Dissecting Martin Luther King's Dream

A free, engaging Common-Core-based activity to help students analyze the structure of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. In this lesson, students work in groups to divide "I Have a Dream" into thematic sections. Then they discuss and analyze the purpose, funtion, and effectiveness of each section of the speech. Each student in the group has a clearly defined role assignment, so everyone will be actively engaged in the activity. This download includes... * A printout of the "I Have a Dream" speech * A Scribe worksheet * An overhead of the Group Roles * A teacher's guide * A PREZI media presentation, complete with a video clip of King's speech, that introduces the activity The teacher will have to create an account to download the lesson.  The goal of this assignment is for students to discover how different movements or pieces within this speech each accomplish their own purpose while also working together to convey King's overall message. Hopefully they will come to better understand good rhetorical strategies and how a writer or speaker can use several different ideas or strategies to accomplish an overall persuasive goal. In this activity, students will work in groups to divide "I Have a Dream" into several different sections, each with its own theme and purpose.