January 21, 2008

This year marks the 21st anniversary of the National Holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who would have been 78 years old. Click here for an audio file of his "I have a Dream" address.

This year all teachers in the district have access to new materials for Martin Luther King Day at the Discovery Education United Streaming website. After logging into the site with your username and password, do a keyword search for materials on Martin Luther King Jr.  There are over 87 videos and 61 articles, including many primary source materials. (For example, students can listen to the speech Robert F. Kennedy delivered in response to the death of Martin Luther King Jr.) There are lesson plans associated with the majority of the videos as well. Your username and password were included in the email referring you to this page, or you can contact Karen Eccles.

Remember the focus for celebrating Martin Luther King day is: "In the Spirit of Unity and Service: REMEMBER! CELEBRATE! ACT! A DAY ON...NOT A DAY OFF." To truly honor the spirit of this holiday, make a commitment to participate in community service programs that promote interracial cooperation. You can find a listing of activities in the San Diego area at the "Make It a Day On" link below. To view classroom materials, access resources from the Martin Luther King Center, or to purchase this year's commemorative poster, click on the graphic (above to the right.)

The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change produces a series of special webcasts for the days surrounding Martin Luther King Day. You can access live webcasts, or may visit the site to watch recordings of them. This site also includes outstanding resources and projects to help students carry on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. through research, education, and training.

To participate in a Day of Service in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service website and search the 2006 activities for the San Diego area.

Online Lessons and Reproducibles

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Dream  K-2
Students in grades k-2 can learn about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life with this mini-book from Scholastic.com. (PDF file)

Lesson Plans for literacy projects about Dr. King for K-2 can also be found at this link. Student role-playing activities, writing projects, and other instructional resources are all part of this printable lesson plan on Scholastic.com.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Legacy of a Leader  Grades 4-8
Upper elementary students will want to visit this site to read a biography, view photos, watch a slide show, study Dr. King's speeches and then answer quiz questions to analyze what they've learned.

The EdSiteMent web site has a tremendous amount of excellent lesson plans that correlate with whatever you're studying currently in language arts or social studies. Click on the link to their site and you'll notice that for each lesson you can quickly see the grade level as well as a brief descriptor of the concepts taught.

Source Documents and Lesson Plans

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project of Stanford University has many resources for Martin Luther King Day, from audio recordings of his most famous speeches to flash animations of the Civil Rights Movement.  One of the best lists of links to sites, photos, books, and lessons on Martin Luther King Jr. is found at this site under Additional Resources. Also included on the site is an excellent lesson plan for 11th Grade U.S. History titled:"There Was A Certain Type of Fire That No Water Could Put Out…" Personal Stories of Liberation from The Civil Rights Movement .

Students can understand Martin Luther King Jr. from HIS point of view, when study quotations from him in the Time.com photo essay titled Martin Luther King in His Own Words.

The KPBS Teacher Source website has some excellent lessons to guide your discussions on the impact of Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and writings. See two examples below:

• The March on Washington and Its Impact: is a one class period lesson with extended activities. The site provides links to source documents and audio files to help students process the history and impact of the "I have a Dream" speech. (Grades 5-12)
• "I Have a Dream" as a work of Literature: Here is the description of this lesson provided by KPBS: "Students study Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech and discuss the rhetorical influences on King's speech, the oratorical devices that King uses in delivering his speech and how a speech is similar to/different from other literary forms." (Grades 6-12)

A new lesson with classroom activities based on the life of Martin Luther King Jr. was published at the Seattle Time's Newspaper in Education site.  Click on the following link to go directly to the lesson plan.

Robert Kennedy's Speech on the death of Martin Luther King Jr.

The Education Planet Site has an extensive set of links to K-12 lesson plans, source documents, speeches, audio files, video files, and writings of Martin Luther King.

Photos

The Seattle Times presents an online photo gallery of the life of Martin Luther King Jr.