Name ______A Lesson Before Dying Unit Packet

Name ______A Lesson Before Dying Unit Packet

Journal 5

Observation Journal ___/15 pts

How do members of different groups interact in your community? Write down exactly what you see (a minimum of 10 details).AVOID ANALYSIS! / What conclusions can you draw? What are some different possibilities of what you saw means? (a minimum of 5 insights)
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The Debate on Capital Punishment: It’s No Laughing Matter

Circle the cartoon that is most similar to your view of capital punishment.

Group Discussion Procedures

1. Move desks into a circle so that all members can see one another

1. The discussion leader or volunteer asks an open-ended question with no right or wrong answer and lots of possible follow-up questions. It is meant to spark the interest of the group.

For example: Do you believe the justice system is fair in condemning Jefferson to death?

How do you believe the forms of injustice seen in A Lesson Before Dying compare to today? What types of injustice, if any, exist here at Timberline?

1. Participants need to stay focused on the question being discussed and allow the opening question to naturally lead to new questions and responses.

1. Participants need to explore, define, clarify, and evaluate all aspects of a question and allow for as many voices as possible to be heard before moving on to a new topic. Frequent references to the text or texts must be made, so having page numbers ready and thoughtfully completing your sketchbook is essential.

1. After the initial question is exhausted, a volunteer asks a new open-ended question and the group then focuses on exhausting that topic as well.

1. Leader asks group to reflect on what went well and what they would do better next time in order to set a discussion goal.

1. Each participant fills out a self-evaluation sheet like the following:

Group Discussion Self-Evaluation Sheet

Preparedness
Sketch book entry complete, writing utensil, and book
5 = all
3 = missing book/pen / Discussion Contributions
__ Ask interest-sparking questions that deepen understanding
__ Refer to text and provide evidence to support thinking
__ Clarify confusion--Avoid staying confused.
__ Paraphrase other’s ideas accurately
__ Seeks to gain understanding, not to prove a point
5 = exceptional, 4= met standard, 3 needs work
Below give yourself a score and note your specific contributions to today’s discussion. / Group Communication Skills
__ Refer to text
__ Do not participate if unprepared.
__ Stick to the point of discussion
__ Take turns speaking with all participants
__Speak loudly, and actively listen
__ Talk to each other, not the teacher/leader
Below give yourself a score 5-3 and note your specific communication skills.
1. As a group, decide on what you did well today regarding group communication skills.
2. As a group, set one goal to work on for the next discussion.
3. As an individual, what did you do well and what would you do better next time?

Sketch Book #1 Chapter ______/22 points

5 Sentence Summary of Chapter: (5 points)______

______

List Specific (5 points)

Details in

Visual from

the Chapter:

What does the chapter mean, what matters most and why do you think that; provide examples to support your assertions/claims. (5 points)

______

(5 points)

1 Key Quotation / Commentary/ Explanation
(pg. ______)

Open-Ended Discussion Question: (2 points)

1.

Group Discussion Self-Evaluation Sheet: Discussion # 1 ____/15 points

Preparedness
Sketch book entry complete, writing utensil, and book
5 = all
3 = missing book/pen / Discussion Contributions
__ Askinterest-sparking questions thatdeepen understanding
__ Refer to text and provide evidence to support thinking
__ Clarify confusion--Avoid staying confused.
__ Paraphrase other’s ideas accurately
__ Seeks to gain understanding, not to prove a point
5 = exceptional, 4= met standard, 3 needs work
Below give yourself a score and note your specific contributions to today’s discussion. / Group Communication Skills
__ Refer to text
__ Do not participate if unprepared.
__ Stick to the point of discussion
__ Take turns speaking with all participants
__Speak loudly, and actively listen
__ Talk to each other, not the teacher/leader
Below give yourself a score 5-3 and note your specific communication skills.
1. As a group, decide on what you did well today regarding group communication skills.
2. As a group, set one goal to work on for the next discussion.
3. As an individual, what did you do well and what would you do better next time?

“Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

"Three Strikes You In"

By Ice Cube
One mo' strike and I'm through,
Bottom of the ninth, swingin’ for my life
I'm up at the plate, goin for the gate
They got my moms seated in section eight…
How can I stay out the pen
When its one-two-three strikes you in…
Yea (It ain't right)
Playin' people like a game (It aint right)
Human beings, puttin' em in a jar (It aint right)
for double life, triple life (It aint right)
I gots to root for my homeboys
If they dont win its a shame
Cuz its one-two-three strikes you in
twenty-five years of pain you know my name

1. What is baseball being used as a symbol for in “Three Strikes and You In?”

1. In the song “Three Strikes and You In,” what is the “In” to which Ice Cube refers?

1. In the excerpts, baseball is a symbol of something that can be said to be hiding a deeper feeling about society. Describe what that feeling is.

1. Choose a character from A Lesson Before Dying and explain how they may respond to this song and why.

“Fight The Power”

By Public Enemy
Got to give us what we want
Gotta give us what we need
Our freedom of speech is freedom or death

We got to fight the powers that be
Lemme hear you say
Fight the power…
We got to pump the stuff to make us tough
from the heart
It's a start, a work of art
To revolutionize make a change nothin's strange
People, people we are the same
No we're not the same
Cause we don't know the game
What we need is awareness, we can't get careless
You say what is this?
My beloved lets get down to business…

1. Locate the lines that give the poem a political nature and explain why.

1. Political speeches often “rally” the masses. Identify lines where the poet “rallies” his audience.

1. How does “Fight the Power” relate to A Lesson Before Dying?

“Me Against The World"
by Tupac Shakur (2Pac)

With all this extra stressin’
The question I wonder is after death, after my last breath
When will I finally get to rest? Through this suppression
they punish the people that's askin’ questions
And those that possess, steal from the ones without possessions
The message I stress: to make it stop study your lessons
Don't settle for less - even the genius asks questions
Be grateful for blessings
Don't ever change, keep your essence
The power is in the people and politics we address
Always do your best, don't let the pressure make you panic
And when you get stranded
And things don't go the way you planned it
Dreamin’ of riches, in a position of makin a difference
Politicians and hypocrites, they don't wanna listen
If I'm insane, it's the fame made a brother change
It wasn't nothing like the game
It's just me against the world
That's right
I know it seem hard sometimes but uhh
Remember one thing
Through every dark night, there's a bright day after that
So no matter how hard it get, stick your chest out
Keep your head up, and handle it

5. What does Tupac mean when he says “keep your essence”?

6. Choose a character in a Lesson Before Dying and explain how they may respond to the song.

Historical Document #1: Racial Etiquette

Etiquette is the “appropriate” or “approved” type of behavior for a certain situation. During the time of segregation, there was a strict code of racial etiquette that guided behavior when black and white individuals interacted. As you read the following excerpts, consider how the characters in the novel demonstrate and respond to the racial etiquette of the time. In the margins, take notes on a minimum of 5 connections to the novel. “This reminds me of…”

The following is taken from David Goldfield’s Black, White, and Southern: Race Relations and Southern Culture, 1940 to the Present:

For blacks encountering whites, the code demanded among other things, “sir” and “ma’am,” averted eyes, preferably a smile, never imparting bad news, never discussing other whites, and always exhibiting a demeanor that would make a white comfortable in believing that this deferential mien was not only right but the things ought to be.

Prudence born of fear usually inhibited retaliation or departure from behavioral norms. Stories of white brutality agains blacks, often for minor transgressions, circulated through black communities. As [Richard] Wright explained, “The things that influenced my conduct as a Negro did not have to happen to me directly…Indeed the white brutality that I had not seen was a more effective control of my behavior than that which I knew.” In 1955, Anne Moody, a black Mississippi teenager, heard news of a lynching near her Delta home. She recalled her immobilizing fear: “I didn’t know what one had to do or not to do as a Negro not to be killed.” So a constant tension gripped blacks in their relations with whites, an uneasiness that a wrong word or a gesture could have serious consequences.

The following is taken from Bertram P. Karon’s The Negro Personality: A Rigorous Investigation of the Effects of Culture:

Recognition of the inferiority of the Negro is embodied in the ritual of face-to-face discussions by the use of distinctions in the forms of address. The Negro is expected always to show his respect by using the title Mr., Mrs., or Miss when talking to a white person, while the white person addresses the Negro by the latter’s first name, irrespective of how little acquaintance the two may have, or by the condescending epithet “boy” and its alternatives “uncle,” “auntie,” “elder,” etc. These are used with no regard to the age of the Negro being addressed…It is clear that this etiquette is designed to demonstrate that the Negro is inferior and that he recognizes it in the sense that he is willing to act out the ritual. (Of course, he has no real alternative.)

Historical Document #2:The AfricanAmericanChurch

As you read following excerpts, consider the different takes on religion found in A Lesson Before Dying. In the margins, make a minimum of 5 thoughtful connections to the novel using sentences such as “This reminds me of…, This is similar/dissimilar to…, and (character) would agree/disagree because..”

The claim has been made that the African American Church has been one of the most influential forces in the African American community by providing solace to African Americans who are confronted with slavery, racism, violence, and poverty. The church was especially important in the rural communities. One of the major qualities of African American Churches according to Frank Frazier in The Negro Church in America is otherworldliness or the emphasis on receiving a good life in heaven, rather than focusing on the negatives of life here on earth. Frazier claimed the following:

On the whole, the Negro’s church was not a threat to white domination and aided the Negro to become accommodated to an inferior status. The religion of the Negro continued to be other- worldly in its outlook, dismissing the privations and sufferings and injustices of this world as temporary and transient.

Another quality noted of many African American Churches is emotionalism. W.E.B. Du Bois, an influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance, visited a black church and made the following observation:

The intense enthusiasm and the open display of emotions and feelings exhibited by the

worshipers. Some worshipers “got the Spirit” and were propelled into a paroxysm of shouting. While others “fell out” and rolled on the floor in a shaking, trance-like state, possessed by the Holy Ghost. Some people stood up in the pews and waved their hands over their heads, while others clapped their hands in time with the music. Even in the mist of preaching, the worshipers carried on a dialogue with the preacher by shouting approval and agreement…like “Amen!” or “Preach It!” or “Tell it like it is!” At other times they encouraged the preacher to work harder to reach that precipitating point of cathartic climax by calling out, “Well?”… “Well?” The highlight of the service was to worship and glorify God by achieving the experience of mass catharsis; a purifying explosion of emotions that eclipses the harness of reality for a season and leaves both the preacher and the congregation drained in a moment of spiritual ecstasy.

Music is often a key factor in African American Church services. Negro Spirituals served as source of comfort for slaves and historically has provided an escape. James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson explain how spirituals came into being:

Far from his native land and customs, despised by those among whom he lived, experiencing the pang of the separation of loved ones on the auction block, knowing the hard task master, feeling the lash, the Negro seized Christianity, the religion of compensations in the life to come for the ills suffered in present existence, the religion which implied the hope that the next world there would be a reversal of conditions, of rich man and poor man, of proud and meek, of master and slave. The result was a body of songs voicing all the cardinal virtues of Christianity—patience— forbearance—love—faith—and hope—through a necessarily modified form of African music. The Negro took complete refuge in Christianity and the Spirituals were literally forged of sorrow in the heat of religious fervor.

W.E.B. Du Bois in his famous The Souls of Black Folk elaborates on the themes of spirituals saying:

Through all the sorrow of the Sorrow Songs there breathes a hope—a faith in the ultimate justice of things. The minor cadences of despair change often to triumph and calm confidence. Sometimes it is faith in life, sometimes a faith in death, sometimes assurance of boundless justice in some fair world beyond. But whichever it is the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.

Historical Document #3: “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

Perform a close reading of the selection below and write a minimum of 10 annotations in the margins. Look for words that stand out and explain their deeper meaning/your insight as well as any connections between A Lesson Before Dying and Reverend Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

After Reading Section

Learning Goals:

• I will demonstrate that I have completed my reading and understood what I read by completing a reading quiz.

• I will write a literary analysis essay that compares A Lesson Before Dying to another selection.

Learning Activities:

• Reading Quizzes (10 points each)

• In-Class Essay (50 points)