Letter from a Birmingham Jail Cell by Martin Luther King, Jr.
June 12, 1963
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This power point provides the summary of an Eighth Grade Social
Studies Literacy Lab Unit taught at Walsh Middle School during
February and March 2013. At a Professional Development Workshop at
Framingham High School, the District encouraged all social studies
teachers to engage their students in close reading of texts. This
lesson plan is based on the ideas for a middle school lesson plan
of a close reading of Martin Luther Kings Letter from a Birmingham
Jail, described in a video on the New York website
www.engageny.org. A Summary of a Lesson Plan
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Martin Luther King, Jr.
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There is no homework for the literacy laboratory course, so the
students read the text of the letter in class. At the start of the
unit, we begin to read the opening section of letter silently. The
students are instructed as follows: Be prepared to write down your
own observations or questions as we read the letter together. For
example, write a question mark, or an asterisk, or an exclamation
mark where appropriate. A Close Reading of the Letter
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My Dear Fellow Clergymen, While confined here in the Birmingham
City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present
activities "unwise and untimely." [.S]ince I feel that you are men
of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I
would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient
and reasonable terms. To whom is he writing? Why?
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I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham,
since you have been influenced by the argument of "outsiders coming
in. The students continue to read the letter Is he an
outsider?
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Martin Luther King begins with logical arguments. He then moves
to moral arguments. He uses shorter, more powerful words as he
writes with more directness and emotion. He builds up to a
passionate description of how his own young children suffer under
segregation Help the students to follow the logic and pace of MLKs
argument.
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The students complete the hand outs as they read the letter in
short sections (three or four paragraphs at a time). Once the
students have all completed a section of the reading, and completed
its worksheet, the teacher leads a Socratic dialogue about the
section of the letter which has been read There are several
handouts
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The students study how the letter develops, how its tone
changes. There are challenging vocabulary words throughout the
text. Instead of looking words up in a dictionary, the students
engage themselves in strategies to determine the meaning of words,
through context and word roots. Skill building
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For example, the students are able to determine logically the
meaning of the word moratorium through how it is used in the
letter: In these negotiating sessions certain promises were made by
the merchantssuch as the promise to remove the humiliating racial
signs from the stores. On the basis of these promises [the] leaders
of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to call a
moratorium on any type of demonstrations. Vocabulary Example:
Moratorium
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A close reading allows students to gain confidence in their
ability to analyze and understand complex writing. Students are
wise to build a strong vocabulary, but they may encounter a strange
word with the confidence that they have the intellectual skills to
determine its meaning in context. This is helpful in taking the
MCAS, for example. Usefulness of skills
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Questions regarding paragraph ten of the letter: What is MLKs
response to the statement that negotiation is a better path than
direct action? What sort of tension does MLK mean when he says that
direct action will create tension? Why does he say it is a good
thing? Why are myths and half-truths a form of bondage? What do you
think MLK is thinking about when he says that? Sample Discussion
Questions
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The students have varied responses to the questions As the
teacher facilitates the discussion, connections and deeper
understanding takes place The students are encouraged to view the
class as a safe zone where they together can risk engaging in the
higher level thinking that will be expected of them in high school
Student led discussion
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While the course is primarily run as a Socratic dialogue (and
it is a pass/fail course without homework), it is helpful to have
the students turn in their completed worksheets. I engaged in short
tutorials regarding their written responses: helping the students
to realize that they must read both the text and the questions
closely, and that both the questions and the reading have to be
unpacked. Review Student Responses
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About a third of the way through the letter, MLK begins a
discussion of justice, and the difference between just and unjust
laws. What follows are the discussion prompts for this section of
the letter. A Question of Justice
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What does MLK state is the difference between just and unjust
laws? How does MLK suggest we are to determine the difference
between a just and unjust law? What is the concrete example of a
just and unjust law that MLK gives? Discussion Prompts
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Historic connections Frederick Douglass
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Frederick Douglass and his importance to American history is
discussed. If the class doesnt know the word abolitionist, a
discussion of context and root words helps them figure it out.
Frederick Douglass was self-taught and eloquent speaker and writer
(his Narrative would make another good close reading). Eighth
Graders May Not Have Heard of Frederick Douglass
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Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate
agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground;
they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean
without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral
one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be
a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did
and it never will. Frederick Douglass Quotation
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Study the quotation of Frederick Douglass. Write out a
quotation from Martin Luther Kings Letter from a Birmingham Jail
that best states the same (or a similar) idea. Focus on the last
two sentences (in bold) of the quotation. Work alone. Be prepared
to discuss the reasons for your selection. Student assignment:
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Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it
never will. -Frederick Douglass Focus:
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In a small class, my students identified five different
statements of Martin Luther King in his Letter from a Birmingham
Jail which made the same, or similar, point as Frederick Douglass.
We may need to look deeper, beyond the words in the text, to
discover the analogy. We may see that there were different ways to
look at, and think about, the same fundamental principle.
Discussion and sharing follows
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My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single
gain in civil rights without legal and nonviolent pressure. History
is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups
seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see
the moral light and give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold
Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.
Here is just one example:
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Martin Luther Kings reference to Pressure is another way of
speaking of Frederick Douglasss use of the word demand. Compare and
contrast
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Why quote Reinhold Niebuhr?
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Reinhold Neibuhr was a famous religious thinker known for a set
of ideas called Christian Realism. Why would Martin Luther King
quote him in this letter? By now, the students easily answer that
this is probably because the clergymen he is addressing would both
identify with, and respect Neibuhr. Reihnold Neibuhr
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We know through painful experience that freedom is never
voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the
oppressed. Another analogous statement
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There are many big questions to ponder in this unit. Is the
core statement made by both Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther
King a fundamental truth of all of human history? How can it be
that one hundred years after the Civil War, Martin Luther King must
still make this argument on behalf of blacks? Big Questions
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I have a dream today
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Lesson Plan: A Close Reading of the Letter from a Birmingham
Jail (based on the curriculum idea expressed at
www.engageny.org).www.engageny.org Marianne E. Brown 2013 Lesson
Plan: A Close Reading