In his "Letter from Birmingham Jail", Martin Luther King Jr boldly proclaims, “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...This is the inter-related structure of reality.” 

Our humanity and interconnectedness with other individuals and society that Martin Luther King Jr. highlights for the clergy are integral to this 10th grade English course including its texts, themes, and essential questions. This course calls on students to examine the tension between being selfless and selfish, between being an individual and being part of a community. Through reading of core texts from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, students will consider the following question: what, if any, is our social responsibility? Additionally they will examine the things, people, and places that motivate people to act in the best interests of others. Students will engage with a variety of writing assignments including analytical essays, personal response essays, and creative writing and participate in weekly seminars to discuss and share their evidence based ideas about the texts they read. 

Course Level Essential Questions

• What is the individual’s responsibility to society? 
• To what do we owe society and the world? To what do we owe individuals? 
• In what ways are all humans interconnected? 
• What motivates people to act in the best interest of others? Is it altruism or self interest? 
• Why is it important to know we are all connected? How are we all interconnected?