Description
In this paired texts lesson, students analyze The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s powerful speech I’ve Been to the Mountaintop. This lesson is designed to strengthen close reading, literary analysis, and historical understanding through meaningful comparison.
On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman moved the nation when she delivered The Hill We Climb at the presidential inauguration, becoming the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history. Students engage with her message of unity, hope, and responsibility through guided analysis and discussion. Students also read an excerpt from I’ve Been to the Mountaintop, a speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 3, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, the evening before his assassination.
This ELA paired text activity encourages students to reflect on current events while making direct connections to the Civil Rights Movement. Students complete a close reading of both texts and then compare and contrast theme, tone, purpose, and historical context, reinforcing higher-level thinking and textual analysis skills.
Analysis questions and answer keys are included for easy implementation. The lesson explicitly highlights important poetic and rhetorical devices, including tone, theme, alliteration, anaphora, idiom, and metaphor. This resource is ideal for middle school and high school ELA classrooms, speech analysis, poetry units, and Black History Month instruction.