Using Wordles for Analysis in Social Studies

I like to read other blogs - for information, ideas, and/or pure enjoyment - and the Speaking of History blog had an entry recently that started some ideas in my mind. Eric Landhorst's blog article was titled Wordle of Obama's Speech on Afghanistan. Eric uses quite a bit of technology in his middle school classroom, and its having an impact of the education of his students.

I ran across the concept of wordle's last year, thought they were nice, but put no real thought to applying them in Social Studies. What is a wordle??? From the Wordle website:

"Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

We talk about the Gettysburg Address, and in days past (and perhaps today in some areas) had the kids memorize either all or portions of that momenteous speech. But while we read what Lincoln was saying, what was he saying? What were points of emphasis that he continually brought to bear? How can you visualize what is being said? What are the major ideas expressed in the words from the Gettysburg Address (picture to the right). A wordle can help with that. It's a great tool for analysis and could encourage a conversation.

How difficult is it to create a wordle? Humm. With the examples above, I searched (for instance) for Gettysburg Address Text, copied the first one that came up, and dropped it into the box on Wordle. Then I decided how I wanted it to look (there are choices after you have the wordle that can be found under the Layout button). Also - do I want this for my own purposes, or to share on the Wordle site? All told - from search to final product - about one minute, two at the tops

Other ideas? What about a comparison of presidential inaugural addresses in similiar times, such as FDR in 1941 (Wordle on the left) and President Obama in 2009 (Wordle on the right)? Are there similiarities? Differences? How does their perspective tie into the reality of the times, or was the speech simply rhetoric designed to placate the audience and the nation? What was the emphasis of these men in their speech? Words just leap out that can be used in a class discussion, Venn diagram, or in a comparison of one historical era to another. Wordles can help.... and it's a free, easy to use program.

By the way - what were the major word points made in Washington's Farewell Address?