Working With the Our Friend Martin Worksheet
The Our Friend Martin Worksheet is a teaching aid designed to accompany the animated educational film about Martin Luther King Jr. that came out in the mid-1990s. It covers the basics of the civil rights movement through a kids-friendly lens. Teachers and homeschool parents have used it for decades. I ran across it again recently when a colleague asked me to review a lesson plan that was built around it. Here is the straightforward rundown of what it is, how to use it, and what actually happens when you try to implement it in a classroom setting.
Our Friend Martin Worksheet: What It Actually Covers
The worksheet is structured around comprehension questions and activities tied directly to scenes in the film. It hits key topics: the concept of segregation, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the March on Washington, and the idea of nonviolent protest. There are typically matching exercises, short-answer prompts, and a few creative tasks like drawing or writing from a character's perspective. One thing most people miss is that the worksheet assumes a certain baseline of familiarity with 1960s American history. It does not provide much background context on its own. If your students have never heard of Rosa Parks or the Little Rock Nine, the worksheet will feel disjointed. You need to scaffold before you hand it out. I ran into a real problem last year when I tried to use the original PDF version with a sixth-grade class. The formatting broke on newer browsers and operating systems. The pages didn't print correctly, and half the questions were cut off. My workaround was to take screenshots of each page at full resolution, paste them into a blank document, add a header with the student names, and re-export as a fresh PDF. Took about twenty minutes and worked perfectly after that. If you are dealing with the same issue, don't waste time trying to fix the original file. Just rebuild it from scratch using the screenshots.
How to Use It Effectively
The most common approach is to show the film first, then distribute the worksheet as a follow-up activity. That is the intended design. But you can also flip it. Assign the worksheet as pre-viewing questions to build curiosity, then watch the film and use the remaining questions for discussion. Either way works. The film runs about forty-five minutes including the musical segments. Here is a practical sequence that tends to work well: First, spend fifteen minutes doing a brief intro on who Martin Luther King Jr. was and what the civil rights movement was about. Just the essentials. The students need that frame of reference or the worksheet questions will go over their heads.
Get the Full Details
Second, watch the film. Pause between major sections if the class needs it. I usually pause after the segregation segment and ask one or two quick check-in questions. Not every pause needs to be formal. Sometimes just a "does that make sense so far" is enough. Third, give out the worksheet. Allow thirty to forty minutes for completion. Some students finish fast. Others need help with the writing portions. Have a backup activity ready for the quick finishers, like a short research prompt on a civil rights figure not covered in the film. Fourth, go over the answers together. This part matters more than people realize. The worksheet is not a test. It is a discussion tool. Spend time on the short-answer questions where students might have different interpretations. The matching sections you can breeze through.
Where the Worksheet Falls Short
I need to be honest about the limitations. The Our Friend Martin Worksheet simplifies a lot of complex history. The film itself was criticized by some historians for being too sanitized, and the worksheet carries that same tendency forward. It does not address the more violent aspects of the movement, the internal disagreements within the civil rights movement, or the ongoing impact of systemic racism. For a elementary or early middle school audience, that level of simplification is probably unavoidable. But it is something you as the instructor need to be aware of. If you are teaching older students or want a more nuanced treatment, this worksheet alone will not be sufficient. You should supplement it with primary source documents, news footage, or age-appropriate books like "The Story of Ruby Bridges" or "Martin's Big Words." The worksheet works best as a starting point, not the whole lesson. Another practical issue is availability. The official worksheets were distributed through educational channels for many years, but they are harder to find now. The original publisher, Golden Books, no longer actively distributes them. Most teachers end up finding scanned copies on third-party educational sites or through teacher resource forums. Make sure whatever copy you use is legible and complete before assigning it to students.
Download and Access
You can find the Our Friend Martin Worksheet in various forms online. Search for "Our Friend Martin worksheet PDF" and you will hit several educational resource sites. Teachers Pay Teachers has uploaded versions. Some library and museum websites also host them. I usually grab it from the National Archives educational resources section when available, as those tend to be the most accurate scans. Check the date on any digital copy you find. Older scans sometimes have watermarks or cropping issues that make printing a pain. Once you have the file, I recommend printing a master copy for yourself first. Go through every question and note where the instructions might be unclear or where the answer key would need interpretation. The worksheet does not always come with a built-in answer key, so you may need to prepare your own based on the film content.
A Note on Modern Alternatives
If you find the original worksheet too sparse or too dated in its approach, there are newer resources that cover similar ground. The Learning Network at the New York Times has lesson plans on MLK and the civil rights movement that incorporate current events. The EDSITEment platform, run by the National Endowment for the Humanities, offers vetted materials. The National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis also has free curriculum guides that go deeper than the worksheet does. But the original Our Friend Martin Worksheet still has its place. It is accessible, it is free, and it pairs well with the film for younger audiences. Just know what it is and what it is not. It is an entry point into a much larger conversation, not the conversation itself.
