US History

3/22/2018

Title of lesson: President John F. Kennedy’s speeches

Your Name: Katrina Dedvukaj

Length of lesson: 60 minutes

Context of Lesson: At this point in the school year, the students have learned about the Cold War and they have learned
about some of President Kennedy’s contributions. Today, we are examining primary sources which will be two of
Kennedy’s speeches.
Overview: The students will start class by taking a checkpoint on material they have previously learned. Then, we will do
our primary source activity.

Central problem/ Essential question: What do Kennedy’s speeches reveal about his leadership in times of crisis?
Objectives:

SS_HSCE_8.1.2 Foreign Policy during the Cold War – Evaluate the origins, setbacks, and successes of the American
policy of “containing” the Soviet Union.

Students will be able to: Evaluate Kennedy’s policies toward the Soviet Union and improve their ability to corroborate
sources.

Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: The students will need help understanding the
meaning of each source. I’ve created a chart to help the students compare the two sources.

Materials/Evidence/Sources:

• Kennedy Berlin Speech

• Kennedy Commencement Speech
• Primary Source Chart

Instructional Sequence:

• (2 – 3 minutes) I will explain to the students what the plan for today will be and pass out their checkpoint.
• (15 minutes) The students will be taking their checkpoint and turning it in to the basket. When they are done
they can read their primary sources that I assigned the day before.
• (20 – 25 minutes) I will explain to the students the purpose of reading Kennedy’s speeches and go over how I
want the students to read and fill out the chart. The students then have time to work with a partner to fill out
the chart.
• (5 – 10 minutes) Go over what impressions students got from reading each speech. If we run out of time we will
push our discussion into tomorrow.
• (Extra time) The students can take a vote over which speech better represents Kennedy’s attitude during the
Cold War.

Assessment: Students have a chapter 20 test on Monday.

 President Kennedy - Remarks at the Rudolph Wilde Platz, Berlin, June 26, 1963
Follow the directions in
this margin while you
read and answer the
questions.
What does Kennedy
mean when he said “Ich
bin ein Berliner”? (you
can look this up)
Why is he telling people
to go to Berlin?
What wall is Kennedy
referring to?
What world event
happened 18 years ago?
Who has control of West
Berlin and who has
control of East Berlin?
Why are one out of four
Germans denied the
rights of free men?
How does President
Kennedy feel about
Communism? Highlight
or underline evidence
that supports this.
Explanation: President Kennedy is making this speech in Berlin, Germany in front of a German audience. The
speech is being translated and broadcasted throughout the world.
I am proud to come to this city as the guest of your distinguished Mayor, who has symbolized throughout
the world the fighting spirit of West Berlin. And I am proud to visit the Federal Republic with your
distinguished Chancellor who for so many years has committed Germany to democracy and freedom and
progress, and to come here in the company of my fellow American, General Clay, who has been in this city
during its great moments of crisis and will come again if ever needed.
Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was "civis Romanus sum." [I am a Roman citizen] Today, in the
world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner."
I appreciate my interpreter translating my German!
There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue
between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that
communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and
elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say
that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass' sie nach
Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.
Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep
our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. I want to say, on behalf of my countrymen, who live many
miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you, that they take the greatest pride
that they have been able to share with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years. I know of
no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the
hope and the determination of the city of West Berlin. While the wall is the most obvious and vivid [clear]
demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in
it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity,
separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish
to be joined together.
What is true of this city is true of Germany--real, lasting peace in Europe can never be assured as long as
one German out of four is denied the elementary right of free men, and that is to make a free choice. In 18
years of peace and good faith, this generation of Germans has earned the right to be free, including the
right to unite their families and their nation in lasting peace, with good will to all people. You live in a
defended island of freedom, but your life is part of the main. So let me ask you as I close, to lift your eyes
beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow, beyond the freedom merely of this city of Berlin,
or your country of Germany, to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall to the day of peace
with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all mankind.
Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look
forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe
in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take
sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.
All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the
words "Ich bin ein Berliner."
 Excerpts from President Kennedy’s Commencement Address at American University, June 10, 1963

Follow the Explanation: President Kennedy is making this speech at American University’s commencement (graduation
directions in this ceremony) in front of college graduates. The primary source below is only parts of his speech, not the whole
margin while you speech.
read and answer
the questions. "There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university," wrote John Masefield in his tribute to English
universities … He did not refer to spires and towers, to campus greens and ivied walls. He admired the splendid
[pleasant] beauty of the university, he said, because it was "a place where those who hate ignorance [lack of
knowledge] may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see." I have,
therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds [exists in large
What do you numbers] and the truth is too rarely perceived--yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.
think the “new
face of war” is? I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can
maintain large and relatively invulnerable [impossible to harm] nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without
resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the
explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when
the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the
far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.

Why would it be First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it
dangerous to unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable--that mankind is
think peace is doomed--that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.
impossible?
Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace-- based not on a sudden revolution [huge change]
in human nature but on a gradual [slow] evolution in human institutions--on a series of concrete actions and
effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace....
Genuine peace must be the product [result] of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not
static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process--a way of solving problems.
Highlight or
underline the …World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor--it requires only that
word mutual they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history
tolerance. teaches us that enmities [hostile or bad feelings] between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever.

Highlight or Second: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union. It is discouraging to think that their leaders may
underline the actually believe what their propagandists write. It is discouraging to read a recent authoritative Soviet text on
second sentence Military Strategy and find, on page after page, wholly baseless and incredible [no evidence] claims--such as the
in this paragraph. allegation that "American imperialist circles are preparing to unleash different types of wars . . . that there is a
very real threat of a preventive war being unleashed by American imperialists against the Soviet Union . . . [and
that] the political aims of the American imperialists are to enslave economically and politically the European and
other capitalist countries . . . [and] to achieve world domination . . . by means of aggressive wars."

Highlight or
As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant [offensive or repulsive] as a negation of personal
underline a freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements--in science and space,
positive and a in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.
negative
comment that So, let us not be blind to our differences--but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the
Kennedy says means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can
about the USSR. help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit
What event this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.
happened in the Third: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Cold War, remembering that we are not engaged in a debate,
“last 18 years”? seeking to pile up debating points. We are not here distributing blame or pointing the finger of judgment. We
must deal with the world as it is, and not as it might have been had the history of the last 18 years been different.