Poetry and Public Life

Activities

Activity 1: Poetry Matching Game

This activity should be completed to determine prior knowledge of selected poems, and also to monitor student understanding after reviewing poems throughout the unit.  

Learning Objective

Before reading poems, students will review titles of poems and try to match them with a few lines or a stanza from the poem. Students can share out and provide a rationale for pairing titles with lines/stanzas.

Procedure

Start with having students gather at a common place in the classroom: carpet area, desks in a circle, etc. Play a game called “Guess that song.” Repeat certain lyrics from popular songs that students may listen to, and see if students can name the title of the song. After a few rounds, dismiss students to work individually and tell them they will be doing a similar activity at their seats, but with poems and titles that some of them may not know. Assure them that the activity is a teaching tool and will help provide the teacher with information about what students know so far about the topic. Poem titles and passage pairings should include one from each style: Negro Spirituals and Hymns, Blues and Harlem Renaissance, Contemporary, and Hip-Hop. For example, for Blues and Harlem Renaissance, the title “I Too, Sing America” can be on one slip and the passage “Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed” ²⁵ on another slip. Using 2Pac’s “Changes” may be ideal to represent Hip-Hop, so add the title “Changes” and students must pair it with the verse from the song, “That’s just the way it is,/ things will never be the same,/ that’s just the way it is/ aww yeah.”²⁶ These selections should be cut out and placed in an envelope for students to sort and match. To show the differences between titles and passages, perhaps use different colors (titles are blue, and stanzas are red), or different sizes of font. Once students have matched titles with passages, they can share out and explain their reasoning for selections. Afterwards share with students the accurate correlations.  As an enrichment activity, students can choose a favorite title and passage and write a short essay about how race, acceptance and beauty are displayed.

Activity 2: Poetic Visual Representation

This activity is intended to be completed through the duration of one week, and may be shortened if necessary.

Learning Objective

Students will focus on how race is portrayed in the poem. After reading “Go Down, Moses,” students will be able to develop a visual representation that depicts a segment of the poem. Students create one of the following: poster, three-dimensional display or PowerPoint Presentation.

Procedure

Launch the lesson by reading aloud “Go Down, Moses.” Ask students if they have heard the song before. On chart paper or other display jot down places where students have heard the song. Write on the board the chorus: “Go down, Moses, / Way down in Egypt’s Land. / Tell ol’ Pharaoh, / Let my people go.”²⁷ Ask students what they believe the lines mean. Have student volunteers circle key words that they find essential to understanding the song. After students circle key words, have students make a list of the words in their journals. Ask students to define each word to the best of their ability. Afterwards, students may share out. Students may need some prompting when viewing through the lens of race. Therefore, ask students to add a column to their key word list and definitions that says “race.” Ask students to jot down ways the words represent race. Add stanza seven to the board: “The Lord told Moses what to do, / Let my people go, / To lead the Hebrew children through, / Let my people go.”²⁸ Ask students to add “Hebrew” to the list. Have student turn and talk with one another about what the word Hebrew means. Once students share out, distribute the song and ask students to circle all the races in the song. Students should circle, “Egypt’s Land, Israel and Hebrew.” Ask students to make a three column chart in their journal and explain the role each race plays in the poem. Once students complete, have students make a two column chart that says “Moses and Pharaoh.” Tell students to summarize how the characters are portrayed. Students should conclude that Egyptians held the Hebrew Israelites under captivity in Egypt as outlined in the song. Students will then develop a visual representation that depicts a segment of the song. Students may work in partnerships, groups or individually to complete this activity. Distribute pieces of paper that have the chorus, and stanzas one to seven on each paper. The student(s) will then plan how to create the visual representation of the stanza selected. After students complete the displays, students can explain how race is shown throughout.

Activity 3:  Poetic Call and Response

This activity can be completed after reading a portion of a selected poem or whole poem, when students can write a “response poem” to the poem as a reflection of their own experience.

Learning Objective

Students will focus on how acceptance and beauty are portrayed throughout the poem. After reading the first portion of the poem, students will be able to write a “response” poem to Runett Nia Ebo’s “Why God Made Me Black.” The “response” poem should be in an identical format to “Why God Made Me Black.”

Procedure

Write on the board “Why are you Black?” Encourage students that this thought provoking inquiry is to guide discussion regarding a poem called “Why God Made Me Black.” Ask students to turn and talk to one other about the question. Shortly after, read the first portion of “Why God Made Me Black,” by Runett Nia Ebo. The poem is written as a call and response, with the writer asking why she is black in the first portion, and God responding in the second. Encourage students to consider who the writer is speaking to. Guide students to question whether the writer shows that being Black is something that is accepted and embraced, and something that is beautiful in America. Ask students to determine whether what the writer is saying correlates with how Blacks are seen in America today. Afterwards, distribute a copy of the first portion of the poem, and have students annotate the lines and couplets.  Students may work individually or with a partner. In the students’ annotations they should add an arrow next to the lines or couplets and write a response. After students write their responses some may share out. Once students have shared, read and distribute the second portion of the poem, God’s response. Ask students to draw a Venn diagram in their poetry journals to compare their responses with God’s. After reading the entire poem, revisit the questions “Why are you Black,” and “Is being Black something that is described as being accepted and beautiful in America?” Ask students to record responses in their poetry journals.

Activity 4: Poetic Imagery Time Travel

This activity should be completed after students have reviewed at least one poem from each time period, from the 1800s to 2000s.

Learning Objective

After students select a favored poem from a time period studied in the unit, they will be given an image showing portrayals of race, acceptance and beauty. They will create a new poem that shows a combination of the image and how it relates to issues regarding race, acceptance and beauty in America through time. Students will write free verse. They will also include imagery, personification, simile and metaphor in their poems. They will also conduct research surrounding the time period the poem was written in and when the picture was taken, then include this information in their poems.

Procedure

To begin, on four pieces of chart paper, displayed in a central location of the classroom, write the time period, year and title of one of the poems studied in the unit. For instance, write Contemporary, 1990s, “Why God Made Me Black,” by Runett Nia Ebo. Write Hip-Hop, 2000s, “We Will Not,” by T.I. Write Negro Spirituals and Hymns, 1800s, “Go Down, Moses.” Finally, write Blues and Harlem Renaissance, 1920s, “I, Too, Sing America,” by Langston Hughes. Ask students to work in groups with no more than four people in one group. Consider assigning roles so that aptitude for the work is shared diplomatically in groups. Groups can select one poem. After students select a poem they should randomly choose a photo. Consider photos that are appropriate for the grade level. Photos can depict positive and negative stances in Black History. Tell students to make connections between the selected poem and the image selected, and how they both relate to this day and age. They are to write a new poem that includes imagery, personification, simile and metaphor. After students write their new poems, they are to research the selected poem from a specific time period and the image selected. After research has been conducted, students can caption their image, and give their poem a title. As an extension students may transform the image to what the image would have looked like today. For example, students can adapt a black and white image and change it to color. Students may also consider pixel art, 3D depictions, collage, or any other form to modernize their image. Students should share their new poems with the class, and provide a rationale for the style of their poems, explaining how their poem relates to issues regarding race, acceptance and beauty in America. Students’ poems and images can be displayed throughout the classroom to show thematic variations and comparisons.

Activity 5: Poetic “Living Timeline” or Interpretive Dance

Learning Objective

For the “living timeline” students will be able to perform a “live” timeline of how race, acceptance and beauty are depicted through the poems over time, starting with the earliest forms of poetry, Negro Spirituals and Hymns, and ending with more contemporary forms of poetry, such as Hip-Hop.

For the interpretive dance, students will select a poem or section of a poem and “dance out” the lines or lyrics of the poem. As in Charades, other students can try to guess which poem is being represented and provide a rationale regarding selections.

Students will have a choice to perform the living timeline or an interpretive dance. The student(s) performing will write a rationale for the types of movements or dialogue selected to portray the meaning of what they are performing.

Procedure

As a warm-up and culmination to the unit, ask students to recall all the poems read over the various time periods studied. Ask students to write a one page opinion essay that shares how they thought race, acceptance and beauty was represented in the poems. After explaining the meaning of living timeline and interpretive dance, post the words living timeline on one side of the classroom, and interpretive dance on another, and have students walk to the location they are interested in. Ensure that students are aware that interpretive dance includes no words, just movements, and can include music, and the living timeline can have dialogue, movement and music. Moreover, the living timeline would preferably include “still shots,” where students are still like a mannequin, and then when someone gives a cue the still images come to “life,” and act out the time period in history. Students should use lines from poems read, and make reference to poets throughout the scenes. There should be a total of four scenes highlighting each poetic time period studied. In both the timeline and dance students should be able to bring the poems to life. For instance, in “Go Down Moses,” students should be able to show the laborious conditions for the Israelites under captivity. Furthermore, in “I, Too, Sing America” students may see someone working in the kitchen when company comes. Students can begin working in groups of four or less to perform a living timeline or interpretive dance. Post the criteria for both selections in a visible location in the classroom. The criteria should encourage students to present a performance that is no more than three minutes, and no less than two. Students in groups are required to provide a step by step playbook or guide that shows movements and/or dialogue. Prior to performing, students should write a one page essay indicating how their group’s performance portrays race, acceptance and beauty throughout the piece.