Students will begin this hour by digitally sharing with TodaysMeet.com (and collaboratively answering) their self-generated questions about "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall." (I compiled the list of questions that students shared with me in a document in the Resources section.) During this discussion time, I will make sure all students are participating and sharing their questions and answers (based in textual evidence) with the group. My role will be primarily as a facilitator, as students have spent most of the year learning the Common Core skills needed to take charge and lead a text-based conversation. Where necessary, I will represent an opposition to ideas that are unanimously accepted without probing in order to further stimulate discussion. Outside of the questions that they generate during this time, I will make sure that we discuss the following questions as well:
Next, we are going to switch gears a bit and look at another movement within Modernism, the Harlem Renaissance. Since the last text was SO heavy for many students, I always try to work in some less-traumatic reading material afterwards! We will begin by recalling what students know about the Harlem Renaissance, which we took notes on earlier in the unit. Students typically only recall that it happened in New York and had to do with Civil rights, so to get more information, we will watch only the first 5:54 minutes of the following John Green video: Langston Hughes & the Harlem Renaissance: Crash Course 215.
After watching the clip, we will explore "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" and "Harlem" by Langston Hughes. This activity will be a model for small group activities, so all students will be involved in this process to better complete their group work. We will follow the process below to evaluate this poem:
After we analyze these poems as a group (and I write down the collective answers and ideas on a document I'm projecting of our work), we will view the remaining portion of the John Green video above. He reviews the same poems we completed as a class here, so this will help "check" our work and add additional insight to our discussion.
Next, students will work in small groups (assigned by their seating charts to save time!) to analyze their own assigned poem using the same format we used as a group. More than one group will analyze each poem so that there will be a better chance for collaboration and discussion about the poem during presentations at the end of the hour. The poems to be analyzed are:
After students work with their groups to answer their poem's questions, groups will email me a copy of their group responses. (I have organized this in an attached document in the Resources section.) Once all student groups have finished, they will read their poem and explain it to their peers using their question outlines. If any groups miss details, I will look to other groups who were assigned the same poem to help them with the question at hand. I will also post other students' project in one consolidated document so that all students have access to these analyses for our next assessment.
Before students leave, I will assign them homework to complete for the next class period. They will need to read two more poems, "Grass" by Carl Sandburg and "Out, Out--" by Robert Frost. While reading, they will need to consider (and come to class prepared to discuss) the questions below.
We will review these insights next class period.
Before next class period, I will consolidate and post the Harlem Renaissance poetry analyses. I'm also still working on grading research papers, so their grades for today will be assigned primarily by in-class presentations. If I need clarification on group answers, I will check their submission via email before assigning a grade.