Martin Luther King, Jr. Seminar
16 January 2006
Because I believe that it is better to honor Dr. King by conducting education programs within my classes rather than cancel classes, I took my students to the seminars organized by Dr. Faye Schuett. During the seminar, Dr. Scheutt showed a documentary about the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University and then led a discussion inspired by it.
I took my ENG 101, ENG 102, and ENG 107 classes to the seminar and incorporated the material in the following ways:
- The first essay written by the ENG 101 students was inspired by the seminar.
- The ENG 102 students did an exercise where they wrote an essay inspired by the seminar. They then discussed how their essays could be turned into research papers. Finally, they did research on the topic.
- The documentary fit naturally into some of the other films I had selected for ENG 107. However, to take full advantage of the seminar, I showed Birth of a Nation as the first feature film in the class instead of waiting until later in the semester to show it.
The documentary so well received that I incorporated it into the ENG 101 class I taught during Fall 2006. I will use it again in Winter 2007.
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