Life's Blueprint: An ELA Lesson Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King’s legacy is especially powerful in the ELA classroom: his words, his rhetoric, and the passion with which he speaks them is not only worthy of study in its own right, but the overlaps into our content area make the analysis of the layers of his work that much more rich and impactful.

If your experience is anything like mine, I found myself a bit stuck in trying to find something different to read and analyze in honor of his birthday. By the time students got to me, they had already read or worked through “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and “I Have a Dream”, so a few years back I set out to find another great work to study that would be fresh for students and give them a new angle and understanding of the breadth of Dr. King's work.

What's your life blueprint?

This speech is a fantastic option if you find yourself in a similar position. Take a listen below:

I created a sketchnotes activity for you to use with some other lesson plan suggestions. I'm passing that along to you as just a thank you for being here and because sharing this work is so very important and I don't want anything to stand in the way of getting it done! On a seasonal note, this is the perfect e-learning lesson if school is called off around a snowy or brutally cold MLK day (it’s happened in Chicago before!).

LISTENING WITH SKETCHNOTES

The art of the sketchnote listening activity is that it takes us away from the “fill in the blank” mentality. With sketchnotes, students can actively listen, doodle, draw, sketch, and write in a way that vibes best with their brain’s pace and what emotionally resonates with them. You can play and pause the speech for each number to give students a chance to catch up, to share out loud, or to turn and talk to a partner. It’s important to note that each of the numbered components is NOT a question, rather, they’re phrases from the speech that serve to help students see the outline of his claim at a glance. The space on the page is for them to fill in with the details, evidence, and other words that exemplify that particular portion of the speech.

DOWNLOAD THE SKETCHNOTES HERE

COMING BACK TOGETHER

Maybe students were turning and talking at a few moments during the speech, but if they haven’t checked in yet, give them that chance. Let them process in a small group table or in pairs through each of the three components of the speech.

Next, create an opportunity for full class discussion. I like to set up a post-it note gallery walk. I place these posters at the center or top of a giant post it note. Then, students move around the room to each of these pull quote posters to:

share a connection
add on to the idea
illustrate how this looks in their mind
elaborate with more detail

When the timer goes off (4-5 minutes is sufficient), students rotate to the next pull quote poster to add their thoughts. As they move, they can bring their sketchnotes with them to reference as they think through the speech with a larger context.

Finally, once students have rotated through each of the posters, you are set up to lead a large group discussion poster-by-poster soliciting students to share their contributions and discuss the speech even further.

GETTING STARTED

I set this lesson up and made the sketchnotes for you already! All you need to do is download them below.

GRAB THE LESSON HERE

THE IMPORTANCE OF BIPOC LEADERSHIP

The MLK Jr. holiday shouldn’t be the first time that a person of color is celebrated, highlighted, or studied. In the North American calendar, Dr. King’s birthday falls in January, and if we’ve gone an entire semester without looking at non-white leaders and cultural icons, that’s something important to reflect on.

There are opportunities all the time to give students access to meeting and researching the lives of powerful Black American “Influencers”. Before social media culture, activists, leaders, and speakers in the Black community were working tirelessly to shape the cultural landscape of America. Here is one way that I like to do that:

BLACK AMERICAN INFLUENCERS PROJECT