We appreciated how the speech bears the imprint of two highlights of the video: King’s religious background and his non-violent resistance.
The students googled the quotes in the last segment of the speech (my italics and bold type). In understanding the source of these quotes (an American patriotic song and an old Negro spiritual respectively), the students became aware of the passionate intensity of the end of the speech, the powerful appeal to the listeners’ emotions, which has become timeless. This climactic finale also enables King to come full circle and to end on an optimistic note. In this way, the regretful beginning of the speech
“[…] the Emancipation Proclamation […] came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free […]”
is countered by
“My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers
died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
“Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Finally, the students watched the following video and realised the rhetorical ‘plus’ of such nonprosodic features as variations in volume, pitch, the rate of delivery and the length of pauses.
The upshot of so much work was, naturally, further work. The students were invited to choose one of the following titles and produce an article:
I HAVE A DREAM
HE HAS A DREAM
SHE HAS A DREAM
HE HAD A DREAM
SHE HAD A DREAM
AND HIS DREAM CAME TRUE
AND HER DREAM CAME TRUE
BUT HIS DREAM DID NOT COME TRUE
BUT HER DREAM DID NOT COME TRUE
And here is what some students have come up with...