1. Bellringer – March 1, 2016
Go to your assigned seat for our Socratic Seminar. The inner circle will be addressing this prompt: Discuss the three main plot lines in the novel. What are they and why does the author use them. The outer circle will be addressing this prompt: What is an overarching theme of this novel? Why do you think the author exploited this theme in a World War II setting? Take ten minutes to come up with your discussion points.

2. Discuss the three main plot lines in the novel
Discuss the three main plot lines in the novel. What are they and why does the author use them?

3. What is an overarching theme of this novel
What is an overarching theme of this novel? Why do you think the author exploited this theme in a World War II setting?

4. What you need to know: PBS video link
What is the Birmingham Campaign?
When did it take place?
How was King involved IF he lived in Atlanta, Georgia?
Stop video at 2:40

5. Background notes you need.
The Birmingham Campaign began on April 3, 1963, with coordinated marches and sit-ins against racism and racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama.
The non-violent campaign was coordinated by Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
On April 10, Circuit Judge W. A. Jenkins issued a blanket injunction against "parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing".

6. Leaders of the campaign announced they would disobey the ruling.
On April 12, King was roughly arrested with Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth and other marchers—while thousands of African Americans dressed for Good Friday looked on.
King met with unusually harsh conditions in the Birmingham jail. An ally smuggled in a newspaper from April 12, which contained "A Call for Unity" a statement made by eight white Alabama clergymen against King and his methods.
The “A Call to Unity" clergymen agreed that social injustices existed but argued that the battle against racial segregation should be fought solely in the courts, not in the streets. They criticized Martin Luther King, calling him an “outsider” who causes trouble in the streets of Birmingham

7. “A Call for Unity” provoked King and he began to write a response on the newspaper itself.
King writes in Why We Can't Wait: “Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while I was in jail, the letter was continued on scraps of writing paper supplied by a friendly black trustee, and concluded on a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to leave me.”
Have students read “A Call For Unity” using PALS and answer the five analysis questions on the back.

8. Reading “A Call For Unity”
The nine criticisms which King will address are labeled in your copy of the newspaper letter.
Read carefully and then answer the five questions which follow the text.
Turn those questions in. You should answer them on a separate piece of paper. They will be graded.

9. Read Martin Luther King Jr
Read Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” and “Statement by Alabama Clergymen” individually. When you are finished determine the connection between the two and discuss it with a partner.

10. Exit Ticket:
Write down something that you found interesting during your Socratic Seminar. For Next Class: Bring your novel and be prepared to write another journal. Homework: Finish up through section 2 of the letter. If you copy off a classmate, it will be evident and you both will earn zeroes.