Letter from a Birmingham Jail Cell by Martin Luther King, Jr. June 12, 1963

 This power point provides the summary of an Eighth Grade Social Studies Literacy Lab Unit taught at Walsh Middle School during February and March  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 King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, described in a video on the New York website A Summary of a Lesson Plan

Martin Luther King, Jr.

 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

“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?

“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?

 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 MLK’s argument.

 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

 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

 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 merchants—such 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

 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

 Questions regarding paragraph ten of the letter:  What is MLK’s 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

 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

 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

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

 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

Historic connections – Frederick Douglass

 Frederick Douglass and his importance to American history is discussed.  If the class doesn’t 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

“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

 Study the quotation of Frederick Douglass. Write out a quotation from Martin Luther King’s 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:

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” -Frederick Douglass Focus:

 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

 “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:

 Martin Luther King’s reference to “Pressure” is another way of speaking of Frederick Douglass’s use of the word “demand.” Compare and contrast

Why quote Reinhold Niebuhr?

 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

 “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. ” Another analogous statement

 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

“I have a dream today”

 Lesson Plan: A Close Reading of the Letter from a Birmingham Jail (based on the curriculum idea expressed at  © Marianne E. Brown 2013 Lesson Plan: A Close Reading