Star Spangled Banner

What is the meaning of the first paragraph of the Star Spangled Banner?

HI, my 5th grade son came with this homework today - and I would appreciate any help given. What is the meaning of the lyrics in the first paragraph of "The Star Spangled Banner"? Thanks in advance for your help! :)
THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR HELP, MY SON HAD THE HISTORY BEHIND THE BANNER'S LYRICS, BUT HE WAS ASKED TO DEFINE THE GRAMMATICAL MEANING OF EACH WORD - HE READ ALL YOUR ANSWERS AND IT HELPED HIM TO UNDERSTAND HOW EXACTLY IT WAS WORDED, SO HE SENDS HIS THANKS TO ALL :) MOM & SON

Public Comments

1. basically- hey do you see the american flag or did we totally lose this battle? its great blah blah blah... oh look its still flying. we must have won. we sure are amazing.
2. During the war of 1812 Francis Scott Key watched the shelling of an American fort from inside a british stockade. The next morning when he awoke he saw the American flag still waivng, tattered and torn. It inspired him to write the verses.
   
   But you really should have known that!
3. Oh say, can you see? I think it means look up into the sky, in the early part of morning (dawn). and behold the explosions of success and freedom.
4. the men fighting were able to look up see the flag that symbolizes the reason for their fight and continues though it doesnt look like they are winning, they keep fighting anyway
5. written by Francis Scott Key after a battle where he did not know during the dark of night whether the U.S. had won the battle - he was looking for the U.S. flag to see if the U.S. had won.
6. it means:
   
   can you see the flag during this night sky?the flag that we put up with proud.and so on...
7. :P it means the American flag. The American flag is practically a banner, and it is decorated with stars. The song, was originally a poem, written having to do with a war, the fort had a flag on it. And a man who saw this going on was afraid it'd be damaged, and there was a lot of shooting. After the battle was through, on the fort, the flag was still standing. That was the meaning of the poem, what took place on that day.
8. It's a poem. The first verse is asking whether the flag is still flying after a night of intense battle during the War of 1812. "Oh say can you see/by the dawn's early light/what so proudly we hailed/at the twilight's last gleaming" -- translation: Hey, can you still see the flag this morning that we were looking at last night?
9. Everyone said what I was gonna' say.....shoot! They're all correct!
10. This is the first paragraph:
    
    Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
    
    What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
    
    Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
    
    O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
    
    And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
    
    Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
    
    O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
    
    O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
    
    
    
    This is the authors description of the British trying to take over Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor in the War of 1812 and his happiness at the dawn to see that the American fort had not toppled to the British
11. Francis Scott Key was in jail when he wrote the song.When the sun set in the evening- "in the twilight's last gleaming"- the last thing he saw was the flag waving overhead. In the morning, the first thing he saw- "by the dawns early light"- was the flag still waving, indicating we had not been defeated overnight.