle of Gettysburg by visiting this site: (Note: (NOTE: These movies average 7 megabytes. Download time can be significant. If you click on the links here the VRML file will begin to download.)
3. Reconvene the class to allow each expert group time to share significant information they have gathered from the primary resources.
4. Once each group has reported their information, explain to the class that three months after the Battle of Gettysburg Abraham Lincoln decided to commemorate the battle with a national ceremony.
Lincoln was not the primary speaker at this ceremony, rather he wrote
a short speech on the train from Washington to Gettysburg. His two-minute
speech became known as one of the most important speeches in American
History.
Ask the class to hypothesize why three months after the Battle of Gettysburg
did Lincoln choose to commemorate the battle? Each expert group should
offer information from their examination of materials.
Follow this question by asking the students to hypothesize what Lincoln
could have said in two minutes that was so significant to American History.
5. Have students read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and consider the following questions for class discussion or to answer individually: