Amy Tuthill

Activity 1
Martin Luther King - I have a Dream
Activity objectives: English Language Learners will be able to:

Hear intonation within a paragraph

Speak using intonation

Recognize stressed syllables within words

Understand, develop, and speak using stress-timed syllables that may or may
not be part of their L1.

Materials

Copies of Martin Luther King's I have a Dream

Video of Audio recording of I have a Dream

1 paragraph of the speech on a note card (all students receive the same
paragraph)

White Boards and white paper

IntroductionActivating Prior knowledge

As a group, students will discuss what it means to have a dream. Have

students their own dreams. In order to broaden the discussion, relate it to
their own native country and to Martin Luther Kings dream, students will
discuss their native country's dream and what dreams the United States may
have today.

To help better understand the speech we will briefly figurative language such
as metaphors and idioms.

Guided Practice

Students will watch a portion of Martin Luther Kings speech- I have a Dream

Via audio tape students will listen to Martin Luther Kings speech- I have a
Dream. Students will also follow along with their own copy.

As a class discuss Dr. King's fluency, how his speech stressed certain words.
Discuss how his speech might have sounded differently if he had not stressed
certain words.

Listen again and have the students highlight words/phrases, which Dr. King
stressed. Go over as a class

Students will each receive a note card with the following paragraph on it-

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they
will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I
have a dream today.

Students will listen as I read the paragraph out loud.

We will chorally read the paragraph out loud.

As a class we will highlight the words that need to be stressed.

Students will take turns reading the speech out loud to each other. Paying
close attention to the highlighted words and using intonation.

Independent practice

Students will be given the sentence stem-

I have a dream that __________________________________________________

because______________________________. I have a dream today.

Students will complete the sentence stem and draw a picture to go with the
sentence stem.

Students will get up in front of the class say their sentence stem
concentrating on stressing words and using intonation to share their dream!

RationalThis lesson is designed for an 8th grade language arts classroom to include students
at an ESL- 4 or above. I currently do not have ESL students but I do have two
students who are not receiving and have never received ESL services even though
the students speak with a dialect (African and Asian). I wanted my lesson to be
meaningful and relatable. According to Elyssa (1999), teenagers and adults do not
learn as well from repetitious drill as children do (p.38); therefore, I decided to
center my lesson on Martin Luther Kings I have a Dream speech. I also thought it
was very timely since we just honored Martin Luther King and Black History Month is
celebrated in February, I chose an activity incorporating Dr. Martin Luthers speech,
I have a Dream. According the Gilakjani & Ahamdi (2011), chants and tongue
twisters is useful only in so far as it is directly related in the learners minds with

speech that they will actually use outside the classroom(p.79). Therefore, I am
hoping with their prior knowledge of Martin Luther King there will be direct relation
to my students thinking. They will then acquire the appropriate intonation, stressing
certain syllables in a word, and then generalize it to everyday speech, which will
make their speech more comprehensible.
The elementary teacher in the jazz chant video suggests that repetition builds
fluency, pronunciation, which leads to better comprehension (video jazz chants). I
do recognize the importance of repetition and I want to build on that. By having my
students watch Martin Luther Kings speech and then listen to Martin Luther Kings
speech I provided ways for students to repeatedly hear appropriate fluency.
Listening to recorded devices also provided an easier way to stop the speech and as
a class we were able to discuss the speech (Gilakjani & Ahamdi, 2011).
I chose one portion of the speech for students to analyze. I wanted to lower the
affective filter and I felt that giving them one paragraph from the speech would be
more attainable. During the Jazz Chant video, the teacher had them chorally read
with her. She stated that helped her correct fluency but in an indirect way.
Therefore, my students chorally read a portion of the speech to develop their
intonation and prosody with less fear of making a mistake in front of the entire
class. I had them highlight certain words to enunciate. I wanted for them to be
aware that enunciated words are often important words, which in the English
language enunciation can lead to different meaning (Curzan & Adams, 2012).
For the final part of my lesson students were provided a sentence stem. According
to Elyssa (1999), providing sentence helps students think about their writing. I
wanted my students communicate their dream in an authentic way. I had hoped by
having them sharing their dreams in front of the class they would have stressed the
importance of their dream by stressing the appropriate syllables and using
intonation.