Gettysburg Address
Activities created by Angela Orr, Graduate Assistant
Purpose: Students will analyze Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Students analyze the
text to find how the speech was meant to form connections between the speaker, the audience
and those they were gathered there in remembrance of.
Students will identify the purpose for the speech.
Standards: Tennessee Social Studies and Reading standards for Informational text:
Social Studies Standard: 8.76 Describe Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and his significant
writings and speeches, including his House Divided speech in 1858, Gettysburg Address in 1863,
Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and inaugural addresses in 1861 and 1865. (C, H, P)
English Language Arts Standards: Informational text: Craft and structure: Determine an
author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how the author acknowledges and
responds to conflicting evidence or viewpoints.
English Language Arts Standards: Informational text: Key Ideas and Details: Determine a
central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its
relationship to supporting ideas; provide an objective summary of the text.
Materials: Copy of the Gettysburg Address, Student handouts with objectives. A copy of the
Gettysburg Address can be found at the following link:
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=36&page=transcript
Directions: Students will answer the following questions after reading the
Gettysburg address.
1. What year is Abraham Lincoln referencing when he states “Four score and
Seven years ago….”?
__________________________
2. What document does Lincoln quote when he says, “all men are created
equal”? ____________________________________________________
3. What does the word consecrate mean?
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4. Lincoln states that “We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have
come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died
here, that the nation might live.” What does he mean in the next line when
he says, “But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate-we can not consecratewe can not hallow, this
ground…”_____________________________________________________
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_____________________________________________________________
5. Looking at the last line of the second paragraph what did “they” do?
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6. What new freedom is Lincoln referring
to?___________________________________________________________
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7. What was Lincoln’s purpose in delivering this speech? Do you think he
made his point?
_____________________________________________________________
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8. List words from within the text that were meant to evoke emotions from
the audience?
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9. What was meant by “we here be dedicated to the great task that remaining
before us—that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to
that cause for which they hare, gave the last full measure of devotion….”
_____________________________________________________________
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10.What is was is the final devotion he speaks of?
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11. What would it mean if the dead were to have died in vain?
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