When I came across the Do You Speak American? quiz, I accepted the challenge with a smile. I’ve been fortunate to live and travel in different parts of the United States, and I thought I would do well with it.

There’s an “o” sound, for example, that I start hearing in northern Indiana, and it becomes more noticeable as I continue through Wisconsin into Minnesota. I thought I would recognize a New England “a.” And Southern drawls are easily recognizable, right?

I was thoroughly humbled by this quiz. Can you beat 3? (Yes, I’ll bet you can!)

Today we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, and most of us will focus on his “I Have a Dream” speech in the classroom. Of all the things Dr. King said and wrote during his lifetime, that speech has proven to be the most enduring. It is powerful and certainly deserves this annual attention.

Dr. King taught that justice and equality were noble goals and that the best way to work toward them was nonviolently. He adopted the concept of civil disobedience that Henry David Thoreau had written about a hundred years earlier, a concept implemented during World War II in Europe, during the civil rights movement in Africa, and against the British in India.

Every student of Bloom’s Taxonomy knows that knowledge and comprehension are fundamental to learning. We also know that being able to apply learning to specific situations demonstrates a more sophisticated understanding of the ideas.

When Dr. King was assassinated, Bobby Kennedy was campaigning for the Democratic Presidential nomination. He was in my hometown, Indianapolis; and it fell to him to announce Dr. King’s death to a large group of predominantly African-American supporters downtown. Everyone there knew and understood what Dr. King stood for. Would they take it to the next level and respond nonviolently to this crisis?

Unfortunately my blog software won’t allow me to embed this YouTube video of Kennedy’s speech which has been enhanced with a graphic montage. I hope you will take 6 minutes to watch and listen.

There were riots in several American cities the night Dr. King was killed, but there was calm in Indianapolis.

People applied what they had learned. It was a fitting tribute.

I’ve been blogging all week about collections I found at American Rhetoric. This site is packed with resources:

• 100 Top American Speeches from the 20th Century (”I Have a Dream” is #1)
• Examples of figures of speech, many with MP3 files, from metaphor and simile to epizeuxis and scesis onomaton
• A great exercise on journalistic objectivity that works even with kids who don’t remember Dennis Rodman
• A bank of more than 5000 American speeches
• A collection of speeches related to the attacks of 9/11

There’s more. All of the speeches have written text. Some have audio files, and a few have video. If you are looking for a specific speech, this is a great place to start!

We all like to use film to make literature come alive for our students. But sometimes we only need a clip. Here’s an online resource that may simplify things: Movie Speeches at American Rhetoric.

Clips are alphabetized by title of the movie, and movies that start with the are all alphabetized under “T”:

• Atticus Finch’s closing argument at Tom Robinson’s trial
• Marlon Brando’s famous “Stella!” as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire.
• “Was that Eastern Standard Time?” from the trial in Inherit the Wind
• Malcolm X and “The Harlem address” (portrayed by Denzel Washington) from Malcolm X
• Hear Senator Joseph McCarthy attack Edward R. Murrow in Good Night and Good Luck

Not all the speeches have video, but all have audio and the text of the script. You never know when a clip from The Knight’s Tale or Schindler’s List or even Legally Blonde might come in handy. This is a site to bookmark!

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on this date, January 15, in 1929. His birthday was made a national holiday in 1986, and we will celebrate it next Monday, January 21.

Many teachers like to incorporate study of Dr. King’s work at this time of year, and American Rhetoric has archived some of his speeches:

• “I Have a Dream” (1963), with video, runs about 17 1/2 minutes.
• “Keep Moving from this Mountain,” 1965 address to Temple Israel in Hollywood
• “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” (1967)
• “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” (last speech, 1968)

American Rhetoric includes the text and an audiofile of each speech. Some have video.

The site links to other collections of Dr. King’s work: his 1964 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech; “A Witness to the Truth,” his eulogy for James Reeb, another civil rights activist; and the Voice of King collection at Stanford University.

If it’s too late to include these resources in your planning for this year, just bookmark the site. You’ll be all set for next year.