State of the Union Address - Behind the Scenes and More

Last night President Obama delivered his 2012 State of the Union Address. Every US-based news website has coverage of the event. If you're thinking of discussing the State of the Union Address in your classroom today, here are a few things that should be helpful to you.

The White House website you can find the entire video of last night's address. The White House published the "enhanced" video which includes some visuals to complement the content of President Obama's key points. You can view the video online or download it directly from the White House website.


The White House published a short "behind the scenes" video about the writing of the State of the Union Address.


You can find the full transcript of President Obama's State of the Union Address on the White House's website. Put that transcript into a tool like Wordle to create word clouds that will help students quickly recognize the most-used words and phrases in President Obama's address last night.

Finally, Larry Ferlazzo has a short list of visualizations of last night's address. Included in that list is this NY Times interactive display of last night's State of the Union Address. The interactive allows you to skip through the transcript to read the text and watch the corresponding video.