The Civil Rights Movement: Poetry

Description

due Sep 22
The Civil Rights Movement: Poetry
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Background
Yay! More poetry! Since this class is an introduction to both Literature AND critical thinking, we will continue to practice our strategies as we shift the lens we are looking through, from the Declaration of Independence in our first unit, to the ideas of the Civil Rights Movement in this one. Keep in mind your speaker (X or MLK) and the response you posted in the last assignment as you work through this one, looking for ways that the poems reflect or reject the ideas or ideology you have already begun to focus on.

Task
It may help to revisit the video on how to perform a close reading of a poem. (Links to an external site.)Again, don’t feel overwhelmed by the amount of work this professor demonstrates! However, consider this second crack at close reading as an opportunity to try out different strategies and skills. Stretch yourself a bit, at least while you are annotating.
Read over some of the poems listed below that are included in the Course Reader and choose one. As always, I recommend printing out the page(s) so you can annotate the poem, as demonstrated in the video. Then, perform a brief (1-2 paragraphs) close reading of a single poem from this selection, applying a few of the concepts from the close reading video.
Suggestions
You’ll need to choose a theme or message to focus on. As always, I recommend a very narrow focus. Ideally, you want to connect the poem to the passage you chose from the speech you just analyzed. Could the poet be said to be responding to that same idea?

Requirements
Include at least one direct quote of a word, line, or passage from the poem.

After you have posted, read through some of your peers’ posts and respond to at least two. You can ask a question, add to their ideas, or comment (gently and respectfully!!) on an interpretation or connection different from the one you made.

Note: It will be helpful to find at least on peer who read the same poem as you, since this will expand your understanding of it which will be useful when we get to the essay for this unit.

See the attached rubric for grading criteria.

Poems to choose from:
Dove “Claudette Colvin Goes to Work”

Giovanni “Revolutionary Dreams”

Hughes “I, Too, Sing America” (this poem is a response to Walt Whitman’s which is on the same page in the reader)

McKay “If We Must Die”

Randall “Ballad of Birmingham”

Trethewey “White Lies”

Williams “Of History and Hope”