Lesson Plan III
I will first have the students read the poem "Strange Fruit" by Lewis Allen. This poem, which was adapted to a song and performed by Billie Holiday, describes the lynching of African Americans during the Jim Crow Era. Before giving the students a biography of the poet, I will ask them to respond to the following questions and prompts.
- Interpret and explain the use of metaphor. What is the fruit and what is strange about it?
- What language is contradictory in the poem? What is oxymoronic?
- What language demonstrates the shift in tone?
- Based on the voice of the speaker, write a biography of the speaker's life.
Once the students have shared their responses I will then share with them biographical information about Lewis Allen. Lewis Allen was a pseudonym for Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher and union activist from New York. Disturbed by a photograph of a lynching he had seen, Allen wrote the poem and later set it to music. It was performed at a teachers' union meeting and then caught the attention of a nightclub manager who introduced the singer Billie Holiday to Allen. Billie Holiday began performing the song and is often thought to have written it.
Once the students know that a white man wrote the poem, I will ask them to answer the following questions:
- Does the race of the poet affect the voice that is heard in this poem? Why or why not?
- How is this poem a vessel for voice? In the past and in the present?
I will have the students analyze several other poems that are spoken by a persona other than the poets speaking in their own voice. This will help the students' transition into the last part of the unit. One collection of poetry I will require the students to read and analyze is MACNOLIA by A Van Jordan. Van Jordan, an assistant professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, tells the story of MacNolia Cox. MacNolia's life is told through a serious of poems, which are a haunting description of racism and ignorance. In 1936, MacNolia Cox won the Akron District Spelling Bee and was the first African American to make it to the final round of the national competition. The Southern judges gave MacNolia a word that was not on the official list. Ironically the word was nemesis. This tragic defeat prompted MacNolia to drop out of school and work as a maid for the rest of her life. This collection is an excellent instance of persona poetry, and enables the reader to hear the voice of MacNolia throughout. I will require the students to use this collection as a model for their final poetry project.
The last part of the unit will require the students to create a poetry portfolio incorporating poems that fit into the aforementioned three categories. Students will be required to find images and write ecphrastic poems based on those images; they will have to choose six poems by victims; and analyze the poems based on the objectives stated in the Curriculum and Design portion of the unit. Finally, they will be required to include poems that are vessels for the victim's voice that are written by someone other than the victim. They will use the MACNOLIA collection as a model for telling a person's life story through poetry. I will require the students to choose a person from the Jim Crow Era or the Holocaust. The students will share their portfolios with the class at the end.
Requirements for Final Poetry Portfolio:
- Hearing the Voice
- Choose three poems from victims from each era. Choose one poem from each era to analyze based on the use of figure, theme, tone, and symbol.
- Becoming the Voice
- Choose two images that represent tragedy during each of these eras. Write an ecphrastic poem for each image.
- Whose Voices Are Left?
- After researching people who became the voice of each era, compile a collection of poems that tell your chosen person's life story.
The students will use the poems that were analyzed and written earlier in the unit as models for their poetry portfolio. However, the portfolio is an occasion for assessment and will require the students to research and find answers on their own. I will allow students to write various forms of poetry if they choose, or they may only write and analyze free verse poems. This portfolio will give them a chance to experiment with other forms of poetry.
Words to be included in Student Glossary:
- Alliteration
- Allusion
- Hyperbole
- Ecphrastic poetry
- Free Verse
- Metaphor
- Oxymoron
- Persona
- Persona poetry
- Personification
- Rhythm
- Sensory Imagery
- Simile
- Theme
- Tone
Students will be required to write down the definitions of these words after class discussions.
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