Quarantine Speech Analysis

Students will read and analyze FDR's Quarantine Speech from 1937 by answering 24 questions (a mix of academic, opinion, and creative). The speech has been modified to fit on one piece of paper front and back. An answer key is included where appropriate and this would work for a sub!

 Sample questions include: 
--How does FDR describe America’s state/condition in the first paragraph?
--What message does the phrase “grave concern and anxiety” send to those reading/listening to the speech?
--Summarize what will happen “if those days come” as FDR predicts in a modern day hashtag.
--How does FDR make a connection between national and private morality?
--Citing evidence from the text, what was unique about America’s economy and the time and how did (or should have) Americans felt about that?
--Why do you think Roosevelt spends so much time emphasizing the issue of treaties and the betrayal many countries experienced when the Kellogg-Briand Treaty specifically was violated?
--Identify the part of the speech that gives it is name of the Quarantine Speech. Do you think the analogy worked, or made sense, to the majority of Americans in 1937, why or why not?
--What course of action does FDR recommend for American going forward? How feasible do you think it was and why?
--If this speech were not referred to as the “Quarantine Speech,” what would a good alternative be and why?

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