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- Ken Burns in the Classroom: Great Civil War Teaching Resources
- US History Lessons
- Civil War Jokes
- American Revolution Jokes
PBS Video The Gettysburg Address (5:50)
Ken Burns in the Classroom About: Lincoln feels he has failed the American people, his audience at Gettysburg, and the memory of the dead with his short address, yet the eloquence and grandeur of the 269 words he spoke became enshrined as a standard against which all speeches that came thereafter were measured.
Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
With all Ken Burns video clips, there is so much to analyze in such a short amount of time. The Gettysburg Address clip is five minutes and fifty seconds. Below is a simple analysis that will provide a starting point for a teacher to present the material to the students. We find it helpful to create a worksheet to help students be engaged with the content.
Sections: We have created titles for different sections of the video. We feel it helps us to organize the content.
- Historical Context (0:00 – 0:44): A listing of the different locations of Civil War Battles. Visuals = Geography Landscapes with Music.
- Visuals – Landscape Photographs
- Modern Day Perspective (0:45 – 1:18): James Symington, Former Congressman speaks about the significance of the speech and his desire to witness the drafting of the speech and the delivery.
- Visual = interview
- Crowd at the Speech (1:19 – 2:31) This section talks about the day of the speech, the other speakers, and the photographer who was too slow.
- Visual = spectators a the speech
- Speech Analysis: (2:32 – 3:28) different perspectives
- Shelby Foote describes Lincoln’s analysis.
- The Chicago Times
- Edward Everett
- Gettysburg Address Part #1 “The Dead” (3:31 – 4:22) (Photographs) This section is dedicated to the military and those who died in battle. The photographs zoom in and out of photographs of the dead
- Gettysburg Address Part #2 “The Living” (4:23 – 5:50) (videos) The address shifts the responsibility of the “the living.” The visual also shifts to videos of older men who probably fought in the battles. Very symbolic.
For the transcript, we have also included the images presented with the text. We find this helpful in analyzing the video clip. We have also included questions, prompts, and activities.
Historical Context (0:00 – 0:44)
Theme: Historical Context Type of Visuals: Landscapes
Theme Historical Context Type of Visuals Landscape photographs / video
A New Birth of Freedom (0:00 – 0:06) A New Birth of Freedom
Black Screen (0:07 – 0:08)
Landscape & Farm (0:09 – 0:21) The Civil War was fought in ten 10,000 places. At Big Bend, Big Sandy, and the Big Sunflower River.
Landscape & Farm (0:22 – 0:31) from Bunker Hill, West Virginia and Blue Springs, Tennessee and Cairo, Illinois to Golgotha Church, Georgia, and Christianburg, Kentucky
Landscape (0:32 – 0:37) At Citrus point on the Cimarron River, and along Cowskin Bottom.
Sunrise over the trees (0:38 – 0:44) At Pebbly Run and La Glorieta Pass and Gettysburg.
Stop at 0:43
Timed Writing Prompts
Music Prompt: Describe the music. What emotions does it make you feel? Why do you think Ken Burns chose this particular style of music?
Visuals Prompt: Describe the images presented. What emotions does it make you feel? What does it make you think about? Why do you think Ken Burns chose this particular style of music?
Modern Day Perspective: James Symington, Former Congressman Visual video interview
My Congressman Senators
Possible Writing Prompt: [Where would you want to be in history?]
James Symington, Former Congressman (0:45 – 1:18) I think if I had my choice of all the moments to present at in that war period, it would be at Gettysburg during Lincoln’s delivery of his speech.
Maybe to have seen him craft those beautiful words, his marvelous healing words, and then deliver them.
They were for everyone, for all time, they subsumed the entire war and all in it. It showed his compassion for everyone, his love for his people.
That’s where I would like to be.
Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19th, 1863 (1:19 – 1:23)
Stop to review. For everyone, for all time, (1:21)
Theme:Crowds at the Speech Type of Visual Photographs
Crowd at the Speech (1:24 – 1:38) On November 19th, Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg to dedicate the new Union Cemetery. The featured speaker was Edward Everett of Massachusetts, a diplomat, clergyman, and celebrated orator.
Close-up of the Crowd at the Speech (1:39 – 1:45) The president has been invited almost as an afterthought to offer a few appropriate remarks.
The Crowd at the Speech (1:46 – 1:52) Everett spoke for not quite two hours. Then Lincoln rose.
Soldiers at the Speech (1:53 – 2:01) A local photographer took his time focusing, presumably the president could be counted on to go on for a while.
Soldiers at the Speech (2:02 – 2:12) But he spoke just 269 words. He started off by reminding his audience that just 87 years had passed since the founding of the nation.
Soldiers at the Speech (2:13 – 2:19) And then he went on to embolden the Union cause with some of the most stirring words ever spoken.
Zoom in Soldiers at the Speech (2:20 – 2:39) Lincoln was heading back to his seat before the photographer could open the shutter.
Writing Prompt: What is the significance of this line? What does it highlight about the speech?
2:31 Stop to allow students to answer the questions.
Shelby Foote (2:40 – 2:54) He felt that he had failed, that it was a poor speech, that the people didn’t like it, it was so brief, less than two minutes. He felt that he had failed.
Lamon, his friend Ward Lamon, was sitting next to him on the stand and when he sat down, there was just a sprinkling of applause. And he said, “Layman, that speech won’t scour.”
That’s what you’d say about a plow in the prairies when the mud doesn’t come off it.
People leaving the speech (2:55 – 3:03) “The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flab, dishwatery utterances
People leaving the speech (3:04 – 3:11) of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States. – Chicago Times
Edward Everett (3:12 – 3:28) Dear Mr. President, I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in 2 hours as you did in 2 minutes. Edward Everett
Black Screen (3:29 – 3:30)
Gettysburg Address Part #1 The Dead
Zoom in African-American Soldier at the Cemetery Black Screen (3:31 – 3:49) 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.
Black Screen (3:50)
- Stop at 3:47 Detailed = bonus points.
- Return to 3:40 to draw the building (create a square on the worksheet)
- Play until 3:47 Add the African-American soldier in the archway with a gun. Also add at least 3 graves in the background.
- Creative Title at the top, signature at the bottom.
Zoom Out Dead Soldier (3:51 – 4:00) Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.
Black Screen (4:01)
Zoom in Dead on the Battlefield (4:02 – 4:11)
We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting-place for those who here
Black Screen (4:12)
Zoom our Dead on the Battlefield (4:13 – 4:21) gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
Writing Prompt: Describe the images presented. What are your thoughts and emotions? What do you think the images say about Gettysburg and the Civil War?
Black Screen (4:22)
Type of visuals: Photographs
Describe the images your
Gettysburg Address Part #2 The Living Visuals: video
Gettysburg Train Station (4:23 – 4:26)
But in a larger sense,
Passengers getting on a Gettysburg Train (4:27 – 4:31) we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate,
Veterans in wheelchairs (4:31 – 4:34) We cannot hallow this ground.
Veterans Waving to the Crowd (4:35 – 4:40) The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it
Veterans Washing hands and face (4:41 – 4:45) far above our poor power to add or detract.
Two Veterans sitting and talking (4:46 – 4:53) The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
Amputee Veteran washing head (4:54 – 5:08) 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 carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us–
Men in the Cemetery to image of graves (5:09 – 5:25) 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,
Abraham Lincoln (5:09 – 5:48) 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.
A teacher can use the text to create additional activities for students. Some of the excerpts that might lend themselves to class discussions or a writing prompt are below.
“The local photographer took his time focusing, presumably the president could be counted on to go on for a while. But he spoke just 269 words. He started off by reminding his audience that just 87 years had passed since the founding of the nation. And then he went on to embolden the Union cause with some of the most stirring words ever spoken. Lincoln was heading back to his seat before the photographer could open the shutter.”
Speech Analysis
Shelby Foote He felt that he had failed, that it was a poor speech, that the people didn’t like it, it was so brief, less than two minutes. He felt that he had failed.
Lamon, his friend Ward Lamon, was sitting next to him on the stand and when he sat down, there was just a sprinkling of applause. And he said, “Layman, that speech won’t scour.”
That’s what you’d say about a plow in the prairies when the mud doesn’t come off it.
“The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flab, dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States. – Chicago Times
Dear Mr. President, I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in 2 hours as you did in 2 minutes. Edward Everett