Langston Hughes

Claude McCay

Countee Cullen

Georgia Douglass Johnson

James Weldon Johnson

Jean Toomer

Arna Bontemps

1. Research your poet.Write and cite a summary of information about his/her career.(200-250 words)

2. Annotate your poem noting the literary devices.

Use https://literary-devices.com/ for reference.

3. Create a two-sided handout to distribute to classmates.Include:

Poet biography summary with three questions about the poet.Three COMPREHENSION QUESTIONSThree ANALYSIS QUESTIONSThree EVALUATION QUESTIONSOne QUESTION about the influence of the Harlem Renaissance on poet’s style or content.

Submit your group’s handout for copying on _______________.

4. Create a visual portrayal of the poem.posterprojectionvideocollagephotograph, etc.

Instructions and examples on the next page.

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COMPREHENSION ANALYSIS EVALUATION

Purpose: to have classmates summarize and describe the poem in their own words without necessarily relating it to anything.

Purpose: to have classmates break thepoem into parts, describe patterns and relationships among parts, and to show how it is put together.

Purpose: to develop opinions and make value decisions about the poem based on specific criteria.

Key Words: Describe, Distinguish, Explain, Interpret, Predict, Recognize, Summarize

Key Words: Analyze, Differentiate, Distinguish, Explain, Infer, Relate, Separate

Key Words: Assess, Critique, Determine, Evaluate, Judge, Justify, Recommend

General Examples:"What facts or ideas show...?"

"How would you compare...?"

"How would your classify...?

"Can you explain what is happening...?"

General Examples:"What inference can you make...?"

"What is the relationship between...?"

"What evidence can you find...?"

"What things justify...?"

"General Examples:How could you select...?"

"How could you prove...?"

"How would you prioritize...?"

"What information would you use to support...?"

Examples Specific to this Activity:

Summarize the brutalities the speaker of the poem has endured.

Examples Specific to this Activity:

Explain the difference in tone between the first stanza and the second stanza?

Examples Specific to this Activity:

Evaluate the poet’s use of literary devices in the poem. Do they effectively support the theme or are the devices distracting?

On the day of your group’s presentation:1. Designate one group member to read the poet biography.2. Designate one group member to recite the poem.3. Another group member should present and discuss the visual representation of the poem.4. Each group member(s) will then serve as the expert(s) at one of three stations:

**Biography and Annotation Station**Analysis and Application Station**Influence Station

5. Classmates will circulate with their group from station to stationto complete the worksheet with the guidance of the expert. The expert should lead a discussion, not just provide answers to the questions.

6. Raise the finished flag when your group has completed the worksheet tasks, and groups will proceed to the next station.

7. During wait time, complete the independent research activity where you’ll explore a feature of the Harlem Renaissance that interests you.

Handout Questions:

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Complete an internet search for one of the following topics:

• Musicians of the Harlem Renaissance• Visual Artists of the Harlem Renaissance• Authors of the Harlem Renaissance (other than the poets in this activity)• Harlem Renaissance Society and Politics

Create an MLA8 bibliographic citation for your source.Complete the activity below.

Topic: Citation:

Subtopic:(specific musician, artist, author, social/political focus)

Summary of information including one quote with in-text citation. (200-250 words)

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The Negro Speaks of RiversBY LANGSTON HUGHES

I’ve known rivers:I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the

flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

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 pyramids above it.I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln

went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

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If We Must Die

BY CLAUDE MCCAY

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursèd lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

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From The Dark TowerBy COUNTEE CULLEN

We shall not always plant while others reap

The golden increment of bursting fruit,

Not always countenance, abject and mute,

That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;

Not everlastingly while others sleep

Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,

Not always bend to some more subtle brute;

We were not made to eternally weep.

The night whose sable breast relieves the stark,

White stars is no less lovely being dark,

And there are buds that cannot bloom at all

In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall;

So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds,

And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.

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A Black Man Talks of ReapingBy ARNA BONTEMPS

I have sown beside all waters in my day

I planted deep, within my heart the fear

That wind or fowl would take the grain away.

I planted safe against this stark, lean year.

I scattered seed enough to plant the land

In rows from Canada to Mexico

But for my reaping only what the hand

Can hold at once is all that I can show.

Yet what I sowed and what the orchard yields

My brother' sons are gathering stalk and root,

Small wonder then my children glean in fields

They have not sown, and feed on bitter fruits.

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The Heart of a WomanBY GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON

The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn,

As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,

Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roam

In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.

The heart of a woman falls back with the night,

And enters some alien cage in its plight,

And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars

While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.

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Deep in the Quiet WoodBy JAMES WELDON JOHNSON

Are you bowed down in heart?

Do you but hear the clashing discords and the din of life?

Then come away, come to the peaceful wood,

Here bathe your soul in silence. Listen! Now,

From out the palpitating solitude

Do you not catch, yet faint, elusive strains?

They are above, around, within you, everywhere.

Silently listen! Clear, and still more clear, they come.

They bubble up in rippling notes, and swell in singing tones.

Now let your soul run the whole gamut of the wondrous scale

Until, responsive to the tonic chord,

It touches the diapason of God’s grand cathedral organ,

Filling earth for you with heavenly peace

And holy harmonies.

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Song of the SonBY JEAN TOOMER

Pour O pour that parting soul in song,O pour it in the sawdust glow of night,Into the velvet pine-smoke air tonight,And let the valley carry it along.And let the valley carry it along.

O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree,So scant of grass, so profligate of pines,Now just before an epoch’s sun declines Thy son, in time, I have returned to thee.Thy son, I have in time returned to thee.

In time, for though the sun is setting onA song-lit race of slaves, it has not set;Though late, O soil, it is not too late yetTo catch thy plaintive soul, leaving, soon gone,Leaving, to catch thy plaintive soul soon gone.

O Negro slaves, dark purple ripened plums,Squeezed, and bursting in the pine-wood air,Passing, before they stripped the old tree bareOne plum was saved for me, one seed becomes

An everlasting song, a singing tree,Caroling softly souls of slavery,What they were, and what they are to me,Caroling softly souls of slavery.

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Scoring Rubric

Poet Biography andQuestions

10

Annotation 5

10 Questions 10

Handout submitted on time for copying

3

Visual portrayal of the poem 10

Effective stations 10

Your completed handouts 12

Wait time research 10

70TOTAL

Scoring Rubric

Poet Biography andQuestions

10

Annotation 5

10 Questions 10

Handout submitted on time for copying

3

Visual portrayal of the poem 10

Effective stations 10

Your completed handouts 12

Wait time research 10

70TOTAL

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Tips for Setting Up This Activity

1. Divide class into groups, each assigned a poet.

2. Provide time for collaboration following the activity instructions

3. Assign a due date for groups’ handouts. (You might choose a

platform such as Google Classroom to distribute and submit

handouts. I find a hard copy easier in this situation.

4. Assign due date for presentation(s). (Depending on the length of

your class period). One group takes 25-35 minutes.

5. On presentation days, set up the stations using the signs provided

in the activity.

6. Begin two groups per station, the others at the wait station.

7. When all stations have raised the “Finished” flag, move the

groups to the next station.

8. In the end, collect the day’s completed

handouts, or if more convenient, collect

compiled handouts and the wait time

activity at the completion of all groups’

presentations.

9. A Rubric is provided to score the

group’s preparation.

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