Classroom Activities
Introduction Activity: Enhancing Poetry Through Performance
As a hook for this unit and before I delve into the subject matter, I will use the poem and song of “Strange Fruit” to show my students how performance can enhance poetry and be used as a form of protest. I will give students the background information on Abel Meeropol mentioned earlier in this unit and pass out a copy of the poem. Together, we will read and I will model the annotation strategy I want my students to use. While reading and discussing, I will make sure students note a few important elements in this poem. Obviously, students will know that this poem is an extended metaphor about lynching, comparing bodies hanging from a tree to strange fruit. To help students get more familiar with literary devices, teachers may want to point out the more unfamiliar ones, while also highlighting meaning and effect. Teachers should call students’ attention to the use of juxtaposition with the horrific next to the beautiful. To do this, teachers should have students create a T-chart of positive and negative imagery. Once they do this, students should visually see that each couplet in the poem has a tension of the positive and negative created by this juxtaposition, images placed side-by-side. For example, in the second stanza, the author has the image of a sweet smelling magnolia tree placed next to the “smell of burnin’ flesh.”62 This juxtaposition comments on how the South is masking these horrible events and racism with its “Southern charm.” Since this is an opening activity, I will not spend a ton of time on analysis. I am using this primarily as a way to draw students into the concept of poetry and the power of performance.
After you have spent a little with the poem, it is time to introduce students to Billie Holiday and her performance. It is important that you give students the background information mentioned earlier in this unit. As students watch this 1959 performance, have them write down notes about what Holiday brings to the poem’s meaning. Write down these questions on the board and have students answer them after watching the video: Is there something about Billie Holiday’s performance that changes our aesthetic response? How does Holiday improve our understanding of the poem? What are some words or bodily/ facial expressions that stood out to you?
Holiday’s facial expressions and intonations and prosody take this from a powerful poem to an obvious form of protest by showing her disgust with the imagery of lynching and racism, the audience feeling her pain. I foresee students commenting on the juxtaposition of the softly and sadly spoken “gallant South” next to the drawn out “bulgin’” and the way she looks like she is struggling to get the image of “twisted mouth” out. Students might also point out the way Holiday enunciates the end of the words “pluck” and “suck” and viewers and listeners can get a sense of her anger. She ends the song with her voice mimicking the word “drop” and uses the last word of the poem “crop” which sounds like a cry, bringing out the anguish of the imagery. Her sadness and anger are palpable in this performance. Students will experience what performance can do for poetry– make its message louder, and unearth meanings latent in the text.
Annotation of Neruda’s “I’m Explaining a Few Things”
After explaining the historical context and students taking notes on this, next students will annotate the poem, using the annotation strategy above. If that strategy proves too much or if your students are not at that level, I have students highlight or underline words, phrases, and images that interest them and write their reaction out to the side. Most importantly, I have them define words that they don’t know in the margins of the page. After they annotate and in our next class period, we will discuss what students found. As you navigate this poem and start to piece together meaning with students, there are a few points I would make with your students if they do not come up through their own observations which can be found in the analysis section of this unit. This poem is replete with figurative language, repetition, powerful imagery, and emotional diction and will yield a wealth of analysis with the aid of careful annotation. As we discuss this poem, students will add to their annotations what we discuss as a class, adding to their examples of literary devices and effects. Students will be able to use this poem’s annotations as a guide for when they are doing their own analysis for their chosen poem of witness in the final project for this unit.
Dramatic Reading of Neruda’s “I’m Explaining a Few Things”
After exploring the words, images, and figurative language in “I’m Explaining a Few Things,” I will offer a dramatic reading of the poem. In honor of Neruda and his views of poetry as rebellion, it should be mentioned that “Political poetry, Neruda stresses, has to be oral poetry, poetry that is read aloud in town squares, trenches and at the dinner tables, poetry that sticks to the mind and carries with it the force of language to convince and convert.”63 This dramatic reading will serve as one of the possibilities for this unit’s culminating activity and model for students how to turn words on a page into an impactful performance which will enhance the poem’s meaning, turning it into a form of protest.
First, I will pass out another copy of the poem and put them into groups of approximately 5. There are six clear sections of the poem. Group one will have lines 1-9, Group two will have lines 10-23, group three will have lines 24-38, group four will have lines 39-51 and group five will have lines 52-62, and group six will have lines 63-78. They should still have their annotated copy of their poems as well to use as notes to create their script. Each person in the group will have to read or read in unison. Giving them the instructions from the dramatic reading notation script strategy, I will have students follow that protocol explained above. It may be a good example to write down possibilities on what the notations could look like. They can have the right half of the class read a line in unison or the left half, only girls read, only boys read, or all read. They can give directions such as how to read using words like quietly, slowly, loudly. Once they have finalized their script, groups should choose one person to be their main director.
While the groups are now practicing their lines, all group directors should bring their scripts and put the poem together while making any changes to make all parts cohesive. Teachers can also make suggestions if it looks like they need a little direction. For example, the following lines are powerful when read in certain ways: “ALL:Brother, my brother! - line 23, ALL: and from then on blood. / ALL QUIETLY: Bandits with planes and Moors, / ALL SLIGHTLY LOUDER: bandits with finger-rings and duchesses, / ALL EVEN LOUDER: bandits with black friars spattering blessings / ALL LOUD: came through the sky to kill children- lines 45-49, ALL: look at broken Spain:- line 62, and finally ALL (SLOWER BUT POWERFUL): Come and see /The blood in the streets - lines 75-76.”64
After the six groups make their script for their part of the poem, teachers then can help put it all together in one document and make copies for the class. Their homework will be to practice their lines and to make sure they know how to pronounce all the words. For the next class period, you will conduct their dramatic reading. It would be fun for teachers to record each class's reading and then post all of the readings so other classes can see the different interpretations.
Poetic Parados
After students use the curated list or Google, should they so choose, students will create a Poetic Parados. Inform students that parados is a word used in Greek Theater. Parados is the first song performed by the Chorus to provide commentary and background information in order to understand the play. So essentially I want students to write an opening statement to provide a rationale for their poem of witness and their performance. This will be read aloud before they present their final project.
Using the author, self, world text connection strategy, students will connect to their poem on these three levels. For the author connection, have students answer this question: How is this a poem of witness, who wrote it, and what is it witnessing? To connect to self, students should answer: What specifically drew you to this particular poem and why? Have students explain how their performance intends to enhance the original work; what is it trying to do that the words on the page cannot and why should the world care? This will provide a world connection. This can be written as a short paragraph and read before the performance.
Culminating Activity: Poem of Witness Transformed
At the end of this unit and after studying and dramatizing Neruda’s poem of witness, I want my students to choose a poem of witness and transform it into a performance of protest. The poems they choose will be ones that speak to them and ones that witness an event or comment on a time and place in a social way. By giving students choice, they will take ownership of the social commentary and ultimately, give them ownership of creating awareness on the cause or event being witnessed. Because we will have creatively read and performed a poem of witness as a class, they will now be charged with creating their own interpretation of a poem of witness of their choice. Students should be in groups of 2-4 for this final project. Teachers can be flexible if a student wants to work alone.
Teachers may want to provide examples. In the article, “Easy Ways to Use Performance Poetry in ELA,” there are videos of dramatic performances of performers such as Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye and William Nu’utupu Giles and Travis T.65 Teachers may want to show Claudia Rankine’s “Stop and Frisk,” or “Multitudes,” a video poem that brings an interesting read to Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself. Teachers can find these resources through a simple Google search. This will show students different ways they can be creative. I plan on posting these examples on Canvas, noting these are examples of dramatic performances, not examples of poetry of witness. However, each example shows the power of performance.
After they have chosen their poem, they will write a rationale as to why they chose to interpret this poem in particular, as seen in the Poetic Parados activity. They will either perform (live or recorded) or create an artistic video interpretation, combining sound and image. Teachers may even just accept an audio recording. These performances will empower my students to give voice to the things they care about in a way that uses their strengths and feeds their rebellious, passionate, independent, social spirits. In Neruda's words, poetry is rebellion. Performance poetry is a rebellious, revolutionary act that can galvanize change.
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