(Black Pride)
I.
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1. Read Yolanda Zealy’s
A Prayer
.
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2. How many lines are there?
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3. In the 2nd line she uses a metaphor to describe her skin. Write it here ___.
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4. What 2 words describe her hair?
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5. What 2 words describe her lips?
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6. Write the last line here.
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7. What is the author thanking God for?
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8. Why do you think this wasn’t written in 1920?
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9. Next, play a musical selection from
Man & His Music: Africa
, a keyboard publication.
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10. When it is finished, ask the students to list the colors it sounded like. Then the animal it was.
-
____
____
List words describing how this animal feels to touch.
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11. Fill in the blanks:
____
I am a
color animal
.
____
I live in a ___
____
and eat ___.
____
I am a
color animal
.
____
I play like a (the)
(adjective)
___
____
and eat as ___as a ___ .
____
I am a
color animal
.
II
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1. Read Claude McKay’s
If We Most Die
.
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2. What was happening in the Army in the 1930’s and 40’s?
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3. The fifth line says we must die
how
?
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4. Who is ‘We’?
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5. In line 3 how is the man described?
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6. Does the author like the white man?
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7. In line 7 and 13 what words describe the white man?
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8. Why does this poem belong in the 1st era?
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9. Now, rewrite the poem. Drop ‘not’ from line one.
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10. Write the opposite of how the author feels. Change the word ‘nobly’ in line 5.
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11. Change the word ‘monsters’ in line 7.
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12. Change the word ‘brave’ in line 10.
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13. Change the 13th line to positive descriptions.
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14. Add the word ‘not’ in front of the word fighting.
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15. Discuss with your students how the entire meaning of the poems changes with the new words.
____
Compare with
A Prayer
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16. Both authors are proud of their blackness.
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17. How does the mood differ from
If we must die
?
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18. In ‘A Prayer’ how do we know the author isn’t fighting for her blackness?
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19. What are the first words of line 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13?
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20. These words tell us she is asking to be black and doesn’t have to fight because she is black as in
If we must
d
ie
.
III.
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1. Read
Me, Colored
by Peter Abrahams
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2. Only read the poem on the left hand side of the page.
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3. What are the 3 kinds of people?
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4. Who comes first?
-
____
comes second?
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____
comes third?
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5. What does the author say he is?
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6. This means he comes ___.
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7. The 6th line tells us what the boy he met was. What was he? ___
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8. Is Zulu a color?
Activity
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1. Read the poem on the right side of the page.
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2. Read lines 26 & 27. Did Joseph believe there were black kings before the white man?
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3. Who is ‘I’ in the poem? A man, A boy, A dog?
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4. Did Aunt Liza think there were colored kinds before the white man. (Read the last 10 lines)
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5. What does Aunt Liza do that tells us she wasn’t taking him seriously?
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6. Was Joseph proud of his color?
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7. Was Aunt Liza proud of her color?
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8. Do you think the author will be?
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9. Change the last 2 lines of the poem with a different answer so we know that Aunt Liza is proud of her culture. For example. ___ing
and
___ ing
Aunt Liza said:
__________
__________