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Let Freedom Ring: The Life & Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Web-based Content

Let Freedom Ring: The Life & Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Grade Levels

3rd Grade, 4th Grade, 5th Grade

Course, Subject

Arts and Humanities
Related Academic Standards
CC.1.2.3.A CC.1.2.3.A
Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main idea.
CC.1.2.3.H CC.1.2.3.H
Describe how an author connects sentences and paragraphs in a text to support particular points.
CC.1.2.4.A CC.1.2.4.A
Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text.
CC.1.2.5.A CC.1.2.5.A
Determine two or more main ideas in a text and explain how they are supported by key details; summarize the text.
CC.1.2.5.C CC.1.2.5.C
Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a text based on specific information in the text.
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  • Big Ideas
    Comprehension requires and enhances critical thinking and is constructed through the intentional interaction between reader and text
    Information to gain or expand knowledge can be acquired through a variety of sources.
    Purpose, topic and audience guide types of writing
    Artists use tools and resources as well as their own experiences and skills to create art.
    Historical context is needed to comprehend time and space.
    Humans have expressed experiences and ideas through the arts throughout time and across cultures.
    People have expressed experiences and ideas through the arts throughout time and across cultures.
    Perspective helps to define the attributes of historical comprehension.
    The arts provide a medium to understand and exchange ideas.
    The history of the Commonwealth continues to influence Pennsylvanians today, and has impacted the United States and the rest of the world.
    The history of the United States continues to influence its citizens, and has impacted the rest of the world.
    The skills, techniques, elements and principles of the arts can be learned, studied, refined and practiced.
    There are formal and informal processes used to assess the quality of works in the arts.
    World history continues to influence Pennsylvanians, citizens of the United States, and individuals throughout the world today.
  • Concepts
    Essential content of text, including literary elements and devices, inform meaning
    Essential content, literary elements and devices inform meaning
    Informational sources have unique purposes.
    Organization of information facilitates meaning.
    Various types of writing are distinguished by their characteristics
    A personalized rehearsal schedule can help a musician improve his or her skills.
    Actors and audiences work together to share a performance; there are sets of behaviors and expectations for an audience.
    Actors often use stories to create performances.
    Actors recreate experiences.
    Actors use costumes and props.
    Actors use their bodies, voices and imaginations to create theatre.
    Actors utilize dialogue and action from a script and their own imaginations to bring characters to life.
    Americans have customs, and traditions that we share through theatre and stories.
    Art has its own vocabulary that people use when making and talking about art.
    Artifacts of visual culture express experiences and ideas.
    Artists document ideas and observations through journals, sketchbooks, samples, models, photographs and/or electronic files/portfolios.
    Artists often repeat a task many times to learn a new skill.
    Artists preserve culture by visually recordingcustoms and traditions.
    Artists reflect on the process of making art in order to improve their skills and techniques.
    Art-making is a continual process of planning, creating, and refining.
    Artwork is a reflection of the artist, and their art can help us understand the artist’s era and culture.
    Biography explores the life of an individual.
    Chronology may be relative or absolute.
    Collaborative reflection is a crucial part of the art-making process, and often affects the final artwork.
    Conflict and cooperation among social groups, organizations, and nation-states are critical to comprehending society in the United States. Domestic instability, ethnic and racial relations, labor relation, immigration, and wars and revolutions are examples of social disagreement and collaboration.
    Conflict and cooperation among social groups, organizations, and nation-states are critical to comprehending the American society.
    Dancers move in various pathways to perform and create works in dance.
    Dancers use the rehearsal process to practice and improve their dance skills.
    Dancers utilize levels, direction and time to perform and create works in dance.
    Dancers utilize various planes to perform and create works in dance.
    Dances from different cultures have different characteristics.
    Describing a work of art is an important component in forming a judgment about its quality.
    Different groups of voices and/or instruments have different sounds.
    Groups that have influenced United States history had different beliefs, customs, ceremonies, traditions, and social practices.
    Human organizations work to socialize members and, even though there is a constancy of purpose, changes occur over time.
    Labanotation is a written language that people use to communicate movement ideas.
    Labanotation is a written language used by choreographers and dancers to communicate movement sequences.
    Life in the past was different than today, and it is difficult to understand people in history because their knowledge and values are different than today.
    Long-term continuities and discontinuities in the structures of United States culture provide vital contributions to contemporary issues.
    Long-term continuities and discontinuities in the structures of United States society provide vital contributions to contemporary issues. Belief systems and religion, commerce and industry, innovations, settlement patterns, social organization, transportation and trade, and equality are examples continuity and change.
    Music is comprised of patterns of notes that can be arranged in various forms.
    Music notation can be used to share rhythms and melodies.
    Music notation is a written language that allows people to share ideas.
    Music plays an important role in culture.
    Musical notation can represent short, long, high and low sounds.
    Musicians rehearse to improve their skills.
    Musicians use the process of creating/recreating, rehearsing, reflecting and revising to improve their skills.
    People can create music that reflects personal experiences.
    People can use voices and instruments to improvise music.
    People can use voices and instruments to perform music.
    People create art for a variety of purposes.
    People use theatre to communicate their feelings and experiences.
    People who perform theatre critique their own and other’s performances in order to improve.
    Pictures can represent sound and silence.
    Play scripts utilize a unique format to record works in theatre to be performed for an audience.
    Playwrights use dialogue and action to tell a story and/or illustrate a theme.
    Playwrights use plot to convey their ideas about the theme.
    Playwrights use their knowledge, ideas and experiences to create plays.
    Scenery helps communicate where the story takes place.
    Social entities clash over disagreement and assist each other when advantageous.
    Some things change over time, and some things are constant.
    Textual evidence, material artifacts, the built environment, and historic sites are central to understanding United States history.
    The American culture has musical traditions.
    The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has chosen writings, material artifacts, and historic sites to identify a common cultural heritage.
    The United States has chosen writings, material artifacts, and historic sites to identify a common cultural heritage.
    Theatre artists read, discuss and analyze plays.
    Theatre artists use costumes, scenery, music and special effects to convey meaning.
    Theatre has existed for thousands of years.
    There are dances that are unique to certain cultures.
    World history looks for common patterns that emerge across all cultures.
    Dancers and choreographers use a variety of movement qualities and characteristics to learn and study dance.
    Dancers and choreographers use transitions and choreographic structures to arrange ideas.
    There are dances that are unique to certain time periods.
  • Competencies
    Compile information from resource materials.
    Identify resource materials to achieve a research goal.
    Organize and present information drawn from research.
    Question, reflect on, and interpret essential content of text
    Summarize key information and the implied or stated main idea of texts
    Summarize key information from a text (e.g. major points, processes and/or events)
    Summarize relevant information from source material to achieve a research goal.
    Use and cite evidence from texts to make assertions, inferences, generalizations, and to draw conclusions
    Write detailed narrative pieces (e.g. stories and poems), informational pieces (e.g. descriptions, letters, reports, instructions), and persuasive pieces (e.g. opinion supported with facts).
    Write narrative pieces that contain detailed descriptions of people, places and things, as well as literary elements (e.g. multi-paragraph stories, poems, plays).
    Write narrative pieces that contain detailed descriptions of people, places and things, as well as literary elements and devices (e.g. multi-paragraph stories, poems, plays).
    Analyze a contemporary visual culture artifact for the ideas and experiences it communicates.
    Analyze a primary source for accuracy and bias and connect it to a time and place in United States history.
    Analyze the interaction of cultural, economic, geographic, political, and social relations for an American from whom we can learn.
    Analyze the role of music in their own culture, including musical works created by Pennsylvania artists.
    Apply the theme of continuity and change in United States history and relate the benefits and drawbacks of your example.
    Apply the theme of continuity and change in world history and relate the benefits and drawbacks of your example.
    Choose props and/or costume items for dramatic play and creative dramatics activities.
    Choreograph a short piece/phrase utilizing basic Labanotation.
    Choreograph, notate and perform dance that explores a variety of movement qualities and characteristics.
    Choreograph, notate and perform dance that uses transitions and simple choreographic structures to arrange ideas.
    Compare the present to a past era by identifying similarities and differences between the two chronological periods.
    Contrast how a historically important issue in the United States was resolved and compare what techniques and decisions may be applied today.
    Create a detailed description of a work of art and identify aspects of the work that might affect its value.
    Create a musical work that tells a story about personal experiences.
    Create a personalized rehearsal schedule and predict how each element of the schedule will affect their skills.
    Create a timeline using chronological sequence and spatial context.
    Create an original play script inspired by the theme of a folktale.
    Create backdrops as scenery for improvised puppet shows.
    Create, rehearse and revise a short improvised play with a partner by choosing and assigning characters and inventing dialogue and actions.
    Define the roles and expectations of audience and actor.
    Describe key events and individuals from the past, and articulate the social and spatial context of a historical event or action.
    Describe purposes for art-making.
    Describe the characteristics of dance from different cultures.
    Describe the ways in which characters in an American television show demonstrate elements of American traditions and cultures.
    Document the evolution of an idea by maintaining a process portfolio.
    Document the processes they use to produce art and reflect on how the processes have evolved through time.
    Document the rehearsal process and explain how it affects performance.
    Document the rehearsal process and explain the effect it has on a dancer’s skills.
    Engage in a repeated artistic process and explain the benefits of repetition.
    Experiment with different instrument/voice groupings and explain how those choices affect the music.
    Explain why certain writings, oral traditions, material artifacts, architecture, and historic places have been maintained in the present and given for the benefits of future generations.
    Explore scripts and label dialogue, plot, conflict, character, setting and stage directions.
    Given a theme, improvise a plot, characters, dialogue and actions with a partner, and record the dialogue and actions as a written play script.
    Identify a group in United States history and explain how it differed from other groups.
    Identify and analyze plot, character, setting and theme in plays.
    Identify and categorize examples of theatre through history, e.g. Egyptian pageants, Ancient Greek and Roman theatre, medieval pageant wagons, Japanese kabuki, American radio shows, vaudeville acts, television commercials, Punch and Judy shows, Sesame Street, You Tube videos.
    Identify and describe dances that are unique to certain cultures.
    Identify and describe dances that are unique to certain time periods.
    Identify basic symbols used in Labanotation.
    Identify musical traditions in American culture.
    Identify words commonly used when making and expressing ideas about art.
    Imitate and communicate emotion in creative dramatics and creative play.
    Imitate objects and actions from stories or their own experience while participating in creative dramatics activities.
    Improvise scenery to show setting and mood of a scene using fabric, and found items and justify the choices made.
    Improvise simple melodies and rhythms using voices and classroom instruments.
    Make and analyze art that depicts the customs and traditions of a group of people.
    Move in place and through space in various pathways.
    Move in place and through space inlonger movement sequences, paying attention to the various body planes.
    Move in place and through space, paying attention to levels, direction and time.
    Move to and perform melodies in various forms.
    Notate simple rhythms and melodies.
    Observe a body of work from one artist and analyze the work, citing characteristics that increase understanding of the artist’s life.
    Perform and create music, focusing on the process of creating/recreating, rehearsing, reflecting and revising.
    Perform simple melodies and rhythms using voices and classroom instruments.
    Perform spontaneous movement and sound in response to stories, poems and songs.
    Read and notate more complex rhythms and melodies.
    Read iconic notation representing sound and silence.
    Read musical notation representing short/long and high/low sounds.
    Recreate a favorite story as an improvised drama.
    Reflect with classmates on an in-process work of art and describe how that reflection affects the final product.
    Rehearse and perform a memorized monologue, making voice and movement choices to bring the character to life.
    Summarize how conflict and compromise in United States history impact contemporary society.
    Take turns as actor and audience, performing, critiquing, rehearsing and revising.
    While engaged in the art-making process, document the phases of planning, creating, and refining, and describe the purposes of these steps.

Description

In this lesson, students will learn about the life and work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Students will listen to a brief biography, view photographs of the March on Washington, and read a portion of King's "I Have a Dream" speech. After studying King's use of imagery and allusion, students will create original poetic phrases about freedom and illustrate them with symbols representing the forms of freedom that have yet to be realized in the United States.

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Let Freedom Ring: The Life & Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

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