Analyzing Seminal Texts Prewrite

Instructions:
Use this organizer to plan an essay comparing Abraham Lincoln’s “Address Delivered at the Dedication of the Cemetery at Gettysburg” to “Pericles’s Funeral Oration” by Thucydides. Purpose (Why are you writing the essay?)

I am writing this essay to point out/ discover the differences and similarities of Lincolns Gettysburg Address and Pericles Funeral Oration.

Audience (Who will read it and from whose point of view?)

The audience will be the teacher and my family.

Thesis Statement Prewrite

While the following is the same in both documents:

Honoring the dead.

Appreciating the soldiers who fought and still may be alive. Telling them ways to grieve.
Expressing their sorrow.

5. Very serious tone. This is what is different:

1. Pericles had a more harsher tone than lincoln.

2. Lincoln wanted justice for the all the people and wanted to free slaves.

3. Pericles only wanted to honor the soldiers, no other purpose.

Thesis Statement (The statement should address similarities and differences and establish their significance in terms of our understanding of these speeches, their context, their authors, their audience, etc (pick one).

In both Lincolns Gettysburg Address and Pericles Funeral Oration they honor and remember the dead. They also give thanks to the soldiers who have died and who are still alive. However in Lincolns speech he moves onto saying that the soldiers didn’t die for no reason they were trying to help protect and free the slaves, so we need to carry on their legacy and take a stand against slavery and make a difference. Lincoln tries to motivate people to stand behind him in the fight against slavery.

Claim in Thesis

Evidence from Text

Pericles honoring soldiers.

“I can say all I have to say in a short word of advice.
Your great glory is not to be inferior to what God has made you, and the greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about by men, whether they are praising you or criticizing you.”

Lincoln honoring soldiers.

“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.”

Lincoln standing against slavery. “…that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom…”

Lincoln; soldiers didn’t die for nothing.

“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.”