Sandra K. Friday
A natural place to begin this adventure into the mystery of how voices express attitudes and feelings is in the 'hood with a few poems by Tupac Shakur from the posthumously published book and CD,
The Rose That Grew from Concrete
. Students will read poems in Tupac's handwriting, and listen to the voices reading these poems on the CD: "Sometimes I Cry," and "Please Wake Me When I Am Free." They will read these poems out loud, experimenting with the voice of the person in the poem. We will brainstorm about how the person whose voice we hear feels, and then specifically what his/her life is like to make him/her feel that way. Hearing the voices on the CD and hearing students experiment with the voices should help with these activities. "Sometimes I Cry," composed, for the most part, of rhyming couplets, opens and closes with feelings of loneliness:
Sometimes when I'm alone
I cry because I'm on my own
The world moves fast and it would rather pass u by
Than 2 stop and c what makes u cry
It's painful and sad and sometimes I cry
And no one cares about why (Shakur, 7).
After hearing this poem read aloud and reading it aloud themselves, students will make observations as to how the speaker feels, while a student records them on the board or on a transparency on the overhead projector. Then, next to each feeling, students will identify the line or couplet in the poem that led them to this observation. They will speculate on what the speaker's life is like that causes him/her to give voice to these feelings. And dealing specifically with the text, they might answer what it means to be "on my own." I will ask them to give some examples of what the narrator means by, "The world moves fast." Or why does he/she think "it would rather pass u by?" Another question that challenges students to make connections (which is one of the CAPT questions) is, "Have you ever been on one end or the other of this situation: the one who feels alone and as if no one cares, or have you been the one who passes people by when they needed you to listen or to care, or have you been both?" Students might speculate on whether the speaker will ever get anyone to listen.
These last questions should create an opportunity for students to write about their own experiences on one end or the other, or both ends, of Tupac's topic. This is also an opportunity for students to write about fictional characters rather than themselves. In fact, a student might write a dialogue between the person who feels alone and is trying to make contact with the world and the person who is rushing by.
The second poem, "Please wake me when I'm free," by Tupac, also written in rhyming couplets, is about feeling culturally and intellectually imprisoned by a prejudiced society. It contrasts the pre-slavery period in Africa when kings reigned over men and women who were equals with the present nightmare of poverty and captivity by a culture that dismisses the significance of black men and women:
Please wake me when I'm free
I cannot bear captivity
Where my culture I'm told holds no significance
Please wake me when I'm free
I cannot bear captivity
4 I would rather be stricken blind
than 2 live without expression of mind ( Shakur, 15)
We will follow the same formula for this poem that we used for Tupac's first poem, listening to the poem on the CD, and reading it aloud ourselves, varying the voice to try to hear the full range of the feelings and attitudes. The students will answer the question, "What feelings do we hear from the speaker's voice as the poem continues to unfold, and what evidence is there for these feelings?" Students will consider the significance of the line that the speaker repeats, "I cannot bear captivity." To what kinds of captivity might he/she be referring? How is he/she choosing to deal with his/her captivity? The first poem was rather personal; is this one personal, political, cultural? Students will give reasons for their answers.
This would be a great place for students to try writing a poem or a piece of prose that expresses captivity by society or, for that matter, feelings of discrimination, calling on their own voices to express what
they
are feeling. For their own poem or prose, they will repeat
the brainstorming activity we did for Tupac's two poems: "How does the person in the piece you have written feel, and, specifically, what is his/her life like to make him/her feel this way?" I hope this might begin to raise my students' awareness of this rather profound question, "How does the way I feel make me sound?" This also will be the start of their portfolios, which may include, not only the pieces they write and select, but their observations and reflections on them.