MLK Day

For MLK Day we watched his I Have A Dream speech (found online). Half of the students were given pencils that were sharpened perfectly with a full eraser. Whenever their pencil broke during the activity they were given a brand new perfectly sharpened pencil. The other half of the students were given 1/4th of a full pencil sized pencils that had dull tips and little to no erasers. If their pencil broke they had to share with a friend or they were left without anything to write with. 

The activity for during the video was that the students had to tally mark how many times they heard the following words on an activity sheet provided for them:

Freedom

Free

Rights

Dream

Hope

America

American

Nation

Afterwards we discussed the video but only allowed students who had sharpened pencils to answer and provide insight and reflection from the video. The students who were given the poorly taken care of pencils started to get frustrated, they got loud, and some even gave up. After about 2-3 minutes we opened it up for a whole group discussion and focused a lot on the challenges that were faced with the pencils throughout the activity and how that can relate back to the I Have A Dream speech.

This activity really hit home to the students.

When we were done with the video activity and discussion students were given a dream bubble (picture above) to illustrate their dreams for: Themselves, Their Country, and Their World. I challenged students to think outside of the box and to get creative and personal with their dreams.