Teaching resources are in the works for Martin Luther King Jr Day! Videos, PowerPoints, Research Guides, and Reading Task Cards are a few resources that can help you teach about Martin Luther King’s incredible story!
Martin Luther King Jr Task Cards
The task cards are built around drawing conclusions as a reading skill. It’s a teaching resource that integrates historical facts, critical thinking, and concepts of equality, civil rights, justice, and liberty.
Visit our store to view the Martin Luther King Jr. Task Cards.
There are 24 task cards with biographical information on Martin Luther King Jr. Students will draw conclusions and support those conclusions with text evidence. Question stems include:
- Which detail best supports the idea in the diagram?
- What can the reader conclude from this details?
- The details help the reader conclude Martin –
- Which conclusion is best supported by the details?
- This detail would be most useful for someone who was –
- And more.
MLK Day Growing Literacy Bundle
If you’re going deeper into the study of this American hero, you’ll want to get more the task cards. This literacy bundle is growing with time. It has 45 pages of teaching resources for MLK Day! It is perfect nonfiction literature study or for integration of Social Studies and Literacy Skills.
- 24 task cards
- Vocabulary page
- 3-2-1 bridge activity
- Making inferences using graphic organizers
- Matching activities (synonym practice)
- 10 pages of writing to learn about Martin Luther King Jr.
- 30 slides of PowerPoint
- Short answer questions
Click here to view the MLK Day Activities Bundle in our TPT store.
Black History Month and Close Reading
Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Booker T. Washington, Harriet Tubman, Hank Aaron, and many more historical individuals are in our growing close reading sets.
Tap to read more about the Benefits of Close Reading.
Close reading is a great way to integrate critical reading skills and social studies content. The repeated reading, note-taking, and inferring require deeper processing than most worksheets or other activities.
Close reading passages for black history month include 4-6 sections of text with graphic organizers, sentence stems, short answer responses, and notice and note practice.
Researching Black History Month
Dozens of research and webquest pages are bundled into a single set to guide students in developing research skills. Facts, conclusions, and historical importance are asked in student-friendly formats.
Tips on Teaching Black History
Like any aspect of history, it’s about people. Members of our community who have added to the value and beauty of humanity. Here are a few tips:
- It’s not about slavery. Begin with the heroic contributions from historical figures.
- Remember the breadth of black history. Jewish history is not about the Holocaust. American Indian history is not about the European Invasion. Those are important aspects. They’re not the whole story.
- Give students personal takeaways. Knowledge is great. Cultural pride is great. Also give students time to reflect on how history can make their lives better today.
- Don’t refer to humans as slaves. No one is their situation. We are humans, with value. We are in a variety of situations, but we are not our situations.
- Black History Month is a celebration of the richness of culture, science, arts, traditions, human rights, and individualism. Include these key concepts.
- History is not, by default, based on one culture. Include aspects of European history, African history, Native American history, and others throughout the curriculum.
- History is not only about the climatic moments. There are also lessons to learn outside of the intense events of history. A war. An injustice. A triumph.
- Personal stories can be impactful. Think of Benjamin Banneker. He learned from his father and became one of the greatest land surveyors of Washington D.C.
- Remember the humanity. Historical figures were humans. Students are humans. History doesn’t remove that…teaching it can magnify it.
