Strategies/ Classroom Activities
Extension Research Activity/Adaptations
Inquiry based research can also assist in students understanding adaptations and its implications. I will present some excerpts of the various adaptations of Raisin that students will view, research, and analyze as well as critiques of both film productions (1961) and (1989) and the Broadway productions (1959) and (2004) including the musical (1973). Som of the critics' reactions are given in an appendix. There are examples of what students may locate via webbased and microfilm sources.
Students will examine and discuss and even debate the critics in a talk show format. Oprah Winfrey is also a role model here in Chicago and is linked to the 2004 Broadway production of Raisin. We will set up the classroom as if it was the Oprah studio and of course we would have to have a student play the role of Oprah. The talk show host would invite actors and various critics such as Ruby Dee, Danny Glover, Sydney Poitier and Sean Puffy Combs or James Baldwin, Clive Barnes of the New York Post or even Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times.
As a culminating activity students will create and share their own criticism and post to our class activity web site.
Scenes&Themes
Themes are popular instructional utensils; themes often focus on a single topic that draws students into a subject area. Themes may provide the nucleus for class activities and lessons, scaffolding students' prior knowledge and helping them to make text to text, text to world and text to self connections. "Themes in many cases become the foundation for an analysis because they point to the main idea in a movie." They are not necessarily the moral or message of the movie. They are the large and the small ideas that help to explain the actions and events. In this interdisciplinary unit students will read selected text that will correspond to scenes from the 1961 film Raisin in the Sun. However, the Great Black Migration and family challenges will only be used as a resource for viewing. Students will brainstorm themes throughout the unit and build upon these themes through discussions. In this section some of the scenes are outlined to provide examples of how selected scenes will be used as a focal point for analysis.
Lesson in Themes
Helping students identify major themes of "Raisin in the Sun" will help them develop a sense of analysis. Learning how to question and take notes should lead to more discussion and more questions. The answers provided below will only be used for model responses. Students will be encouraged to give their personal responses and provide textual evidence.
For example:
- Who are the central characters?
- what do they represent in themselves and in relation to each other? The importance of individuality or society? Human strength or compassion?
- How do their actions create a story with meaning or constellation of meaning?
- Does the story emphasize the benefits of change or endurance?
- What kind of life or what actions does the film wish you to value or criticize, and why?
- If there is not a coherent message or theme, why not?
- How does the movie make you feel at the end? Happy? Sad? Upset? Proud Depressed? Confused? Why?
Some students may identify Mama and Travis, while others may disagree and identify Mama and Walter Lee. Do the central characters change from scene to scene? Or are student basing their response on the characters that were most dominant throughout the film?
If we decide to follow the initial response of Mama and Travis, then Travis might represent a sense of hope for Mama and for the future. Travis shows a great sense of respect and love for his grand mother.
When mama came to Chicago with Big Walter they wanted to provide a better life for their family. Now her grandson would literally reap from the harvest they planted fifty years ago.
The film shows that challenges may change from generation to generation but values such as pride and hard work transcends generations.
Lorraine Hansberry the playwright wrote this play based on her personal experiences and knowledge and I think the film brings her values of family support, compassion and work ethics to life in the film starring the same cast that opened the play in 1959.
The coherent message in the story is that open and honest communication is the key to family unity and growth.
The end of the movie made me feel sad because Mr. Linder did not understand or accept the fact that the Younger family had a right to pursue the American dream. Unfortunately, Mr. Linder represented an entire community of residents that did not want blacks to move into their neighborhood.
Poetry Strategies
Have students select lines from the play that suggest that someone is trying to achieve a goal or a dream and then have them analyze those lines using the play's title poem, "What happens to a dream deferred?"
Other poems can also be used to help students improve their analytical skills.
Mama quotes Big Walter: "Seems like God didn't see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams, but he did give us children to make our dreams seem worthwhile."
Walter: This morning, I was looking in the mirror and thinking, I'm thirty five years old; I've been married eleven years and I got a boy who sleeps in the living-room and all I got to give him is nothing. Nothing but stories about how rich white people live!
Did Walters dream fester like a sore?
Can Travis dreams be compared to rotten meat or a syrupy sweet? Why or why not?
Did Ruth's dream just sag like a heavy load?
What happens in the play or movie that makes mama explode?
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat
Or crust and sugar over
Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
Like a heavy load
Or does it Explode?
Langston Hughes
"Open Mic"is also a poetry strategy that students enjoy, providing students an opportunity to create their own poetry around a central theme or topic. The following poem is the kind that serves as an example to students as they create their own voices about what they have learned throughout this unit. This poem reflects the childhood innocence of Travis Younger and takes a walk down the block to observe today's youth. This poem was created with the spirit of inner city dreams; the innocence is snapped from our children by gun violence, drugs, and neglect. Growing up on the South Side of Chicago you could not become captivated by the aroma of fried chicken or catfish. My mother's golden fried chicken was the inspiration for the title.
Dreams Deep-Fried
Children playing
90-degree sun
The ice cream truck hums
A tune
Kool-Aid freezes into an ice cup by noon
Momma's praying
Daddy's saying
"Children get out of the streets"
Juking to the beats
Running through the alley
Jumping double dutch
Shooting hoops
Completing homework on the stoops
Shuffled cards for bid wis
An argument ensues
A drug dealer was dissed
Shoots ring out
The intended target, missed
Dreams are scattered
Grandma shouts
Who raped my baby?
Ryan Harris had a dream
Starkeisha Reed
Our children continue to bleed
Grown Folks filled with selfish greed
Nobody knows Vincent Gordon
He took a shot
Not like Jordon
His was in the back
Are the Bradley sisters somewhere dreaming?
Hopes are shattered
Boarded windows and doors
Who comes out for laughter anymore?
By Sharon Ponder
Readers Theater
"I called him to come on over to the show, gonna put on a show for the Man."
Walter Lee
The film is shown to students to assist with their understanding of the play, especially the setting, the position of the actors, characters' dialogue, mannerisms and point of view of the characters. At this point in the unit students understand that the film was adapted after its Broadway run in New York. In small groups students will act out selected scenes and audience members will conduct peer assessments based on the group's ability to creatively invigorate and demonstrate full comprehension.
Time: Early 1950's
Place: Chicago Southside
Act I Scene I
Its 7:30 in the morning and Ruth tries to get Travis into the common bathroom used by others in the apartment building. Ruth knows that if Travis doesn't get in the bathroom others may get in causing them to run behind schedule. Travis is tired and barely moving but finally drags himself into the bathroom with Ruth's persistence.
Walter wakes up minutes after Travis gets into the bathroom and demands that Ruth gets Travis us sooner so that he doesn't have to wait for his turn. Ruth rejects that idea with a resounding no and reminds Walter of the fact that he and his friends are up all night talking and playing on what is Travis bed. How is he expected to get up any earlier when he goes to bed late?
Walter Lee diverts his attention to the insurance check and asks Ruth "don't the check come today?" Ruth appeals to Walter not to get up asking her about money that doesn't belong to her. Walter exclaims "I'm thirty five years old, married eleven years and has a son that sleeps in the living room. I've got nothing to give him but stories on how rich white folks live."
Mama enters the Kitchen as Ruth is ironing and they began talking about possible plans for the insurance money. Ruth suggest that Mama travels like rich white women but Mama realizes that she ain't no rich white woman and decides to put a down payment on a house. Ruth exclaims "I'm so glad to be moving because we sure did put enough money into this Rat Trap." Mama looks disappointed at Ruth's description of the apartment she's grown to love but goes on to explain how the apartment was a gold mine when she and big Walter moved in forty years ago.
Act I Scene 2
Travis burst in the door to his family's apartment delicately holding an envelope with such enthusiasm and curiosity. He hands the envelope to his grandma and his mother Ruth huddles along and say's "I wish Walter Lee was here for this." Mama opens the envelope and pulls out the check, examines it carefully and then asks Travis to count the number of zeros. Travis proudly counts all the zeros and exclaims "Grandmama you're rich!"
Act II Scene 3
Beneatha, Ruth and Walter Lee are celebrating the big move to the new house when a knock on the door interrupts the mood. The gentleman introduces himself as Mr. Linder from the White Citizens Group of Clyborn Park. It appears as if his visit is sincere and that he has the best interest of the Younger Family in mind. Suddenly all three family members' change their expressions to humiliation as Mr. Linder offers to buy the home from them double the price. Walter Lee asks Mr. Linder to leave as everyone appears to be in shock or disbelief at the outcome of the visit.
Bobo visits the Younger family to inform Walter Lee that they have been scammed. Walter Lee expresses utter disbelief and in a rage slaps Bobo in the face as Ruth, Beneatha and Mama observes. Walter Lee falls to the ground begging Willie not to betray him, but Willie is long gone. "Man I trusted you that money is made out of my fathers flesh." Mama approaches Walter Lee and says in a mighty voice "I seen him grow thin and old before he was forty, working and working like somebody's old horse. You give it all away in one day."
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