My Dream of Martin Luther King Written by Faith Ringgold
Activity 1 Reading the Book
Small Group Activity
TAAS Objectives
Introducing the book and new vocabulary
Prereading
Explain to students that the book they have been given to read is about a very famous African-American who helped lead the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Ask, "Does anyone know who our book might be about?"
Discuss all answers. Unveil the book.
Make a KWL chart for Martin Luther King on a large piece of chart paper. Make one column for what the children Know, a column for what the Want to know and a column to be completed after they read the story on what they Learned.
Vocabulary/Woring Wtih Words
Discuss any new vocabulary brought out during the KWL discussion and have the children write the words and the discussed meaning of the word in their vocabulary notebooks.
encompassed, ignorance, prejudice, awareness, lynching, sit-in, eternal, emblazoned, protesting, segregated, justice, demonstrators, Mahatma Ghandi, resonant, mourning
On chart paper have listed the 15 vocabulary words from the book. Keep them in the order that they appear in the book, this will save time. Fill in any discussed meanings from the KWL chart. As a group, have students Skim and Scan to find the vocabulary words. Using highlighting tape, the students will highlight the word and use context clues, and word chunking to figure out the meaning. Write the word meanings on the chart paper and display in the class. During the week all students will add these words to their vocabulary notebooks.
Guided Reading
Read the book aloud to the group. The students will read the book themselves on subsequent days. Students may choose buddy reading, group reading, or choral reading. But, the book must be read and discussed daily.
Writing
Explain to the students that they will be journaling daily about their dream for the future.
Explore how Dr. King would view your dream. What would he think of race relations today in our school?
You may use any of your entries to produce a published piece during Writer's Workshop.
Book Task
Explain to the students that it is their responsibility to present this book to the class. They will be doing the teaching and the testing of the material. As a group they must decide on a method of presentation that will effectively get the information across to their classmates and demonstrate their knowledge of the subject matter.
Give the group a copy of the Rubrics.
Teacher will meet with this group daily to discuss progress.
Activity 2 MLK Internet Scavenger Hunt
Small Group or Individual Activity
TAAS/TEKS Objectives
Using the Internet to find important information.
Martin Luther King, Jr. An Internet Scavenger Hunt
Go to http://users.massed.net/~tstrong/Martin2000.html
Have the students answer questions 1-26. This will be done over a period of 5 days using the computer 30 minutes a day. Help them to see that this information needs to be included in their presentation to the class.
Activity 3 MLK Timeline
Small Group or Individual Activity
TAAS/TEKS Objectives
Putting information in chronological order.
Using the pictures on the worksheet page, and the Seattle Times web site, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/mlk/ , students will match a photo with an event in Dr. King's life. Students will glue the photo on one side of a piece of construction paper and an explanation of the event on the other side of the paper. Students will include the year and MLK's age at the time of the event.
Students will hang them on a laundry line across the room in chronological order.
Activity 4 Mapping Major Events
Small Group Activity
TAAS/TEKS Objectives
Geographical Mapping, Rounding, Writing
Using different colored yarn, and a large map of the United States, students will map the major events of Martin Luther King's life and calculate the number of miles he traveled to the nearest 10.
Give the students the following directions:
You will start at MLK's birthplace, go to Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, Montgomery, Alabama, Boston, Mass, Montgomery, Alabama, Atlanta, Georgia, Greensboro, North Carolina, Birmingham, Alabama, Washington, DC, Memphis, Tennessee. Use the timeline at the back of the book to help you. On a separate piece of paper tell why each of these places is significant. Use your Writer's Checklist to check your work. Remember that you are a team.
You may use this map in your presentation.