copyright 2000, Sirpa Grierson
copyright 2000, Sirpa Grierson
Author Information
Background Information on Langston Hughes
http://www.poets.org/poets
This site provides background information on Langston Hughes in order to set the context of his poetry by explaining events in his life.
“A Brief History of the Blues”
http://thebluehighway.com/history.html
This site gives a history of how Blues came about. It is useful in connecting students to the rhythm of Langston Hughes’s poetry.
“Jazz, The First Thirty Years”
http://www.jass.com/jazzo.html
This site gives a history of how Jazz came about. Jazz is also reflected in Langston Hughes’s poetry, and therefore this could help students understand why Hughes uses Jazz in his poetry.
“Harlem” Listening Activity
http://www.artsedge.kennedy-center.org/exploring/harlem/classroom/activity1_text.html
In this activity students listen to the poem “Harlem” to try to get a feel for what Harlem was like during the Harlem Renaissance. By doing this, students will be able to get a better idea of the area Hughes was living in.
Interactive Map of Harlem
http://www.artsedge.kennedy-center.org/exploring/harlem/placesmain_text.html
During class or at home students can look at a map of the Harlem area. When they click on certain links a photo and a more detailed description of the place appears. This site allows students to get a more detailed picture of Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance.
The People of Harlem
http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Harlem/
http://www.artsedge.kennedy-center.org/exploring/harlem/facesmain_text.html
These two sites both provide interactive ways of learning about all of the people in Harlem. They provide photographs of all of the different artists or other key people. These sites provide historical context about the time period that Langston Hughes was writing in.
Musical Entertainers Activity
http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/harlem/harlemsg5.html
This activity allows students to explore the Musical Entertainers of the Harlem Renaissance. They must do some research on a Musical Entertainer and then they must dress up and give an oral report as one of the entertainers.
Art in the Harlem Renaissance
http://www.iniva.org/harlem/intro.html
This site has many paintings, pictures, etc. that were produced during the Harlem Renaissance. This could be applied to the poetry of Langston Hughes in comparing the art with his writing.
Vocabulary-Poetic Devices
http://www.mca.k12.nf.ca/subpro3.htm
This is just one of many sites that could be used to collect poetry vocabulary. A basic understanding of poetic devices is needed for any unit on poetry.
Writing Poetry Assignment
http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/printlessons.cgi/Virtual/Lessons/Language_Arts/Writing/WCP0018.html
This activity allows students to start thinking about how emotions play into poetry. Langston Hughes and all poets utilize emotions in their poetry and this activity will help students understand the importance of emotion in poetry.
Poetry Image Map
http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/langhu/langhutg.html
For this activity students will read or listen to 5-6 poems by Langston Hughes. They will choose one poem and complete the image map.
Venn Diagram Activity
http://teacherlink.ed.usu.edu/tlresources/units/Byrnes-famous/hughes.html
This activity allows students to compare and contrast Hughes’s poetry with the Blues. This will help show students how closely related Hughes’s poetry is to the blues.
Journal Entries
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=405#LESSON7
These journal entry prompts use different poems to prompt students thinking about poetry and themselves in relation to Hughes’s poetry.
Connecting Music to Poetry
http://musicweb.rutgers.edu/vrme/articles3/ioffredo/
In this activity students put music to the poetry of Langston Hughes. Students will get a feel of how a poem is like a song and also the rhythm Hughes uses in his poetry.
“Writing the Blues”
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/8405/blues.html
In this activity students write their own blues in relation to their own life. In doing this they also learn the characteristics of blues writing and they use techniques Hughes uses in his poetry.
Readings of Langston Hughes http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/04/22/specials/hughes.html
This site has recordings of Langston Hughes reading his poetry. It would be fun for students to hear the poet reading his own poetry so they get an idea of how the poet intended the poem to be read.
Poetry Reading Activity
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?ID=261
From this website in the Group 3 activity students learn how to perform a poem. It has the students perform “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and then write a poem about where they come from.
“Today in History: February 1”
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/today/feb01.html
This could be a fun article to read with students especially if the unit was done in February. February 1st is Langston Hughes’s birthday. The site also mentions Hughes’s contributions to American literature.
“On ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’” http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/hughes/hughes.htm
This site has commentary on many poems by Langston Hughes, which would be interesting to
study along with his poems. The particular articles I printed are only on “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” but there are articles on a lot of his poems.
Audio of Langston Hughes’s short stories or excerpts http://town.hall.org/Archives/radio/IMS/HarperAudio/052694_harp_ITH.html
This is a collection of excerpts by Langston Hughes read aloud by a professional reader. It would be interesting to compare these excerpts to his poetry.
Writing Assignment
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=405#LESSON7
This assignment has students write a poem that expresses their personal voice. This concluding assignment has students incorporate the techniques Langston Hughes used in his poetry, and apply these techniques to their own lives.
“The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=19260623&s=19260623hughes
This is an article that Langston Hughes wrote. It would connect to the idea of inequality and civil rights. It would be interesting to look for this theme throughout Hughes’s poetry.
“Waste Land of Harlem”
http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/04/22/specials/hughes-montage.html
This article is a commentary on Langston Hughes’s Montage of a Dream Deferred and would an interesting resource since the article itself was written during the time period. Students could see how Langston Hughes’s poetry influenced the public and what the public thought of his work.
Whitman/Hughes Activity
http://www.glc.k12.ga.us/BuilderV03/LPTools/LPShared/lpdisplay.asp?LPID=26940
In this activity students will compare Whitman’s poem “I Hear America Singing” with Hughes’s poem “I, Too, Sing America.” This is a great activity that really plays into the idea of inequality and civil rights.
“I Have a Dream”
http://www.mecca.org/~crights/dream.html
Using a copy of Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech compare Hughes’s poems about dreams and talk about dreams and ideals and the American Dream.
Ralph Ellison
http://fajardo-acosta.com/worldlit/ellison/
This site discusses how Langston Hughes’s influence on Ralph Ellison, and how Hughes helped inspire Ellison’s Invisible Man. It could be used as a preface to a unit on Ellison.
“Documenting the American South”
http://docsouth.unc.edu/
This site has background information on the African-American south. This could connect back to Langston Hughes by comparing the south with the north. It is also a useful source for slave narratives, which could be compared with Hughes’s poetry.
”Strivings of the Negro People”
http://eserver.org/race/strivings.html
W. E. B. Du Bois’s article and philosophies could be applied to Langston Hughes and also to the idea of Civil Rights.
A Raisin in the Sun
http://www.classzone.com/novelguides/litcons/raisin/related.cfm
Use Langston Hughes’s poem that begins the novel, and the idea of dreams to begin reading A Raisin in the Sun.
“The American Dream”
http://www.uni-ulm.de/schulen/gym/sgu/gatsb/6. htm
This article discusses the American Dream in relation to Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. Hughes’s ideas of dreams and the American dream could lead into a study of The Great Gatsby.
Novels
Information compiled by Elizabeth Thackeray