Biography:
Langston Hughes was born in 1902 and died in 1967. He was born in Joplin, Missouri. His life was not easy, his mother and father divorced when he was a small child, his father went to live in Mexico, while the small boy lived in his mother. She was not able to find steady work and went from job to job. He continued school in Columbus,Ohio becoming 8th grade class poet. Langston lived most of the time with his grandmother until 1910. After that he stayed with other relatives for short periods of time. Hughes spent the summers of 1919 and 1920 with his father in Mexico. While on a train on his second trip, he wrote his first great poem, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." The poem was published in The Crisis, a magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It has been set to music by many musicians looking for words for their melodies.
Langston was a good student and eventually went to ColombiaUniversity, but dropped out because of poor grades, B's and C's and a F in physical education. He went to Africa to learn about his heritage but the people there would not believe that he was black and called him a white man. He returned to the United States, and bussed tables in WashingtonD.C. There he saw Vachel Lindsay, a writer and slipped him three poems. The next day Vachel Lindsay announced a new writer, and Langston was able to publish his first collection of poetry, the "Weary Blues." This collection of poems won several awards and prize money enabling Langston Hughes to go back to college at LincolnUniversity in Pennsylvania, this time as a published poet. He was a leader of the Harlem Renaissance, a group of black writers and artists celebrating the black "voice" in American life. Langston then wrote many poems, stories, plays and a newspaper column for the Chicago Defender.
But life as a black person in America was hard before the 1950's and 1960's. Racial discrimination was the law in many states of America, negros as they were called at the time had to sit in the back of busses, go only to certain doctors, couldn’t get into most universities, had separate K-12 education and most of the time didn't even get to vote. Most negros were very poor because of the inequalities in American life. They couldn't get decent jobs, or housing or education. Langston Hughes was a part of that society, and through his poetry he helped to change it.
During World War II, Hughes aided the war effort by writing jingles to help sell War Bonds. (one way that American funded the war effort), and urged the government to provide the same rights to its own citizens that it was fighting for in Europe.
Lesson 1.
Activities:
- Watch the Powerpoint presentation "The Negro Speaks of Rivers."
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
by 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.
2. Find three words in the background information on the previous page about which you are unsure and look up their meanings. Write the definitions.
3. Look on the handout and create an Author brochure. Write a biography of Langston Hughes. You can also go on line to find out more information. Here is a great site with lots of details:
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Lesson 2.
Activites:
1. Find facts about each of the rivers in the poem. What is different about each river? Where are these rivers? What is the significance of each of them in history, and specifically in the history of black people.
2. Retell the story by drawing four word pictures from the poem in the boxes. Use the pictures in the Powerpoint presentation and describe each river. 3. Every line of Hughes's poem is filled with powerful images, or "mental pictures," many created by using figures of speech. Images help audiences to feel what speakers/writers want them to feel, help them remember what they have read or heard, and help them understand difficult material. Write a well-developed paragraph telling which of Hughes's images you find most powerful and appealing and explain why this image had meaning for you.
4. Describe the speaker of this poem.
5. Create a statement of theme for this poem.
Lesson 3.
Poetry Analysis: Write a paragraph about "The Negro Speaks of Rivers using the following points:
1. Title: is it appropriate to subject, tone and genre? Does it generate interest, and hint at what the poem's about?
2. subject — what's the basic situation? Who is talking, and under what circumstances?
3. shape — what is the poem appealing to: intellect or emotions of the reader? What structure(s) are used — progressions, comparisons, analogies, bald assertions, etc.? Are these aspects satisfyingly integrated? Does structure support content?
4. tone — what's the attitude to the subject? Is it appropriate to content and audience: assured, flexible, sensitive, etc.?
5. word choice — appropriate and uncontrived, economical, varied and energizing? Do you understand each word properly, its common uses and associations? Are the verbs truly pushing the poem along? Are words repeated? Do they set mood, emotional rapport, distance?
6 personification — striking but persuasive, adds to unity and power?
7. metaphor and simile — fresh and convincing, combining on many levels?
8. rhythm and meter — natural, inevitable, integrate
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9. List the literary devices that are used in this poem.
10. Finish these sentences:
This poem reminds me of...
The speaker of this poem most wants...
Write an entry to my Rachael Orbach's blog at
Use this template: I have been studying the life and poetry of Langston Hughes. As part of my assignment my teacher has asked me to select and comment on one of my favorite poems by Mr. Hughes.
I have selected: (write the title of the poem)
The poem reads as follows: (copy the poem)
The parts of the poem that I especially like are: (list 3 parts)
My ideas about the meaning of this poem are: )write 2-3 sentences
Closing:
Bibliography:
Discussion:
This is a unit of three lessons on the life of Langston Hughes, and in particular about the poem of "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." The grade level is 10th grade because of the social background of the poem and the historical context. I choose this poem because of the historical context, and that it is an example of two different peoples who in the end find a way to live with each other.
I want the students to gain an understanding of even though people may look different, and have a different culture in the end everybody wants the same thing. Everyone wants to be recognized. Everyone wants equal rights. The right to live, the right to live without persecution and the right to live without fear.
At the end of the unit, the students should have an in-depth understanding of Langston Hughes as a black man and a writer, and the changes that American life went through in accepting the black man as a valuable member of society.
In the first lesson, the students watch a power point presentation. This presentation has the voice of the author, a background of his writing the poem, and then his reading the poem.
The power point presentation itself has pictures of each of the rivers that are described, pictures that are available on the Internet.
The poem describes the great rivers on three continents. The Euphrates, that is located in present day Iraq, formally known as Babylon, the blacks were most probably caravan merchants from Africa, selling and buying goods.
In Egypt, the blacks were probably natives, and had neighboring peoples as slaves to build the pyramids.
In the Congo, the author is describing the African People, in their own land, free and living their own way of life. To get a taste of a native culture of Africa, read "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe.
The Mississippi River represents the slavery of the Negro people. As Langston Hughes explains in the introduction of the poem, before the 1860's the worst thing that could happen to a slave was to be sold down the river. The Mississippi was the main thoroughfare of the Slave States at the time. River boats were the only form of transport, and being sold down the river meant that the slave would probably never see his family again. An older slave that was sold further south was being sold for a punishment. The slave owners knew this and treated the slave accordingly.
At the time that Langston Hughes wrote the poem, slavery had ended, but not the discrimination between whites and blacks. Black people were segregated in restaurants, busses, workplaces, schools, and even voting. Most white people were afraid of the blacks and didn't want them around.
Langston Hughes with his writing helped to change the attitude of white people and black people to be able live together.
1Rachael Orbach Children's Literature class 2007 Instructor: Pat Talshir