Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr Lesson

Abstract

PurposeMartin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr is a timeless book well-known among K-6 teachers, students, librarians and book-lovers throughout the USA. This multi-award winning picture book provides readers with insight into Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s life and the oppression and progress of African Americans before and during an era known as the modern US Civil Rights Movement (CRM). The biography outlines the period’s equity issues, and serves as a springboard for this upper elementary lesson. While Dr King played an iconic role, there were many other individuals involved in the CRM, most of whom students do not know. The purpose of this paper is to offer varying perspectives related to lesser known CRM leaders, protesters, advocates, perpetrators and bystanders.Design/methodology/approachTechnology is incorporated through online research, videos and productions; thus, students actively engage in making connections to various individuals’ points of view, those both supportive and oppositional. Students conduct research while responding to higher-order, critical-thinking questions regarding groups and forces of the CRM. Then, they expand knowledge through jigsaw research activities by collecting information, responding to inquiry questions and presenting relevant evidence-based information about CRM contributors, perpetrators and bystanders.FindingsThis is a National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Notable Tradebook Lesson Plan.Originality/valueThis is a NCSS Notable Tradebook Lesson Plan.