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Vale Middle School Reading Article

Martin Luther King Jr. – A Biography (1160L)

Instructions: COMPLETE ALL QUESTIONS AND MARGIN NOTES

Read the following article carefully and make notes in the margin as you read.

Your notes should include:

o Comments that show that you understand the article. (A summary or statement of the main

idea of important sections may serve this purpose.)

o Questions you have that show what you are wondering about as you read.

o Notes that differentiate between fact and opinion.

o Observations about how the writer’s strategies (organization, word choice, perspective,

support) and choices affect the article.

Your margin notes are part of your score for this assessment.

Answer the questions carefully in complete sentences unless otherwise instructed.

Student ____________________________Class Period__________________

Martin Luther King, Jr. – A Biography

Notes on my thoughts,

reactions and questions as I

read:

Part 1: Early Years Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on Jan. 15, 1929. He was the son

and the grandson of a pastor, so it is perhaps no surprise that he became a pastor as well. He

also became a leader of the civil rights movements and one of the most famous people

America has ever produced. His name at birth was Michael, but he later changed it to

Martin. When he was born, his grandfather was pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist

Church. When Martin was 2, his father took over the pulpit and served for a great many

years.

Young Martin grew up in the segregated South. He attended, David T. Howard Elementary

School and Atlanta University Laboratory School, which were full of African-American

students, who at that time were not able to attend school with white children. Martin

graduated from Booker T. Washington High School when he was just 15 and went right to

college. Following in his grandfather’s and father’s footsteps, he attended Atlanta’s

important Morehouse College, graduating in 1948 with a degree in sociology. He then

moved north to Pennsylvania to study religion at the Crozer Theological Seminary. (During

his stay at the seminary, he studied the teachings of Indian spiritual leader Mohandas

Gandhi, who cautioned against violence as a way to bring about social change.) The

seminary classes included students of varying colors of skin, and Martin was elected

president of his senior class, a class that had mostly white students in it. He received his

seminary degree in 1951 and then moved on to Boston University, from which he graduated

in 1955 with a doctorate degree. It was in Boston that Martin met his future wife, Coretta

Scott, a strong and powerful woman who cared deeply about civil rights. They were married

soon after and eventually had four children, two sons and two daughters.

His doctorate in hand, King became pastor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in

Montgomery, Ala. He also was on the executive committee of the National Association for

Martin Luther King, Jr., . January 13, 2013.

Martin Luther King Jr. - A Biography (1160l) - Middle School Reading Article Worksheet