The Unit
The unit I am creating is intended to be used with my eighth grade students in my language arts class. Social Studies and art teachers may also find the unit helpful as it can be utilized for a multi–disciplinary platform for the teaching not only of ecphrastic poetry, but also for a survey of the art and literature of the Harlem Renaissance. As mentioned in my rationale, it is designed to lead students from the observation of art and poetry, both separately and ecphrastically, to the creation of students' own volumes of ecphrastic poetry. As with most teacher produced materials, minor changes to the unit will make it accessible to either higher or lower grade levels.
Section one: Introduction to Harlem
I begin this section of the unit with an exploration of Walter Dean Myers's Harlem, a book of art next to poetry. Walter Dean Meyers is an extremely popular writer who grew up in Harlem and writes urban fiction that involves the coming of age plights of today's youth. An award winning poem, illustrated by the author's son, Christopher Myers, Harlem is a resource I like to use with students every year. Before reading the poem, show the students the Lawrence painting from the Great Migration of the Negro series (panel 1). Ask the students how the painting relates to what they know about Harlem already. Read the book out loud or in a "popcorn" reading session. Christopher Myers' incredible artwork, paired with that of Jacob Lawrence, begins to make the connection between poetry and artwork which is vital to this unit. I remind students that images are a big part of what makes some poetry work and point out some images in the Myers poem. As we read the poem a second time I ask students to list the sensory images in the poem. Images such as "Hide–and–seek knights" or "Cracked reed/soprano sax laughter" spring up in the discussion as do references to figures students discover in their research. We try to define the meanings in relation to their newly obtained background knowledge of both the poetry and the artwork. Honor Moorman in her article "Backing into Ecphrasis: Reading and Writing Poetry about Visual Arts," points out that "both poetry and art speak to our imaginations through the power of images" 9 Once we have discussed and shared our imagery from the poetry, I introduce students to a second painting: Jacob Lawrence's magnificent depiction of a Harlem neighborhood; Brownstones.
Utilizing the art viewing method mentioned above, students are asked to look closely at the painting before sharing their observations. Once we have observed the painting we begin to list images that we see in the painting, which are much like the images we listed when looking at the poem Harlem. Once again students share and compare images and figurative language, as we did with the poetry. Finally I ask students to write about the painting utilizing the images they pointed out. Students can write either prose or poetry in their writing journals and then share with each other in groups or as a class. The students have just taken part in their first practice of ecphrastic writing. For homework students are to bring in a visual representation of their own neighborhood along with a poem written about it with several sensory images or examples of figurative language included. (Note to readers: At the time of the writing of this publication the Whitney Museum has an interactive Webquest set up for Brownstones in which students can highlight parts of the painting and answer questions based on the work. The site provides teachers with another means of introducing the painting to the class)
The first original ecphrastic poem students come in with (about a piece of artwork about their neighborhood) should run through writers' workshop. I review the importance of sensory images and figurative language in a ten minute mini lesson utilizing the images we came up with the day before. It may take a day or two for students to get through the steps of a writer workshop, but when they are done (including a typed draft with all previous drafts included), I have students keep both the artwork and the poetry together in a folder.
Section II– Exploring voice through ecphrastic poetry
The focus of the second section of the unit begins with an examination of voice. Langston Hughes' "Mother to Son" is a perfect sample for examining an author's use of voice in poetry. Have several students read the poem. Each will put his or her own personality into the poem, doing dramatic readings. This helps to emphasize the importance of voice or persona in poetry. Have a discussion. Who is speaking in the poem? Who is it asserting that "Life for me ain't been no crystal staircase?" In a method parallel to the art viewing section of the unit, ask students what they hear in the poem. If they say, "The speaker can't speak correct English," for example, I ask them what makes them say that. Where is the evidence, and what does that tell us about the speaker? What kind of assumptions or predictions can students make about the speaker of the poem and what leads them to that conclusion? Is it true as Regennia N. Williams and Carmeletta M. Williams conclude in their essay "Mother to Son: The letters from Carrie Hughes Clark to Langston Hughes, 1928–1938," that the "message or voice in 'Mother to Son' represents the relationship between Hughes and his grandmother, Mary Leary Langston.?" 10 We discuss the terms "persona" and "voice" before looking at the next image from Jacob Lawrence, The Seamstress.
I ask students to spend some time looking at the painting through the method earlier mentioned in the unit and review what students see. After a brief discussion on the painting, I ask students to write a line of dialogue using the person in the painting's persona. Students can share in small groups and then share out loud. Ask students to pay close attention to the voice which they have given The Seamstress. What problems does the figure face? What might she be thinking or saying and why do students come to this conclusion? Do students think The Seamstress speaks like someone they know? Why or why not? Students continue writing the monologue they have started and to try and make the voice consistent throughout. Once students have finished their monologues, we have another look at "Thank you Ma'm." Why does Hughes end the lines where he does? Point out that poets, not the punctuation, make the decision on how and where to end the line in a line of free verse. Point out that as John Hollander says in Rhyme's Reason, "since a line may be determined in almost any way, and since lines may be determined in almost any way, and since lines may be grouped on the page in any fashion, it is the mode of variation itself which is significant." 11 In other words in free verse, because there is so much freedom the decision involved in ending and beginning lines actually becomes extremely important. Why did the poet decide to end the line here and not there? Why does the word "Bare" get its own line in the Hughes poem? What sort of visual effect do the line breaks in "Mother to Son" create? Does the poem look like a staircase? After considering free verse and line breaks in poems, have students go back to their monologues and make some changes in line breaks. Finally students work in small groups to review each other's poems in the writer workshop, focusing on persona and line breaks.
This is also a good place to allow students to practice writing ecphrastic poetry utilizing some of the images mentioned above. I run a mini lesson on free verse, going over examples and trying to show students that not all poetry fits an exact, technical form. I like to get students away from rhyming and rapping everything they write in middle school and the introduction of free verse should help with that. With this additional lesson students should be able to look at some paintings and write their own poems without too much guidance. I break the students into four groups and assign each group one of four Lawrence images mentioned earlier in the unit. "Barbershop," "Parade," "Home Chores" and "Library" are four excellent examples of Lawrence's work that focus on the African American experience and will be easy for students to relate to. I allow students time to view the images and then have each group member create their own poem based on the artwork. After students have had a chance to write, I assign a group leader to lead a discussion and a group writer workshop where everyone is examining each other's work and group feedback leads to a piece to revise. Finally I will have students share their poems with the images as a backdrop.
The Blues
No discussion of the Harlem Renaissance is complete without a discussion of the music. The movement was as much about music, the embracing of the blues and the invention of jazz, as it was about anything else. Langston Hughes was the first African American poet to experiment with the blues form in his poetry as he led his contemporaries on a quest for identity. I begin talking about music of this era with students by asking them about their music. Students are always eager to share their musical favorites and quick to scoff at others, but when they are reminded that all the modern music that they are familiar with––jazz, rock, hip hop, soul and rap––are descendants of the blues, the conversation takes a different turn. I bring in music for them to hear and ask them to bring in some music of their own to compare. Using t–charts or Venn diagrams, I ask students to compare the music, looking especially for similarities between the pieces. Then we turn back to Langston Hughes.
One of Hughes' most successful poems, "The Weary Blues," is a wonderful example for students to read, as the poem examines the African American condition at the turn of the century. Smethhurst asserts that free verse poems such as "The Weary Blues" "are often vehicles for Hughes' deepest musings of the nature of African American Identity and its historical, cultural, and spiritual connections to Africa." 12The poem also embraces the focus of our mini lessons in this unit: persona, voice and free verse. Both "Po' Boy Blues" and "Homesick Blues" are poems that can be read aloud and also sung to a blues beat. I allow students to play around with the poems, banging out the blues beat on their desks, or if a more musical student wants to bring in a guitar or harmonica, they can play the beat while someone else sings the poem. After going over the similarities between the blues pieces, I ask students to try writing their own blues. We brainstorm titles out loud (Lunchroom Blues, Spaghetti Blues, Summertime Blues, etc.), jot down ideas in our journals and then write the blues. Students enjoy writing these short pieces, and we share out loud.
Finally I tell students that I want them to write ecphrastic blues based on the artwork of another figure from the Harlem Renaissance, William H. Johnson. Choice is always important so I put up three Johnson images for students to work with. In Moon over Harlem Johnson depicts the aftermath of a street fight; in Chain Gang, Johnson depicts several prisoners in stripes chained together; and finally Lil Sis is a simple, yet touching full length portrait of an African American girl. After examining the pieces, I ask students to write some blues. In this case, I allow students to combine paintings in their lyrics or use the images individually. Some students will naturally combine the images, creating a story while others will want to write separate poems for each. I tell students that at least one of their writings needs to be a blues piece, but not all.
Romare Bearden and collage
Introducing Romare Bearden at this point allows students to examine another medium in their ecphrastic writing. Famous for his work with collage, Bearden is an artist not always closely related to the Harlem Renaissance, but his work clearly focuses on African American life in New York during the mid Twentieth Century. Students enjoy his art because it is different and it is an art form that they are familiar with. I have students go back to the computers and look for Bearden images that we can work with. I ask students to look for collages which inspire them. Some works they might come across are Black Manhattan, Card Players, Childhood and a host of others.
Once students have found their inspirational Bearden image, they are to write their own ecphrastic poem, find a partner to run the poem through writer workshop with and finally prepare to share their work with the class. It will take a day or so for students to do a sort of "show and tell" with their images and poetry.
After working with Bearden I encourage students to look elsewhere in the building, outside, or in their books for artwork that inspires them to write one more ecphrastic poem. I give them a period to organize their poems and prepare to put them into their own books.
Section III– Ecphrastic Books
At this point it is time for students to organize their poetry and create a book of their own verse. How far a teacher wants to go with this section of the unit is really up to the individual. You could easily spend up to a month on this section of the unit alone. At minimum students will need their typed poems, the ability to print or photocopy images which they worked with, papers, scissors and glue. I have had students make books before in my classroom with no other supplies than what we had available to us (paper, cardboard, glue sticks, scissors, computers) and students were able to create a variety of books (accordion, flip books, pocket books, etc.) within about a week. There are web sites and books in which book making is explored to a wide degree, but again it is up to the teacher how much time, effort, and resources teachers and students want to spend on this project. See lesson plan three and Appendix A for more guidance on the project.
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