Learning Activity: Examine the works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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(CNN Student News) -- Students will research the works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Inform students that in 1985, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow, Coretta Scott King, initiated a massive research effort to gather and share historical information about her late husband. This research endeavor, called the King Papers Project, seeks to publish a 14-volume series of Dr. King's most significant letters, sermons, speeches, published works and unpublished manuscripts. Ask students: Why do you think that historians and researchers have engaged in this effort? Who else might find such a definitive collection valuable?

Organize students into pairs, and have each pair consult print and online resources to select a different work (either written or spoken) by Dr. King. Instruct students to assume the roles of historians as they answer the following questions about their chosen documents:

When was the work written or spoken?

Who do you think was the primary audience for the work, and why? Do you think that there might have been a secondary audience? If so, who was the audience?

What do you think was the intended goal or message of the work?

What is the tone or the mood of the work? What techniques, if any, did Dr. King use to convey his message?

What does the work reveal about life in the U.S. at the time when the piece was publicized?

How might different groups of people have interpreted this work at the time when it was first publicized?

If you had the opportunity, what questions would you have asked Dr. King about the work?

As students present their research, post each work along a civil rights timeline. Discuss each work in the historical, social and political context in which it was originally presented. Then, encourage students to examine the philosophies of Dr. King over the course of his lifetime. Pose the following questions for discussion:

What is the historical significance of Dr. King's works?

What significance do they have today?

Do you think that the study of historical documents can provide lessons for addressing modern-day social, economic or political struggles? If so, how? If not, why not?

Correlated Standards

Historical Thinking

Standard 4 -- Historical Research

Formulate historical questions from encounters with historical documents, eyewitness accounts, letters, diaries, artifacts, photos, historical sites, art, architecture, and other records from the past.

Interrogate historical data by uncovering the social, political, and economic context in which it was created; testing the data source for its credibility, authority, authenticity, internal consistency and completeness; and detecting and evaluating bias, distortion, and propaganda by omission, suppression, or invention of facts.

U.S. History Standards

Standard 4: The struggle for racial and gender equality and for the extension of civil liberties.

Standard 4A: The student understands the "Second Reconstruction" and its advancement of civil rights. Analyze the leadership and ideology of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X in the civil rights movement and evaluate their legacies.

The National Standards for History (http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/nchs/standards/) are published by the National Center for History in the Schools (http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/nchs/).

Keywords

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, King Papers Project, research, historical documents, civil rights movement

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Learning Activity: Examine the works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Learning Activity: Examine the works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Correlated Standards

Keywords

Source: Explosive device sewn in suspect's underwear

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CNN STUDENT NEWS

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