President Lincoln delivered the 272 word Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863 on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. “Fourscore 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.”
It might sound irreverent to refer to the Gettysburg Address as a blurb or a clip but they all have something in common; they use a minimum of words to express an idea. Expose your children to this extraordinary piece of writing, which captures important ideas in the fewest and clearest words possible. Ask them, “Which sound bites, blurbs or clips from today will be read 150 years from now?” “Will any of them even be remembered?”
A sound bite can be deep and reflective, although that is not always the case. Too many sound bites of today say little and offer less to think about.
Lincoln dismissed his speech as something “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” What Lincoln said was noted and remembered. Some say, the battle itself was less important than the speech.
