Poetry of the 1920’s
Grade Level/Time Frame: 4th grade/40 minutes
Objectives: As a result of this lesson, students will be able to interpret some poetry from the 1920’s. Students will have been exposed to various poets (Langston Hughes, Claude McKay) and will be able to write their own poems about the Harlem Renaissance using those poems as examples.
Standards:
16.A.2c Ask questions and seek answers by collecting and analyzing data from historic documents, images and other literary and non-literary sources.
18.A.2 Explain ways in which language, stories, folk tales, music, media and artistic creations serve as expressions of culture.
18.B.2a Describe interactions of individuals, groups and institutions in situations drawn from the local community (e.g., local response to state and national reforms).
Materials:
Poem handout (I Too, Sing America by Langston Hughes) found at:
http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?45442B7C000C07010E7A
Poem handout (The White House by Claude McKay) found at:
http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?45442B7C000C07050874
lined paper
pencils
Set:
“As we already know, the Harlem Renaissance was a significant movement in the 1920’s. Many African-American poets and authors contributed to this movement. We are going to study some poetry by two famous African-American authors today: Langston Hughes and Claude McKay. We are going to look in detail at their poems because they can help us see how some people who lived during the 1920’s viewed life and society.”
Procedures:
1. Activate prior knowledge about the Harlem Renaissance through a discussion. Review what students have already learned and what they know from experience.
2. Handout both poems to the class.
3. Do a choral reading of the Langston Hughes poem and have a discussion about unfamiliar words and the meaning of the poem. Think about the message the poem is sending to the reader.
4. Repeat procedure 2 for the Claude McKay poem. There is a lot of good vocabulary in this poem to work with.
5. Based on these two poems and what the students have already learned about the 1920’s, have them write their own poem about the 1920’s.
6. Ask students to use lined paper, title their poems, and have at least 8 lines in their poems. Inform students that they will be graded on spelling as well for this assignment.
7. The teacher will check the poems and approve them for performance on the following day.
Closing: “Great work today on your poems. Please turn them in or see me when you have finished so that I can look over them. We will be performing our poems for the class as soon as everyone has finished. I think it will be exciting to see what creative ways we have all come up with to talk about the Harlem Renaissance. Please finish these tonight if you have not already finished.”
Assessment:
1. Students will be informally assessed by observation during group discussion and their contributions to the lesson.
2. Students will be formally assessed on their written poem following the rubric below:
3 / 2 / 1Mechanics / 0-1 spelling mistakes / 2-4 spelling mistakes / 5 or more spelling mistakes
Length / Contains at least 8 lines / Contains 6-7 lines / Contains 5 or fewer lines
Content / Clearly relevant to the Harlem Renaissance / Somewhat relevant to the Harlem Renaissance / Not related to the Harlem Renaissance
3. Students will be formally assessed on their reading of the poem based on if they presented it or not. All students who read their poem will receive full credit on participation.
Accommodations: For students who have difficulty thinking of a topic, provide some ideas for them to work with. For example, ask them the following questions: “What do you think about the Harlem Renaissance? What do you want people to know about it? Are there some words about this movement that you can rhyme together?” These and other similar questions may spark some ideas.