Overview | Fifty years ago this week, the president of the United States was shot and killed. Are we any closer to understanding who he was and why he died? In this lesson we offer you 10 methods in which students can reflect on the daily life and death of President John F. Kennedy.
Teachers might want to pick one idea as a entire-class commencing stage, or let college students comply with their interests and report on their findings. The assets under can also be used as the starting stage for research and inquiry.
Approaches to Educate about President Kennedy and His Assassination
1. Assessing the President
Was Kennedy amongst the best presidents in our contemporary history, or has his importance been overstated? In the post “Textbooks Reassess Kennedy, Placing Camelot Underneath Siege,” Adam Clymer writes about J.F.K.’s changing standing in historical past textbooks:
The 1st — and for many the last — in-depth lesson that American college students find out about the 35th president comes from large college textbooks. And on the eve of the anniversary of his assassination 50 years in the past, a assessment of much more than two dozen written because then shows that the portrayal of him has fallen sharply more than the years.
In basic, the picture has evolved from a charismatic young president who inspired youths around the globe to a deeply flawed 1 whose oratory outstripped his accomplishments. Averting war in the Cuban missile crisis acquired much less attention and respect. Legislative setbacks and a deepening dedication in Vietnam received far more. The Kennedy-era glamour seemed a lot more picture than reality.
Following reading the post, response this query — What sort of portrayal does your textbook provide of J.F.K.? — and use proof from your book to assistance your answer. As element of your examination, you can assess distinct passages on essential problems, this kind of as the Bay of Pigs invasion and civil rights, to the excerpts incorporated in this Interactive feature.
2. Memories and Heartbreak
From the minute Americans heard the news of the assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, they started documenting their reactions by way of pictures and memorials to the fallen president.
You can check out PBS’s collection of recollections from the day the president was shot — or this assortment in The Los Angeles Instances. Then you can interview family members or elders in the community, asking questions like:
- In which had been you when you heard the information?
- What memories do you have of President Kennedy?
You can also pay a visit to “An Notion Lives On,” an on-line venture by the John F. Kennedy Library where men and women share stories that display how the president’s legacy continues.
Then, using photography, video and text, you can curate your personal neighborhood museum of recollections about the president and his assassination.
3. Plenty of Theories
Who killed Kennedy, and did that particular person act alone? The anniversary of the president’s assassination has prompted numerous critiques of the evidence, which includes analyses of the renowned Zapruder movie and the man behind it a profusion of theories on whether or not Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman and speculation on which men and women or governments may possibly have been concerned if there was a conspiracy.
You can check out a selection of perspectives, such as the article “No Stranger to Conspiracy” and “Mystery From the Grave Beside Oswald’s, Solved” by the New York Instances reporter Dan Barry and the video “The Umbrella Man” by Errol Morris. Then you can write an essay or make a poster or infographic in which you make an proof-based mostly case for the most persuasive interpretation.
4. Public Speaker
What do Kennedy’s speeches reveal about his leadership in occasions of crisis? Several Op-Ed posts from this summer season discover that question. In “Two Wonderful Speeches,” Adam Clymer writes about two groundbreaking speeches that Kennedy delivered on June ten and 11, 1963:
These days it is difficult to think about a single presidential speech altering background.
But two speeches, given back to back by President John F. Kennedy 50 many years in the past this week, are now viewed as crucial turning points on the transcendent problems of the last century.
The speeches, which came on consecutive days, took political risks. They sought to shift the nation’s pondering on the “inevitability” of war with the Soviet Union and to make urgent the “moral crisis” of civil rights. Past their significant influence on American minds, these two speeches had some thing in typical that oratory now typically misses. They each led swiftly and directly to important modifications.
“J.F.K. and the Electrical power of Practical Idealism” and “J.F.K.’s ‘Strategy of Peace’” delve more into the president’s foreign policy speech on June ten, 1963, while “Kennedy’s Finest Moment” provides additional commentary on the president’s civil rights speech on June eleven, 1963. “Ich Bin Ein Berliner” displays on Kennedy’s speech two weeks later on in West Berlin.
Beneath are the transcripts for these three speeches:
You can study these Viewpoint posts, choose one particular speech on which to focus and read the original transcript. Then you can compose your analysis of the speech, like its material and context, and make an argument about what it says about the president.
five. Why Kennedy Stays a Cultural Icon
An estimated 40,000 books, numerous television specials and several museum exhibits have been devoted to John F. Kennedy.
Why do you consider we are still so fascinated by this guy and his family? In “A Camelot Nostalgia Tour for Those Who Don’t forget, and Individuals Who Don’t,” Peter Baker evaluations the “deluge” of “all things Kennedy” that has hit museums, films, magazines and marketplaces this yr, and speculates about why the nation remains so mesmerized by the 35th president:
Kennedy’s death occupies a distinctive spot in the American story, harking back to an usually romanticized era.
“It’s remarkable that Kennedy should have this extraordinary hold on the public’s imagination 50 many years after,” said Robert Dallek, a historian, whose book “Camelot’s Court: Inside the Kennedy White House” is currently being launched in October. “He’s the 1 president along with Reagan who gave men and women hope. It’s hope, it’s optimism, it’s the feeling that he could have made this a diverse planet.”
It is also heartbreak and mystery, the stunning widow and their youthful young children, the whispered tales of secret assignations, the by no means-dispelled suspicion that there was much more to his death than officially acknowledged.
Though 3-quarters of Americans are as well younger to truly bear in mind his presidency, Kennedy has grow to be a tabula rasa on which they can paint their personal portraits.
Interview other folks your age about what they know — or believe they know — about Kennedy, his lifestyle, his household, his function as president, and his death. Take notes, then compare with other people in your class. What “facts” do most people you interviewed seem to agree on? What misconceptions do interviewees have? What notions about the guy and his time time period had been unveiled in these interviews that echo the concepts quoted over about why J.F.K. nonetheless fascinates? Use your interviews as a commencing level to perform your personal analysis into what’s fact and what’s fiction.
six. Authentic Reporting
An additional way to delve into this background is to go through the unique Instances reporting about the assassination and connected occasions. Below are key articles or blog posts reporting on the president’s assassination, the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald and the Warren Commission report:
Pick one particular of the 3 events, go through what your textbook has to say about the event to get an overview and then go through the relevant Times post. Following, evaluate how the two sources treat the event. Does your textbook have further data that was revealed after the unique reporting? Does the Times post incorporate particulars that were dropped from the textbook? What other reactions do you have to the two sources?
seven. How 1963 Modified Dallas
Is it honest to blame the City of Dallas – or any geographic spot and its populace – for a horrific event that transpires within its borders? And how can a historical occasion adjust that location permanently? Study this Viewpoint article about the city exactly where the Kennedy assassination took place, as effectively as two letters to the editor responding. Then read this write-up about how considerably Dallas has changed in 50 years, even however extremism is still alive and nicely in Texas and close to the nation. Up coming, publish an evaluation of regardless of whether you consider Dallas was an “actor” and not just a “stage” for the president’s assassination, based on Instances sources, and contemplate how you think the city need to reflect on the legacy of the president’s assassination.
8. Is It Artwork or Commerce?
In some circumstances, museums or auction houses have shown an curiosity in artifacts from the Kennedy era, such as the bloodstained pink suit worn by Jacqueline Kennedy on the day of the assassination. Are such collections and memorials useful or unseemly? Contemplate no matter whether you think this kind of content articles are worthwhile pieces of historical past and then create in your journal or talk about with your classmates about the ethical dimensions of publicly displaying this kind of items.
9. Historical Social Media
Can social media support historical past come alive for students? The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is operating a “historical tweeting” undertaking on Twitter by sending updates from the lifestyle of the former president using the account @JFK_1963.
Read through by means of some of these tweets and then create your very own J.F.K. Twitter or Facebook account. Pick ten or more crucial moments from Kennedy’s presidency and generate posts that really feel historically exact. Use the president’s actual phrases every time feasible.
ten. Obituary
Quickly soon after the president’s assassination, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist James Reston published “Why America Weeps” (PDF) in remembrance of John F. Kennedy. He wrote:
America wept tonight, not alone for its dead younger president, but for itself. The grief was general, for by some means the worst in the nation had prevailed more than the best….
The irony of the President’s death is that his short administration was devoted virtually totally to a variety of attempts to curb this quite streak of violence in the American character.
When the historians get about to assessing his 3 years in office, it is really very likely that they will be impressed with just this: his efforts to restrain these who needed to be a lot more violent in the cold war overseas and individuals who needed to be far more violent in the racial war at residence.
Read through Mr. Reston’s post, and then compose your personal obituary for President Kennedy. Use the Times articles or blog posts incorporated above and the sources listed beneath to conduct your investigation.
Extra Sources
Flash Points: Looking for Present day Lessons in the Cuban Missile Crisis
The Miller Center at the University of Virginia: John F. Kennedy (1917–1963)
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
The Sixth Floor Museum
Newseum Exhibit: Artifacts, Photos and Historic Front Pages
Standards
This resource may possibly be utilized to tackle the academic standards listed below.
The Learning Network Blog: Teaching About J.F.K. With The New York Times
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