Title: Gettysburg Address
Activities created by Angela Orr, Graduate Assistant
Purpose: Students will summarize the meaning of the Gettysburg address and the significance of the
words used within the speech.
Social Studies Standard: 5.13 Read and write an informative piece summarizing the Gettysburg
Address to determine its meaning and significance.
Social Studies Standard: 5.11 Explain the significance and outcome of the major battles…….i.e.
Gettysburg.
Prior Knowledge: Students will need to know about the Battle of Gettysburg.
Materials: Copy of the Gettysburg Address, Student handouts with objectives. The Gettysburg Address
can be found at the following link:
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=36&page=transcript
After reading the Gettysburg Address you will choose one of the following writing tasks to
complete:
1. Write at least 1 page summarizing the speech, including where it was given, what occurred
at this location for Abraham Lincoln to give a speech, and it’s significance within the Civil
War.
2. Write at least 1 page explaining the meaning behind the following phrases within the
speech:
 “All men are created equal”
 “the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never
forget what they did here.”
 “…..we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full
measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in
vain….”
Directions: Fill in the missing words from the Gettysburg address, and on the
back of the page match the words to their meaning.
Transcripts of Gettysburg Address (1863)
Executive Mansion,
Washington, , 186 .
Four Score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a
new nations, conceived in liberty , and dedicated to the _____________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
battle field of that war. We have come to _______________ a portion of it, as a
final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we
may, in all _____________ do. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we
can not consecrate—we can not ______________, this ground—The brave men,
living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power
to add or ______________. The world will little note, nor long remember what
we say here, while it can never forget what they did here.
It is rather for us, the living, we here to be dedicated to the great task remaining
before us—that, from these honored dead we take increased _______________
to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion—that we
here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in ________________; that the
nation, 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.
Abraham Lincoln, Draft of the Gettysburg Address: Nicolay Copy. Transcribed and
annotated by the Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College, Galesburg Illinois,
Available at Abraham Lincoln Pepers at the Library of Congress, Manuscript
Division (Washington D.C>: American Memory Project, ([2000-021]),
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/malhome.html
Gettysburg Address Vocabulary
vain
propriety
dedicate
hallow
devotion
detract
proposition
Directions: Fill in the blanks using the words below
______________________________ a statement of the subject of an
argument or a discourse, or of the course of action or essential idea to be
advocated.
1.
2.
______________________________ ineffectual or unsuccessful; futile.
3.
______________________________ to draw away or divert; distract.
4.
______________________________ to honor as holy; consider sacred;
venerate.
5.
_______________________________ profound dedication; consecration.
6.
_______________________________ to set apart and consecrate to a
deity or to a sacred purpose
7.
______________________________ rightness or justness.