Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education
September 8, 2009
Before the Speech
• Teachers can build background knowledge about the President
of the United States and his speech by reading books about
presidents and Barack Obama. Teachers could motivate
students by asking the following questions:
Who is the President of the United States?
What do you think it takes to be president?
To whom do you think the president is going to be speaking?
Why do you think he wants to speak to you?
What do you think he will say to you?
•
Teachers can ask students to imagine that they are
delivering a speech to all of the students in the United
States.
If you were the president, what would you tell students?
What can students do to help in our schools?
Teachers can chart ideas about what students would say.
•
Why is it important that we listen to the president and
other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members
of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?
During the Speech
•
As the president speaks, teachers can ask students to write
down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally
meaningful. Students could use a note‐taking graphic
organizer such as a “cluster web;” or, students could
record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children
could draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students
listen to the speech, they could think about the
following:
What is the president trying to tell me?
What is the president asking me to do?
What new ideas and actions is the president challenging me
to think about?
•
Students could record important parts of the speech where
the president is asking them to do something. Students
might think about the following:
What specific job is he asking me to do?
Is he asking anything of anyone else?
Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?
•
Students could record questions they have while he is
speaking and then discuss them after the speech. Younger
children may need to dictate their questions.
Menu of Classroom Activities
(PreK‐6)
President Obama’s Address to Students Across America 2
After the Speech
•
Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they
recorded, exchange sticky notes, or place notes on a
butcher‐paper poster in the classroom to discuss main
ideas from the speech, such as citizenship, personal
responsibility, and civic duty.
•
Students could discuss their responses to the following
questions:
What do you think the president wants us to do?
Does the speech make you want to do anything?
Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?
What would you like to tell the president?
Extension of the Speech
Teachers could extend learning by having students:
•
Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted
in quadrants, puzzle pieces, or trails marked with the
following labels: personal, academic, community, and
country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for
achieving goals in that area. It might make sense to focus
first on personal and academic goals so that community and
country goals can be more readily creaed.
•
Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve
their short‐term and long‐term education
goals. Teachers would collect and redistribute these
letters at an appropriate later date to enable students to
monitor their progres.
•
Write goals on colored index cards or precut designs to
post around the classroom.
•
Interview one another and share goals with the class to
create a supportive community.
•
Participate in school‐wide incentive programs or
contests for those students who achieve their goals.
•
Write about their goals in a variety of genres, such as
poems, songs, and personal essays.
•
Create artistic projects based on the themes of their
goals.
•
Graph individual progress toward goals.
http://www.ed.gov/teachers/how/lessons/prek-6.pdf
READ THE LESSON PLAN!
The issue is not the speech it's is the indoctrination after the speech.
Instead of that, maybe they could read books authored by BHO and discover what he really thinks -- or better yet, play the audio version for the class.