Susan+Fronek+Lesson+Plan

3-D-1 Documents, Data and Cartoon Lesson Plan Let me first say that this is NOT a lesson plan I would use for kindergarten students. Using documents, data and political cartoons is far above their abilities. Therefore I jumped it to a grade level I’m not sure about, with an idea. As far as how it would fit into to the curriculum it would be US history and English/ language arts. Objective: Students will understand Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and why he wrote it. Activities: Students will use a KWL chart to assess their knowledge of the Gettysburg Address. Using the NARA worksheet for document review, students will analyze the Gettysburg Address. [] [] Students will look up statistics regarding the Civil War to help determine why he wrote it. [] Students will determine why the Gettysburg Address is considered to be one of the greatest speeches ever presented by a US president. Assessment: Students will write a statement describing whether they agree or disagree with the Gettysburg Address being a great speech and explain why or why not. This would promote critical thinking skills because they are forming an opinion.

Susan, I agree with you that this lesson could be difficult for younger students. I really liked how you included the Civil War casualties statistics so that the students could analyze why Lincoln wrote what he did. It helps put the speech into context. I wonder if including casualties from recent conflicts would help your students put the number of casualties from the Civil War into perspective. Rob

Rob...interesting idea. Maybe even look at the stats from the different wars since the Civil War. We were just talking about this in the teacher's lounge the other day about hard it must have been for those soldiers to fight when it was mostly hand to hand combat. The courage and their conviction to the causes had to be tremendous! (Susan)

This would be a great activity for older students. They would really get to see the Civil War presented in a manner that is different from what they normally would. Looking for stats from different wars in order to make a comparison would also be very interesting, especially considering how different wars are fought in today's world compared to how they were fought during the Civil War time. Jeanine **
 * Susan,