Martin Luther King Jr. Mentor Text Mini-Lesson
Write Like Martin: Dreams Are Worth Repeating
Whether or not you have school, the lessons embedded in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches are great mentor text tools for teaching writing and inspiring our young people. Last year, I got inspired after looking at a tweet from Julia E. Torres, a librarian, educator, and activist, and she stated: “Just overheard a child in the hallway on the phone, “We are watching MLK videos again because you know they can neeeeever teach us anything new.” This was a middle school student. Let’s think about that…” And I had a nodding moment. How often do I see my colleagues teach MLK videos or don’t teach anything at all? How many times have I felt like I couldn’t make time to stop and honor this day? I wanted to take the lesson of teaching dreams to a new level. This lesson shows that Dr. Martin Luther King is an author to imitate and admire. His speeches made people listen about issues that mattered. Whether we feel pressured to move through content or curriculum, we have to maintain, some things just matter more.
This day, it matters. So, I thought about how to include Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream…” speech into our mentor text work. This lesson will not take the entire hour. However, my goal is to have students notice different sentences in MLK’s speech and write like him in regards to their own dreams. We will look at repetition, metaphors, and we will honor the sound of his voice on Monday. This post outlines the 3-step process of teaching his speech as a mentor text. It will also feature further work to do after the lesson.
Step 1: Introduce Text Like a Book Talk
Mary Oliver and her poem “Every Morning” are the inspiration for this lesson. In 2019, Mary Oliver sadly passed away around the same time as MLK Day, and I read one of her poems where she talks about reading the morning paper with “cold, sharp eyes.” As teachers of reading and writing, we teach students to see words on the page, but we also teach them to see the lessons that connect to life. As English Language Arts teachers, we have the privilege of talking about life and issues of right and wrong when we read and share stories.
After welcoming students to class and inviting students to grab with writing journals, I then move into the text the same way I start every Monday…with a book talk. This is more like a speech talk.
During the speech talk, I will show a quick video about the “March on Washington.” Then, I will show the next video, his speech, as a transition into sentence noticing and naming work. I will hand out the speech in print before I ask them to view it on the screen. Their viewing mission will be to underline their favorite line or the line they thought was the most powerful. We will then do an elbow share with a partner before we move on to the next step.
Step 2: Noticing and Naming Sentence Moves
Next, I show students two example sentences I pulled from the speech. We will copy them down together, and then we will do our noticing for each sentence. We will come to a conclusion as a class as to what big strategies we see MLK using, but I hope they will notice the repetition moves that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. makes in his speech. I am also hoping that they see the metaphors that MLK uses to show his thinking. Again, we are looking at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as an author of his own work. Why did he choose the words that he did? What moves is he making? How is he able to make people listen to the power of his words? Is it his writing or his delivery to the crowd of people? Both?
I can predict my students will make the following noticing statements:
I see quotation marks because someone is talking.
I see a repeat in the word “sweltering.”
I see both sentences use Mississippi.
I notice there are commas for quick breaths.
I see a repeat in “Let freedom ring...”
Because I know what they will say, I can provide more think time and more leading questions. An example would be, “Can freedom ring?” “What do we call that?” We can begin to have more complex noticing work emerge as we talk about metaphors and figurative language.
Step 3: Provide a Prompt. Provide Scaffolds to Make Writing Less Scary.
Repetition will be something that isn’t as scary to imitate; however, metaphors may be more complicated at the sixth-grade level. As we write about dreams, I will give them a handout with example metaphors, and I will also show this metaphor clip just to review before they start writing. I will have them choose one metaphor to add to try out in their writing. Sometimes the action of putting something in my writing and knowing what it is called is the best teaching tool for teaching new writing strategies. Often, with figurative language, our students have heard different phrases before. However, they have trouble identifying the name of the writing move in their own writing and in the writing of others.
Step 4: Let Them Write
This is my favorite part. I often see the magic happen here. I always remind myself to not get hung up if they get this part “right” or not. My goal is to have them respond to a prompt about dreams and use one metaphor from the list or one they make up on their own. I am going to encourage them to try repetition. For my students that struggle with the abstract concept of dreams, I am going to give them the option of writing about a problem. The choice is key here because the prompts are so personal.
Step 5: Further Mentor Text Work
Two other mentor texts that are great to use for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day writing work are Dear Martin by Nic Stone and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s other speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” so kids can see what happened after “I Have a Dream.” I love the idea of letter writing to MLK like in Nic Stone’s book, and the extension activities are endless as more advanced writers can imitate the writer moves that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. makes across multiple speeches. The theme is always the same: See the passion in his writing in order to understand his purpose. He was the voice of a movement. What was it about the writing that caused so many to join him in the fight for justice and equality?
Dear Martin by Nic Stone
Amazon Summary: “Justyce McAllister is a good kid, an honor student, and always there to help a friend—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. Despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can't escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates.
Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out.
Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned up—way up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty cop beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it's Justyce who is under attack.”