During the week of Jan. 16, in honor of Martin Luther King Day, the students in Ann Marie Torres' eighth-grade social studies classes at Park View Middle School spent a week undertaking an in-depth study of the civil rights leader and the movement.

The week began with studying his "I Have a Dream" speech and his early childhood, continuing with his education and leadership, followed by a study of The Montgomery Bus Boycott, protests in Birmingham, Alabama, the political progress that was made for civil rights and King's tragic death. The students used a variety of resources in their study, including hearing the book "I Have a Dream" read aloud to them while they took notes. Other activities included watching a video and listening to audio as they took notes and partner-reading a selection of biographical material about King, in which they highlighted the important facts. Torres also had the students listen to "Pride," a song by U2, which refers to King and his tragic death in its lyrics.

The book features much of the Washington, D.C., area, given that the speech took place on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and Torres polled her classes to see how many had been to the D.C. area. The majority of them had not. She pointed out landmarks throughout the story such as the Washington Monument and the National Mall.

"Two-hundred-and-fifty people turned out for his speech at the Lincoln Memorial [in 1963]," she said. "That was a historic turnout for that time in history."

She also connected the historical events from Kings time to the current events of 2017.

"It's fitting to be studying Martin Luther King and his work this week, given that it is the week of the inauguration," said Torres to her students. "We are currently a nation that is very divided with a new incoming president, and it reminds me of what it must have been like to live in those times. There were lots of protests, lots of boycotts during that time."

As Torres went through the book, she checked in with the students as to their understanding of the lines in the speech as well as the various symbols pictured in the book.

"When it says, 'All men are created equal,' do you think he means just men?" Torres asked. The students concluded that King was referring to all races, all people and all religions, as he was an ordained minister.

She asked her students to look around their classroom, which was very diverse, filled with both boys and girls, and asked them to imagine what it would be like if they could not go to school, church, sports or other activities together.

After the students had completed their study of the research and resources presented, they were required to work individually on an output entry of their choice, which could be a poster, a book jacket, a short newspaper article, a concept tree, a mind map, a cartoon or doodle, a song, rap or poem, a letter or text message, a foldable, a Jeopardy board or another creative idea of their choice, which had to be teacher-approved. Each of the projects required that 10 facts were included about King, and the projects had to use all of the sources for the facts contained therein. In addition to turning in the project, an oral presentation was also required.