The Gettysburg Address;Take a moment to review the key analytical tools you read about in Writing Analytically, Chapter 1. (See the synopsis in the Lecture section of this module). Your post should be 150-250 words. Please respond to 5 other students in
Read Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address (included below) and read about the Analytical Tools discussed as “The Method” in your Writing Analytically text. Post one original finding from your analysis that you found “interesting” or “unusual”. Follow the directions below:
–First, quote something or summarize ideas you found to repeat or to be in binary opposition to each other and then give us an explanation of why that was interesting to you.
— Second, I would like all of you to notice the way that this speech– which looks very simple on the surface– is built around a series of very crafted repetitions. I would like those of you who want a challenge to find 1 or 2 repetitions and talk about those. What themes might they be indicating? Remember, you don’t need to know that much about the Battle of Gettysburg to answer. The point here is to show you how these simple analytical tools help you find meanings and patterns.
–For those of you who are brave, see if you can find at least one binary opposition– that is, words or even synonyms, that seem to be in contrast with each other. What do you think about that? Share with the class.
As the Forum develops, it will be interesting to see what Themes or “Strands” of ideas show up. Try not to research Lincoln’s famous address too much, since I want to show you how effective these tools are in getting at the essential ideas. Have fun!
Refresher: Take a moment to review the key analytical tools you read about in Writing Analytically, Chapter 1. (See the synopsis in the Lecture section of this module).
Your post should be 150-250 words. Please respond to 5 other students in minimum of 150 words.
Original post due midnight Day 3.
Student responses due by midnight Day 7.
What you need to read:
The Gettysburg Address
Four score 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 battle-field 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 can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not 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.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
