4th Grade MLK Day Oration

To prepare for this special performance, 4th graders learned what makes a speech effective, including voice, conviction, passion, inflection, emphasis, alliteration, facts—and most importantly, allowing the audience to more intimately see and connect with the orator through eye contact. They watched and discussed orations by the lively Kid President, the United Nations speech on climate change in 1993 by Severn Cullis (she was then only 12 years old), and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have a Dream.

Students also answered a few questions in relation to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech or finished prompts from the speech in order to tease out what they wanted to say for the performance. Some of those prompts were:

Now is the time to...
I have a dream that...
There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until...
With this faith (or belief) we will be able to….

As students organized their critical thinking on paper, themes came to light such as access to education for all, animal rights, climate change, discrimination, immigration, human rights, leadership, LGBTQIA rights, poverty, and stereotypes and labels. Given the range of their themes, the 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1967 Speech, Where Do We Go From Here—Chaos or Community? emerged as the appropriate frame for their individual speeches.

Perhaps the most powerful impact of this experience is the butterfly effect, commonly defined as the “concept that small causes can have large effects.” I like to think of the butterfly effect in this light: when we use our voices to project out into the world our thoughts and convictions, the sound wave of those words has the power to affect change. It may resonate with someone’s soul, influence someone to act or connect us to our humanity. The world seems to be much in need of this right now.

Before 4th grade began their journey today, I let them know that their voices matter. They have been heard. They have made an impact on me.