Dr. King's Legacy and Choosing to Participate

Lesson Plan

Activity 1: Warm up Journal Response

• Tell students that in this lesson they will read Dr. Martin Luther King’s final speech entitled “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” which he delivered to an audience in Memphis on the evening before his assassination. In this speech, Dr. King imagines reasons why people might choose between helping and not helping someone when they observe something that seems unjust or unfair.
• Before reading the speech, ask students reflect in their journals on the choice between helping or not helping in the face of an injustice. Tell them that they will not be asked to share their responses: Write about a time when you observed something you thought was unjust or unfair, and you were not sure how to respond. What did you think and feel? What did you do?
• Remind students that they don’t need to share what they wrote in their journals. Ask them to help you make a list on the board or chart paper of why they think people feel unsure about how to respond when they observe something that they think is unfair or unjust. You might develop this idea by also asking students to consider why people might choose to take action, choose not to take action, and feel unsure about how to respond.

Activity 2: Understanding Dr. King’s Mountaintop Speech

• Tell students that they will be reading Dr. Martin Luther King’s final speech, which he delivered on April 3, 1968, at the Memphis Mason Temple Church on the evening before his assassination. Dr. King was in Memphis to lend his voice and support to the sanitation workers’ strike, which started on February 12, 1968, when about 1,000 of the city’s 1,100 sanitation workers began to strike for job safety, better wages and benefits, and union recognition.
• Pass out the reading King’s Mountaintop Speech (pp. 155-157) from Eyes on the Prize Study Guide. If you are using the close reading protocol, after you read the speech out loud, ask your students to read it a second time to themselves, adding annotations in the margins. You might ask students to mark places in the speech where Dr. King talks about why people don’t always respond to injustice so they can draw connections between their earlier journal responses and the text.

Activity 3: Create a Mountaintop Speech Storyboard and Discuss the Speech

Dr. King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech contains vivid imagery, biblical allusions, and historical references. To help foster your students’ understanding of the text, consider the Storyboard strategy, where they sketch the main idea or an image for each paragraph and then either write a summary or select an important quotation to write in the space provided on the handout. Consider having students work with a partner or in small groups for this activity.

• First, ask students to number the paragraphs 1–9 of the speech.
• Pass out the Storyboard Template handout and tell students what they should draw and write for each paragraph on the handout. Time allowing, students can share their storyboards in a Gallery Walk and then discuss their observations before moving to the class discussion of the speech.
• Lead the students in a class discussion of the speech:
  • How did creating your storyboard help you understand Dr. King’s speech in a new, different, or deeper way?
  • How did Dr. King justify his decision to violate the federal injunction against the planned demonstrations? What democratic traditions did he cite in defence of civil disobedience?
  • What did Dr. King mean by “a dangerous unselfishness” in paragraph 7 of his speech? What did he try to teach his audience about empathy through the story of the Good Samaritan? What does he mean by the Good Samaritan’s ability to project the “I” into the “thou”?
  • What do you think it takes to see a situation from someone else’s perspective? What advice might Dr. King give you about deciding how to respond when you observe something that you think is unjust or unfair? Cite examples from the text in your response.

Activity 4: Choosing to Participate: Writing History’s Next Chapter

In his mountaintop speech, Dr. King challenges his audience by declaring, “Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness.” For this final activity, students will take on Dr. King’s challenge by sharing their vision for the world and considering what responsibility and opportunity they might have to bring about that vision.

• After providing historical context for Reconstruction if needed (see Notes to Teacher), watch the video Writing History’s Next Chapter one or two times. Consider using the Two-Column Note-Taking strategy. Students can take notes during the video in the left-hand column and then add their questions, interpretations, and connections in the right-hand column. If you don’t have time to show the video twice, you might pause it at minute 2:18 to allow students time respond to Timothy McCarthy’s ideas about history and revolution before viewing the second portion featuring George Lipsitz discussing social change and responsibility.
• Debrief the video and the students’ reactions in small groups or in a class discussion.
• Now ask students to respond to two of the following questions in their journals. Let them know that they will be discussing their responses as a class. Consider using the Fishbowl strategy so every student has the opportunity both to participate and hear others’ voices in this final discussion.
  • What is your vision for the kind of world in which you would like to live?
  • What responsibility do you have for bringing about that kind of world?
  • Respond to George Lipsitz’s final question: “How are you going to write the new chapter, not in your notebooks, but in society as men and women with responsibility and opportunity?”

Activity 5: Use a 3-2-1 Exit Ticket Strategy

To assess your students understanding of this lesson’s content and to capture their thinking, ask them to complete a 3-2-1 Exit Ticket in which they reflect on the following three questions:

• What are three ideas from Dr. King’s Mountaintop Speech and/or the video Writing History’s Next Chapter that you hope to remember?
• What are two questions that the speech, video, journal prompts, or class discussions raise for you?
• What one word best describes the kind of world you would like to live in?