Theodore Roosevelt's "Speech at the Grand Canyon"

Grades: Middle School and High School

Objective: To begin a new unit on activists by examining, discussing, re-enacting, and contextualizing Theodore Roosevelt's "Speech at the Grand Canyon"

"I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel, or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You can not improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children, your children’s children, and for all who come after you, as one of the great sights which every American if he can travel at all should see."-"Speech at the Grand Canyon", Arizona, 1903

Today we:

-Gave staged readings of Theodore Roosevelt's "Speech at the Grand Canyon," re-imaging how he may have delivered the content

-Discussed our reactions to Roosevelt

-Watched a clip about the Grand Canyon from the PBS series The National Parks: America's Best Idea

-Talked about the history of National Parks in America, focusing on the Grand Canyon and the National Antiquities Act