Overview

This activity has two parts. Students will watch two videos, Amanda Gorman reading “The Hill We Climb” and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reading “I Have a Dream.” Students will then be asked to highlight specific rhetorical strategies in those two selections using the Categorical Highlighting strategy on Google Docs. When they finish highlighting, they are asked to respond to the question, “What makes a piece of writing poetry?”

Teacher Notes

You could choose which rhetorical strategies to highlight for your students, depending on their level of knowledge. If you prefer, you could assign a grade to the submission or leave it as a completion assignment.

Students are also asked to respond to a question on the discussion board. Best practice for online discussion pedagogy suggests teacher interaction with students on discussion boards. This could be as simple as a short message of encouragement or a guide to correction. Here is a link to research on online pedagogy if you would like to read more. 

If you meet face to face with students, whether in person or through video conferencing, you could easily lead a live discussion with the students rather than using the discussion board.

Setting a deadline for discussion board submissions is also helpful to keep a dialogue flowing between the students.

Tech Integration 

Student Activity (Pt.1)
Categorical Highlighting

  • Students have been instructed to upload their file to the Categorical Highlighting activity. The submission type is configured to allow online submission and provides students with the option to upload a file or submit the document by sharing a URL.

  • If this assignment will be graded, update the Assignment settings, and add a point value. We also recommend adding due dates to the activity. Learn how to update Assignment settings.

Student Activity (Pt.2)
Categorical Highlighting Discussion

This activity is facilitated by a Canvas Discussion. Canvas Discussions may be graded or ungraded; they enable the teacher to add due dates and availability dates. These options may be configured to suit the needs of the students. 

Learn about Discussion Options.


A rubric has been provided to score the activity. A default score has been assigned to the rubric. To update point values in the rubric, view the Rubric Tutorial