Abraham Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address
 By Justin Behrend

Overview

This lesson is designed to help students gain an appreciation for the Gettysburg Address.  In addition to analyzing the speech, students will identify literary devices used by Lincoln to get his message across.  The lesson is adaptable to grades 8 – 11.

Background

Lincoln redefined what it meant to be American.  Though infused with the principles of freedom and liberty, the Gettysburg Address made no mention of emancipation or slavery.  Lincoln wanted to rise above the present problems and forge ahead to a larger, universal goal for the United States.  He did this by putting the Declaration of Independence into a new light as the founding law of the nation.  It was not the Constitution that created the United States, but the principle that "all men are created equal."  In this sense, Lincoln corrected the Constitution.  He was also careful not to upset the South.  According to author Gary Wills, "Lincoln's distinctive mark, one almost unique in the history of war leadership, was his refusal to indulge in triumphalism, righteousness, or vilification of the foe" (Wills 183).

Objectives

Students will:

  • Read the Gettysburg Address
  • Analyze the Gettysburg Address
  • Understand the use of antithesis in the Gettysburg Address

Time Required

  • One class period.

Materials

Initial Motivation

Begin with the Battle of Gettysburg.  Identify the horror of the battle and its lasting significance.  Next, for those dramatically inclined, read the speech out loud.  It is not long, so really focus on those great phrases.  For a great website detailing the three-day battle, click here.

Procedures

    1. Distribute copies of the Gettysburg Address to each student.

    2. Divide the class into groups of three or four to work together on the analysis.

    3. Each student should reread the speech silently.

    4. Each student should find the following and write one sentence descriptions for each:

    a. Summary of the speech

    b. Thesis or main idea

    c. Intention of the author (i.e., what was Lincoln trying to get across to his audience that day?)

    5. Next, students should find as many examples of antithesis as possible; antithesis is the juxtaposition of two contrasting ideas.  For example,

Mortal and Immortal:  those who gave their lives and shall not perish from the earth

    6. Students should evaluate the effect of juxtaposing two contrary ideas in the speech.

    7. Have groups share their findings.

    8. Students should write up their analysis

Assessment

Students should turn in their analysis.  Grade for completion (the four components: summary, thesis, intention, and antithesis), and for sophistication (how well they understood the meaning of the Gettysburg Address).

Additional Resources

Wills, Gary.  Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (1992).

    This book is by far the most thorough, readable, and authoritative treatment of the Gettysburg Address.  It was the basis for this lesson plan.

The Gettysburg Address at the Library of Congress: http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/gadd/

The Lincoln Museum:  http://www.thelincolnmuseum.org/main.html

The Abraham Lincoln Association:  http://www.alincolnassoc.com/

Abraham Lincoln Online:  http://www.netins.net/showcase/creative/lincoln.html

The Battle Cam:  http://www.gettysburgaddress.com/HTMLS/battle.html

The Battle of Gettysburg Homepage: http://www.mindspring.com/~murphy11/getty/gettya.htm

Justin Behrend teaches AP U.S. History, American Government, and Economics at Village Christian High School in Sun Valley, California.

The Gettysburg Address

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.