American Voices: Listening to Fiction, Poetry, and Prose

Introduction

Imagine hearing a voice on a page speak out to you and grab your attention. This really happens to you when the words on the page have voice. In Langston Hughes's poem, "Harlem," imagery and figurative language are used to express his poetic voice. The poetic devices used to describe a "dream deferred" capture the reader's attention. "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?" ¹ Hughes portrays several images to the reader that symbolize what will happen to a dream, if it is not pursued. Hughes leaves the dream up to the reader. The dream could be a goal in life or social equality. Hughes's poetic voice creates a lucid and descriptive picture of what can happen, if you don't achieve your dream.

What is voice? I developed several definitions of voice, while attending the seminar on "American Voices: Listening to Fiction, Prose, and Poetry." Voice is the person behind the words that speak out to the audience. Voice is imagery, tone, patterns of sound, rhythm, and diction. Voice is the powerful words on a page that form a relationship with you and the writer. Voice is your personality and resonance flowing in print. The selected readings, reading aloud, and class discussions helped me create my final definition of voice. Voice is the writer's lively, powerful words on the page, speaking to the reader to form a relationship.

You might think that this concept is too difficult for your students. However, you can arouse students' interest in reading and writing by teaching the concept of voice. I will not teach the definition of voice. I intend to give students a working definition of voice before I teach the unit. I know the activities in the unit will help students develop their own definitions of voice. Langston Hughes's poetry will be used to teach the concept of voice to students. Hughes expresses different voices through poetry, using language, experiences, and musical forms of the African American culture. Hughes's poetry will be meaningful and relevant to my students since they share life experiences similar to Hughes. When I read aloud a poem by Langston Hughes, my students will hear words on a page that illustrate the quality and power of language.

My curriculum unit, Voice in Poetry: Dream a World with Langston Hughes, is a curriculum unit designed to teach the concept of voice in poetry to 3 ^rd - 5 ^th grade students. The students, who are predominately African American, have diverse learning needs, experiences, and ways of learning. The poetry unit will provide students with multiple oral and written language activities that encourage them to develop their unique voices in writing. I will implement this unit in a standard-based classroom during the two-hour literacy block. The three-part lesson framework will be used during Reader's and Writer's Workshop. The three-part lesson framework consists of a mini-lesson (before the learning), student work time (during the learning), and sharing (after the learning). My students will be engaged in a series of activities that will allow them to develop their voices in reading, writing, and speaking.

During Reader's Workshop, I will use multiple approaches to oral reading. I will make use of reading aloud, echo reading, choral reading, and paired reading. Oral reading is an effective way to help my students understand the text and create their unique voices in writing. When students hear lively and powerful words on the page, they will be encouraged to incorporate the elements of voice in their writing. During Writer's Workshop, I will implement several approaches that promote students to engage the reader's interest in writing. Freewriting, journal writing, response to literature, sentence starters, and rewriting, are the strategies for Writer's Workshop. Students will use the poems of Langston Hughes as models to write poetry. The writing process is utilized to guide students through the steps for writing their poems. They will brainstorm and make a jot list of ideas in groups. Graphic organizers will be used to arrange ideas. The people, places, and objects in their poems should be described using poetic devices. Reading and reciting their poetry occurs during sharing time.

Overview

Students use their unique voices outside the classroom in numerous ways. They dialogue with family and friends, talk on cell phones, rap to the rhythm of the beat, imitate voices on videos, and sing songs with a variety of language. I want students to incorporate lively, prolific voices in their writing. Oral and written language experiences in the classroom will help students develop voices that are expressive of themselves. When I read aloud Langston Hughes's poems, students will hear words, rhyme, and musical forms that are relevant to their oral language experiences. They will find their voices by reading aloud, analyzing, and listening to the powerful voices delivered in Hughes's poetry. I plan to take my students on a poetic journey, exploring the distinguished voice of Langston Hughes.

I teach at Fairington Elementary School, a Title I school, located in southeast DeKalb County in Georgia. The school's student population is predominantly African American. Some of the students come to school with life experiences similar to Langston Hughes's. The separation of their parents, moving around from one place to another, absence of a mother or father, and hardships has an emotional impact on their lives. I desire for my students to use their voices to express their feelings about the world around them as Langston Hughes did. I want their voices to grab the reader's attention as they write poems about their life experiences.

My students need multiple opportunities to explore their voices in order to use their unique voices in writing. The students in 3 ^rd grade and 5 ^th grade take state-mandated writing assessments. Their writing samples are scored using a scoring rubric with four domains. The four domains consist of Ideas, Organization, Style, and Conventions. The components of Style include: the concept of voice, along with word choice, audience awareness, sentence variety, and strategies appropriate to the genre. By teaching voice in poetry during Reader's and Writer's Workshop, my students will incorporate the components of style in their writing.

I feel that my students are struggling in writing because the rules for writing are different from how they speak. Peter Elbow contends that voice is what most people have in their speech but that is deficient in their writing. ² My students' writing lacks voice because they don't transfer their oral language skills to their writing. They spend too much time thinking about their writing. They worry more about organization, spelling, and grammar. This careful writing lacks resonance and quality. I believe that my students are more relaxed when they speak because they use an informal style to communicate with the listener. They express their personal thoughts and feelings without worrying how they say it. When they write their essays, they are focusing on a formulaic style of writing. I need to make my students as relaxed with writing as they are with speaking.

Elbow argues that you lose your voice in writing during the revising process. "The focus on clarifying your thinking and correcting your language takes the voice, breath, and rhythm away that made the first draft lively." ³ When you are in the drafting stage of writing, your voice comes through because you are freewriting. You are not worrying about spelling and usage. Sometimes when you are revising, you change a personal thought that expresses your voice. Steve Peha indicates that voice expresses original thoughts, personal feelings, and who we are inside. ⁴ I will focus on helping my students make their writing more personal, as they progress through the stages of the writing process.

Elements of Voice

In order for students to create their own voices in writing, they need to know the elements of voice. As they interact with the text and listen to the writer's voice, I will introduce the elements of voice including tone, diction, syntax, and audience. Tone refers to the writer's attitude toward the topic. Diction is the writer's word choice, which includes denotation or connotation of the word. The tone of the word, difficulty of the word, and formality of the word are also included in diction. The arrangement of the words and placement of the word in a phrase or sentence is considered syntax. The audience is the targeted reader or listener who will be reading the writing. My students will learn the elements of voice as they explore voice in poetry.

Voice in Poetry

Although the words on the page are silent, I can hear the voice of the poet when I read a poem because of the poetic devices that heighten my consciousness of words and their sounds. I will expose my students to rhyme, rhythm, imagery, poetic language, and the sounds of words by using poetry to teach the concept of voice. Poetry will not be difficult for struggling readers to read because the lines are shorter. Voices in poetry can be created in a variety of ways. A poet chooses voice or voices for a particular poem to engage the reader's interest or reveal his or her attitude toward the subject. The voice in the poem can be the voice of the poet, voice of an imaginary person, voice of a personified object, or voice of an abstraction. The voice of the speaker can be lively, inspiring, engaging, emotional, and interesting.

A poet chooses a voice for his particular poem and imagines some kind of audience for his or her voice. Frances Mayes describes different voices that poets use to connect to the reader: the personal "I" voice, the public voice, and the invisible voice. ⁵ The personal "I" voice allows the reader to respond to a direct personal expression or experience in the poem. The reader feels closer to the voice. The poet uses the public voice to represent a group of people involved in a common situation. The poet forms a relationship with the reader by using the word "we" to write about a situation that he feels is common to the reader. The public voice conveys the writer's attitude toward a subject that is political, religious, or controversial. It implies a community of shared interest and experiences.

The poet uses the invisible voice in a poem to act as an imaginary speaker. The poet acts as the narrator, as he speaks behind the voice of this imaginary person. This is an example of dramatic monologue. You hear the voice of the imaginary speaker, not the voice of the poet. In Langston Hughes's poem "Mother to Son," he uses an imaginary voice instead of his own voice to create the voice of a weary mother. This poem could be used to teach the invisible voice. The speaker in the poem, a weary mother, is talking to her son about the hardships in her life.

Well son, I'll tell you:

    Life for me ain't been no crystal stair,
    It's had tacks in it,
    And splinters,
    And boards torn up,
    And places with no carpet on the floor
    Bare.
    But all the time
    I'se been a-climbin' on,
    And reachin' landin's,
    And turnin' corners,
    And sometimes goin' in the dark
    Where there ain't been no light,
    So boy, don't you turn back.
    Don't you set down on the steps
    'Cause you finds it's kinder hard,
    Don't you fall now,
    For I'se still goin' honey,
    I'se still climbin',
    And life for me ain't been no crystal stair. 6
  

When you read this poem aloud to your students and change your tone of voice at various lines of the poem, the students hear the mother's voice, describing her hardships. The use of dramatic monologue places the reader or the listener in the position of the son.

Elbow describes five different kinds of voices that writers use in their writing. These voices include: audible voice, dramatic voice, recognizable or distinctive voice, voice with authority, and resonant voice. ⁷ The audible voice has a variation of pitch, accent, and rhythm. The dramatic voice is the character or implied author in the text. It is like a stage voice because the characters are performing. The recognizable or distinctive voice is the writer's characteristic style in writing. This voice can sound different, depending on the audience. The voice with authority makes the voice heard on a page. This type of voice gets into strong speech. The resonant voice is the sound of more of the person behind the words. This voice resonates from the page to the reader.

Biographical Information for "Mother to Son"

Hughes's poetry stirred emotions and passions. The literary legacy he left will continue to inspire generations of African American people who experience life in much the same way as he did. A biography is included in the unit to provide an introduction for each poem. The biographical information will inspire students to explore the genius of Langston Hughes.

Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. He was raised by his grandmother in Lawrence, Kansas after the separation of his parents. His mother moved from one city to another trying to find a better job and his father relocated to Mexico. Hughes was twelve years old when his grandmother died. After the death of his grandmother, Hughes lived with a couple named James and Mary Reed for two years. At the age of fourteen Hughes moved to Lincoln, Illinois to live with his mother. He wrote his first short poem and was named class poet of his eighth grade class. Later Hughes and his mother joined his stepfather in Cleveland, Ohio. Hughes began writing poems on a regular basis in high school. He was impressed with the works of Carl Sandburg, Walt Whitman, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Hughes had his first poem published in the Central High Monthly, a prominent school magazine.

Biographical Information for "The Negro Speaks of Rivers"

After graduating from high school, Hughes decided to visit his father in Mexico to convince him to pay for his college education. Hughes wrote one of his most famous poems, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," while he was on his way to Mexico on the train. The long ride from Illinois across the Mississippi and into Missouri, where Hughes was born, stimulated his imagination. Hughes thought about his past and future; beauty and death; and hope and despair, while he composed this poem. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" was published in The Crisis magazine in 1921.

Biographical Information for "I Too"

Hughes held various jobs in New York and traveled abroad, while working on a ship. He journeyed to Senegal, Nigeria, Belgium Congo, Angola, and Guinea in Africa. Hughes was disturbed by the African tribes' lack of political and economical freedom. The Africans considered Hughes white because of his skin color and straight dark hair. Later he traveled to France, Russia, Spain, and Italy. In Paris Hughes worked at a night club that featured jazz performers. When the club closed for renovations, Hughes joined two employees on their vacation to Italy. In Italy he was robbed and left stranded. Hughes was forced to live at the beach, while waiting for a job on a ship. Several American ships came to the harbor but only Caucasians were hired to work on the ship. Hughes had to wait on a ship that hired African Americans in order to travel to the United States. Hughes's depression stimulated him to compose the poem, "I Too Sing America."

Biographical Information for "The Weary Blues"

Hughes returned to Harlem, New York during the time period known as the Harlem Renaissance. He sat in clubs listening to blues, jazz, and writing poetry. He made friends with many important writers, such as Countee Cullen, Claude McCay, W.E.B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, and James Weldon Johnson. Through these experiences a new rhythm emerged in Hughes's writing. Hughes delivered his powerful voice in jazz and blues themes. Hughes's poetry was frequently published and his writing flourished. Hughes met Vachel Lindsey, while working in the Wardman Park Hotel as a busboy. Hughes shared his poem, "The Weary Blues" and other poems with Lindsey. He gave Hughes advice and inspiration. In 1925, Opportunity magazine awarded Hughes first prize for "The Weary Blues." Later Hughes's first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926.

Langston Hughes and Voice

Langston Hughes's poems reflect the history, hardships, and culture of the African American people. The poems Hughes wrote during the 1920's criticized the racism in society during that time period. Hughes connected his experiences to the common experiences of the African American people. In "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," Hughes indirectly uses his personal experiences in Africa to describe life in Africa. "I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young / I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep /I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramid above it." ⁸ In the poem, "I Too," Langston Hughes expresses his attitude toward his life and the world around him.

    I, too sing America.
    I am the darker brother.
    They send me to eat in the kitchen
    When company comes,
    But I laugh,
    And eat well,
    And grow strong.
    Tomorrow,
    I'll be at the table
    When company comes.
    Nobody'll dare
    Say to me,
    "Eat in the kitchen,"
    Then.
    Besides,
    They'll see how beautiful I am
    And be ashamed
    I, too am America him 9
  

Langston Hughes added a new voice to poetry. I believe that the different choices a writer makes about his rhymes, voice of the speaker, and figurative language have an effect on the reader. The voices in Langston Hughes's poems speak out to the audience with powerful words. "I Dream a World" is a poem about social justice. Langston Hughes wrote this poem to share his dream of a peaceful and just world. ¹⁰ I would use this poem to teach my students about the "I" voice. I would also teach rhyme and personification using this poem.

    I dream a world where man
    No other man will scorn,
    Where love will bless the earth
    And peace its paths adorn,
    I dream a world where all
    Will know sweet freedom's way,
    Where greed no longer saps the soul
    Nor avarice blights our day.
    A world I dream where black or white,
    Whatever race you be,
    Will share the bounties of the earth
    And every man is free,
    Where wretchedness will hang its head
    And joy, like a pearl,
    Attends the needs of all mankind
    Of such I dream, my world.
  

I would use Langston Hughes' poem, "Dreams" to teach the public voice and metaphors. I want students to dream and have ways to articulate their dreams. In this poem, Hughes is speaking to the people who believe in dreams. He is telling them to hold on to their dreams. Hughes writes that without dreams, life is meaningless and hopeless.

    Hold fast to dreams
    For if dreams die
    Life is a broken-winged bird
    That cannot fly.
    Hold fast to dreams
    For when dreams go
    Life is a barren field
    Frozen with snow. 11