Module 1- Introduction to Poetry: African American Poetry
Bibliographic Citation:
Poet: Langston Hughes
Photographer: Charles R. Smith, Jr.
Title: "My People"
Publisher: New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2009,
ISBN: 9781416935407
Critical Analysis:
“My People” is a thirty-three word poem written by Langston Hughes, during the Harlem Renaissance, in 1923. The Harlem Renaissance is a term coined by Alain LeRoy Locke in his compelling 1925 book The New Negro: Voices of the Harlem Renaissance. According to Locke, editor, educator, sociologist, and the first African American Rhodes Scholar of 1907, the Harlem Renaissance was a literary and scholarly culmination that cultivated a new-found African American cultural distinctiveness in the 1920s and 1930s. Alain Locke describes it as a "spiritual coming of age" in which the African American community was able to capture upon its "first chances for group expression and self determination." Langston Hughes wrote “My People” during this era, a time in history of unbridled racism, limited educational and economic opportunities for African American people. Through Hughes’ uplifting words, African Americans were given a positive and inspiring image of themselves as a people full of beauty, heart and soul.
Charles R. Smith, Jr. illustrations of Langston Hughes poem “My People” personifies the beauty, heart and essence of a people Langston Hughes words captures in a poem written over eight-eight years ago. For example the line, "the stars are beautiful," Smith photographs the gleaming hair clips in a little girl's dark hair. Further, for "Beautiful, also, the sun" is matched with two glowing faces, angled towards a midday sun. Smith’s sepia-colored photographs offer the reader an up-close and vivid view of the unique shades of skin tones, beauty and spirits, of the African American people Langston Hughes loved and wanted to empower through his inspiring poetry.
Through expert photography, Charles R. Smith, Jr. expresses his creative prowess of Hughes poem with style and eloquence. Smiths’ photographs offers the reader a glimpse of a people that are of varying ages, hues, sizes and statues. His book won the Coretta Scott King award in 2010 at the ALA Youth Media Awards. According to the end cover of Smith’s book:
I wanted to show skin color as bright as the sun and as dark as the night; I wanted to show the newness of a newborn smile and the wisdom of wrinkled skin. But, more than anything, I simply wanted to show that like any other group of people, black people come in all shapes, sizes, shades, and ages, and that each of us is unique.
Highlighted Poem:
The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.
The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people
Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.
Follow up Activity:
This picture book is an excellent read aloud for all children. However, for my kindergarten students, I would utilize this book as a multicultural activity. Before introducing the poem, I would share background information about Langston Hughes. Next, I would place the picture book on a document camera to allow the children to view the photographs and words, as I read the poem to them. At the conclusion of the poem, I would offer the e students an opportunity to pair/share their thoughts on the poem. Then, after reading the book for at least four times, throughout the week, I would bring several digital cameras to class and allow the students to take sepia-colored photographs of their classmates. Last, I would print the photographs and help my students create a class book with their photographs illustrating Langston Hughes poem “My People.”
Module 1- Introduction to Poetry: Hopkins Collection
Bibliographic Citation:
Compiler: Lee Bennett Hopkins
Illustrator: David Diaz
Title: Sharing the Seasons: A Book of Poems
Publisher: New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4169-0210-2
Critical Analysis:
Sharing the Seasons: A Book of Poems is a wonderful selections of poems by Lee Bennett Hopkins and illustrated by David Diaz. Hopkins collection provides the reader with a delightful source for children to learn about the four seasons. Hopkins introduces each of the four collections with quotations from such renowned poets as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry James, William Cullen Bryant, and William Shakespeare. One of Hopkins poems heads each of the season collection. Further, Hopkins offers forty-eight poems, twelve for each of the four seasons. In this anthology, Hopkins presents the reader with traditional poets such as Karla Kuskin, Joseph Bruhac, Carl Sandburg, and Richard Brautigan. Moreover, twenty-nine of the poems have contemporary poets such as J. Patrick Lewis, Marilyn Singer, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, and Joan Bransfield Graham. The poems in Hopkins anthology are brief enough to capture the attention of the primary student and the upper grades will enjoy the sophistication in the imagery. Both young and older students will appreciate the humor.
David Diaz, presents the reader with a bold palette of l radiant mixed illustrations that brings excitement to each seasons. Diaz illustrates how much can be understood through the changing colors of the seasons. A brilliance of color around animals, people and inanimate objects connects the stunning tones in the illustrations to create intensity and importance to each poem without overpowering the words.
Highlighted Poem:
Moon, Have You Met My Mother?
Karla Kuskin
I am softer
and colder
and whiter than you.
And I can do something
that you cannot do.
I can make
anything
beautiful:
warehouses
train tracks
an old fence
cement.
I can make anything
everything
beautiful.
What I touch,
where I blow,
even a dump filled with garbage
looks lovely
after I’ve fallen there.
I am the snow.
Follow up Activity:
This activity is a great way for young students to begin to understand the difference in weather and seasons. Students will have a better understanding of what the weather is like during the Winter and they will be able to enjoy the poems in Sharing the Seasons: A Book of Poem. This activity can be used with primary students. Show pictures of Winter scenes from the anthology. Let students pair/share what they observe. Allow students to discuss what they do during the Winter and share their favorite activities with their partners. Explain that they are going to read poems about Winter throughout the week. Write the poem “Moon, Have You Met My Mother?” by Karla Kuskin on chart paper. Allow the students to listen to you read the poem at least four times, during the week. Finally, supply each child with a copy of the poem and let students follow along as you read “Moon, Have You Met My Mother?” Students may illustrate their copy of the poem and place it in their poetry notebook for further reading. Students may work in groups to read and share their illustrations and interpretations of the poem with the class.
Module One: Introduction to Poetry: School Poetry
Bibliographic Citation:
Bibliographic Citation:
Poet: Ron Koertge
Title: The Brimstone Journals
Publisher: Massachusetts: Candlewick Press, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-1302-9
Critical Analysis
The Brimstone Journals is a distinctive poetic novel in free-verse. The student of The Brimstone Journals recounts the events that lead up to an attack on the school premeditated by one of their classmates. The students in the journal are bully and victim. In the end, only one will do anything about the attack. Though the varied free-verse poems, Ron Koertge reveal the humdrum, daily worries of teens and the tragedy threatening their lives. The characters are not developed, however their voices and anxiety are often authentic and crude. From an excerpt taken from Random House, Ron Koertge writes:
The Brimstone Journals chose me. The characters woke me up at night. The entire first draft took just three weeks. Then the voices were gone and it was time to be a
writer again instead of merely taking dictation from god-knows-where.
Highlighted Poem:
Joseph
I’m fed up with Gandhi and Martin Luther
King. Sometimes you’ve got to get people’s
attention!
So I go over to Boyd’s house.
He’s pretty ragged. “Hey, man. You just
missed Sheila.” Then he opens up this old cedar
chest and shows me.
“I got a Ruger and I got a Smith & Wesson.”
Then he picks up this Glock, holds it. “First
time Mike gave me one of these, I almost
puked.”
When I ask him if he’s okay, he reaches
into his camouflage pants and shows me
a handful of pills. “Yeah, until I forget
which of these do what. “Then he hands
me the Ruger. “Try this one. See if it
feels good.”
No way. I’ve got my hands up like he’s
an ATM robber. “Look, you haven’t been
at school. I was worried.” He shrugs.
“Whatever.” Walks me to the door. Hugs me.
Says to miss first period on Tuesday.
Out in the car, I just sit there. Is he serious?
I mean. I’ve heard stuff, but I always hear stuff:
it’s high school, right? And anywhy, who would
I tell, the same cops who dragged me to jail
the time I handcuffed myself to that bulldozer?
And then I start thinking: So he’s got a couple
of guns. He used to have a lot of skin
magazines. That didn’t make him a rapist.
And last summer, who came and got me
in the rain when I blew a tire way in the hell
out on Maxwell Road in the middle
of the night?
Boyd, that’s who.
Follow Up Activity:
This activity is for children fourteen and up. Ask students to pair /share the meaning of bullying with their group. The teacher is to act as a facilators for student groups. As facilitator, tell students that bullying can be verbal or non-verbal, physical or non-physical. As the teacher walk among the different groups, ask students in each group what they think the saying “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can really hurt me. Ask students to turn and talk with a students in their groups to reflect on their experiences with bullies. Give each student a cut out paper “stone.” Have students write a behavior that could hurt someone or make them feel badly. Have them wrinkle up the "stone" and then try to smooth it out. Explain that once someone has been hurt, it is never forgotten. You cannot remove the hurt. The wrinkles will always be there. Hang stones on wall to create a wall of intolerance or have students sit in a circle and pile the rocks up in the middle. Ask students to think about ways to prevent these things from happening. Create a class list of ideas.
