Curriculum

Unit Overview

Finding the Student Voice: Past, Present, & Future

Introductory Statement/Rationale:

One of the biggest obstacles every teacher faces in presenting and working with course content is genuine student engagement.   How can I as a teacher make this content relevant to my students' lives so that they will want to work with new material presented and actually make connections to their previously held knowledge and life experiences?   This is particularly difficult for teachers of history and language arts.   Students frequently fail to recognize the connections between their own lives and the lives in a history text or a literature text.   How can the lives of early 20th Century African American urban writers and artists have any connection to the lives of marginalized urban students living in the early 21 st Century?  

When studying the Harlem Renaissance in American History teachers have a great opportunity to make this vital connection.   The themes of repression, alienation, resistance, identity, and celebration to which Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, and others gave voice nearly 100 years ago resonate deeply with urban youth of today when they fully appreciate the context and messages of these great writers, artists, and thinkers.   The trick is finding the link with which to make the connection.  

The documentary Coal Black Voices provides a great opportunity to forge that link.   This unit draws from the rich heritage of the Harlem Renaissance and connects that flowering of African American creative thought with the modern poetry and hip hop explosion of identity and resistance found today among urban youth.   The poets of Coal Black Voices speak with the same urgency and passion of the Harlem Renaissance in the context of urban (and rural) Appalachia.   Students working their way through this unit will be challenged to find the linkage between their world and a world of the past and they will also be challenged to find their own voices in poetry or song exploring many of the same themes.

Grade Level: High School

Subject Areas: Social Studies, English, Technology

Unit Length:   5 Days History, 5 Days English, 7-10 days Technology

Materials/Technology:

• Internet
• List of useful web sites

Standards

Click from here to >>Procedures for Teachers

Day 1 & 2 History

Introduction 

Warm Up  Post the following questions for students to answer when they enter the room.  The questions will serve as the beginning of your introduction to the unit.  

What does the word Renaissance mean?

Where have you heard this word before? 

Discuss the questions as a class.  Student responses should refer to the European Renaissance and state that the word Renaissance means rebirth.  

Students are then asked where Harlem is.  Once they have answered refer to a map for further clarification. 

Based on their definition of Renaissance and their understanding of Harlem, ask students what a Harlem Renaissance would be. 

Why Harlem?  Explain to students that the Renaissance took place in Harlem because Harlem had the largest African American population in the United States making it essentially the African American capital of the United States.  Harlem was located in the North where African Americans had more freedoms than other parts of the country.  Following WWI African Americans also gained a keener realization of justice and belief in the promise of freedom.  The Great Migration had also left Harlem full of the most talented African Americans in the country. 

Ask several students the night before to read excerpts from poems related to the themes affecting African Americans lives.  When their theme or poet is mentioned pause and let the students read their part.  (see separate materials)

The Harlem Renaissance, Black Renaissance, or New Negro Movement was essentially a part of the growing interest in American literary circles of the immediate and pressing social problems facing the country.  After WWI, patriotism, normalcy, and Bolshevism dominated the climate in the country.  However a few writers emerged who called attention to American inadequacies.  Some white writers took interest in African Americans lives and the race issue.  Black poets, musicians, artists and writers were able to tell about their experiences with:

Social and Economic problems (student reader)

Labor (student reader)

Housing (student reader)

Race Problems (student reader)

Social Planning (student reader) 

Harlem of the 20's became a nurturing environment for young black writers like:

Langston Hughes (student reader)

Zola Neal Hurston (student reader)

Jean Toomer (student reader) 

In Harlem African Americans felt free to express their experiences and perspectives and celebrate their unique African American heritage. 

James Weldon Johnson described Harlem as (student reader) 

A brief video clip of the Harlem Renaissance should be shown to the students.  Several minutes from The Century, Americas Time is a good fit. 

Homework Read appropriate sections in textbook 

Activity #1  History Class   

To gain more background knowledge on the history of the Harlem Renaissance Students will be placed in groups to read and answer questions about the Harlem Renaissance  (see questions and readings).  When students have finished the answers will be discussed as a class. 

Day 2 English Class Starts Unit

Activity #1  English Class 

Reading Lab - Langston Hughes Poems 

1.  Divide the class into five groups, assigning the following poem groups:

a.          Dream Boogie, To Be Somebody, Motto

b.          Merry-Go-Round, Weary Blues, I Too

c.          Harlem Night Song, Dream, Still Here

d.          Miss Blues'es Child, Too Blue, Color, Frosting

e.             Refugee in America, Song For A Dark Girl, Mother To Son

2. In the group answer the following questions about your poems:

a.          What is the message of each poem?  Tone?

b.          How do the poems compare?  Contrast?

c.          What metaphors and symbols do you see?  Explain them briefly.

3.  Choose one poem for a choral reading that involves every member of the group.     

     Work especially to use multiple voices to emphasize important words and lines. 

4. At the end of class each group will present their choral reading. 

Day 3 History Class

History Activity #2  Celebrity Mixer 

Students will identify important people of the Harlem Renaissance. 

See student handouts 

Day 3 English Class

English Activity #2  Seminar 

Using the Paideia seminar format as outlined by Mortimer Adler students will discuss the Langston Hughes poems. 

Day 4 English and History

History/English Activity #3 

The Poetry of Coal Black Voices 

Students will screen Coal Black Voices in History class while they read the Affrilachian poets in English.  Using the same format as with the Langston Hughes poems students will explore the themes and content of Affrilachian poetry. 

 Screening the documentary will take two History class sessions because there will be frequent stops for discussion.

Reading Lab - Coal Black Voices 

1.  Divide the class into five groups, assigning the following poem groups:

a.             Brown Country, Rooted

b.             Affrilachia, Kentucke, O Tobacco

c.             Raised by Women, Baptism, We Raised You

d.             And I still ride tarc...(blahzay' blahzay'), Warm

e.             The Execution Will Not Be Televised, Cowboys

2.  In the group answer the following questions about your poems:

a.          What is the message of each poem?  Tone?

b.          How do the poems compare?  Contrast?

c.          What metaphors and symbols do you see?  Explain them briefly.

3.  Choose one poem for a choral reading that involves every member of the group.     

     Work especially to use multiple voices to emphasize important words and lines. 

4. At the end of class each group will present their choral reading. 

Day 5 History and English

Activity #5 English

Assign students the task of writing their own poetry sharing their life experiences and drawing upon the themes analyzed in class with the Harlem Renaissance and the Affrilachian poets.   Students are encouraged to produce more than one poem so as to explore different themes from their lives.   This assignment carries on as homework for the weekend and will be due the following Wednesday.

Day 6   Through Day 15 Technology Class Video Poetry Using iMovie

Lesson Plan

Project:   Coal Black Voices: Finding the Student Voice

Day 1 & 2:   Introduction to iMovie

Instructional Goal :

Develop proficiency with the iMovie video editing software on iMac computers

Day 1 & 2 Objective:

Understand the basic functions of the iMovie desktop with all of its pallets

NETS Standards Addressed:

#1: Identify capabilities and limitations of contemporary and emerging technology resources

#5: Use technology tools and resources for managing and communicating personal/professional information

Procedures/Activities:

•  Review all of the history and technology expectations and requirements for the project by reviewing and clarifying the Project Description and Assignment Sheet presented first in the History class.

•  Introduce iMovie as a simple but powerful video editing package through demonstrations of importing and editing procedures using teacher directed demonstrations and screen capture handouts of every editing pallet.

•  Allow students 1/3 to 1/2 of class time Day 1 to experiment with the tutorial provided by Apple. Day 2 should be devoted to mastering the tutorial.

Materials:

•  iMovie Screen capture Handout

•  Access to iMacs in the lab

Assessment:

Circulate the room to troubleshoot student problems and verify on task behavio

Lesson Plan

Project:   Coal black Voices: Finding the Student Voice

Day 3 & 4:   Introduction to iMovie

Instructional Goal :

Develop proficiency with the iMovie video editing software on iMac computers and review proficiency skills on Photoshop Elements

Day 3 & 4 Objective:

Understand the basic functions of   iMovie and how to import still images from the scanner and other sources and moving images from a digital video camera onto the iMovie Clip Shelf Pallet.   The emphasis in this project will be placed on using still images and artifacts that can be scanned from each student's life that will match the themes developed in their identity poetry.   Moving images will be allowed but not emphasized or encouraged.   There is an art to making a still image move through transition, juxtaposition, and relationship to the content.   This project will emphasize this skill.

NETS Standards Addressed:

#1: Identify capabilities and limitations of contemporary and emerging technology resources

#5: Use technology tools and resources for managing and communicating personal/professional information

Procedures/Activities:

•  Teacher introduction of television and computer screen aspect ratio dimensions.   Define a pixel as the smallest image or dot on a computer or television screen.   Explain how all electronic pictures are composed of these individual coordinate dots or pixels like coordinates on a graph.   The assemblage of pixels creates a recognizable image to the human eye.   All TV screens have a dimension ratio of 640 pixels width to 480 pixels height.   This breaks down to a ratio of 12 x 9--12 inches by 9 inches or any increment that matches this ratio.   This ratio is called the Aspect Ratio .   Film Aspect Ratio in a theatre is much wider.   It is actually 16 x 9.   Ultimately this is the ratio that television will adopt in the near future when all signals become digital.   As a transition to this new TV system we often use black boxing or Letter Boxing a television screen to accommodate the wider picture used on DVD videos we screen at home. Because iMovie is creating an image for the old style or current television screen it needs to have all images sized as close to the 640 x 480 (12 x 9) pixel ratio as possible.   Therefore any image captured from the scanner   or   other sources like the internet must be resized to this dimension in order to best fill the iMovie screen.   We use Photoshop Elements to accomplish this task.

•  Pass out the Downloading and Importing information sheet to all students and then demonstrate with the video projector finding, saving, resizing, and importing images into iMovie.  

•  After answering all group questions and re-demonstrating with the video projector set students off to collect, scan, resize, and import their own images.  

•  Circulate through the room to answer questions and give individual attention.

•  Day 4 will review skills and iMovie fundamentals with guided instruction using student images and artifacts.  

Materials:

Handout sheet Instructions for Downloading Images from the Internet and Importing in iMovie

Assessment:

            Circulate the room to troubleshoot student problems and verify on task behavior

Lesson Plan

Project:   Coal black Voices: Finding the Student Voice

Day 5-10:   Production in iMovie

Instructional Goal :

Refine proficiency with the iMovie video editing software on iMac computers and review proficiency skills on Photoshop Elements

Day 3 & 4 Objective:

Apply the production knowledge gained in iMovie to create video poems based on the English Assignment.

NETS Standards Addressed:

#1: Identify capabilities and limitations of contemporary and emerging technology resources

#5: Use technology tools and resources for managing and communicating personal/professional information

Procedures/Activities:

•  These days will be dominated by individual student production work.

•  Teacher should constantly monitor room and assist students in solving production problems if and when they arise.

Assessment:   Apply production rubric for iMovie in evaluating each student product.

Culminating Event:   Set aside an after school screening for students, parents, and families so students can exhibit their work in a public way.   This form of presentation adds to student incentive to produce a quality project.

Hand Outs

Instructions for Downloading Images from the Internet and Importing in iMovie (PDF)

iMovie Desktop with Pallets (PDF)