5 Lesson Unit On “Caged Bird” And “Still I Rise” By Maya Angelou

5 Lesson Unit on “Caged Bird” and “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou

By Karen Kebarle For Mr. Street PED November 6, 2009

For Grade 12 College Prep and/or University Prep English

Goals:

By the end of the unit, students will:

--be able to identify symbols, imagery, similes, and metaphors --understand some principal effects these literary devices create in Angelou's poem --understand the appeal of ambiguity in poetry --gain tools to help them analyze poems on their own. --know some basic elements of Maya Angelou's biography --consider how, or if, Maya Angelou's biography helps understand the poems

--be able to name several purposes of poetry, including: expressing ideas. Emotions, experiences, states of mind, depicting oppression, affirming and celebrating a group of people or an event.

This unit uses a “gradual release of responsibility” approach, taken from the Balanced Literacy model. It moves from modeled reading and writing to independent reading and writing.

1 Lesson 1: Caged Bird I: symbol, imagery, metaphor, ambiguity

50 minutes

Materials: handout of poem handout with headings: Symbol, Imagery, Metaphor, Simile, Ambiguity. Students will fill in definitions in next 3 classes Powerpoint slides or overheads of various symbols: bird in a cage, etc.

Opening:

Show students a photo of a caged bird. What does the picture make you think of? Teacher writes down ideas on the blackboard as students provide them.

Body: Teacher and class work together to analyze and understand poem.

Teacher passes out poem, “Caged Bird.” Reads it to the class.

What is this poem about? What is the caged bird?

--literal or figurative imprisonment...

Teacher introduces concept of a Symbol. A concrete image that represents an abstract idea. Or: a concrete image that represents something else. (caged bird=unfree person)

Symbols suggest several different things at the same time.

Powerpoint slides of symbolic objects: a tree (life, the cycle of life), a rose (love, beauty, fragility, youth), rays of light (inspiration, hope) blue sky (...)

How do we know that this bird is a symbol of something rather than a real bird? What evidence is there in the poem itself? (bars of rage, grave of dreams etc.)

Modelling gathering evidence to prove a point: Teacher calls student to board, to be scribe for this part. Student writes down this question, and records several pieces of evidence students find.

Explanation: how this could become a paragraph.

How do we know when something's a symbol? Are the worms a symbol of something, for example, or are they just worms?

Question: why would a poet choose not to say what the caged bird represents? Why would he or she leave the meaning ambiguous?

What are some reasons that a poet might choose to use a symbol of the caged bird rather

2 than just writing about a person who is not free? What are the advantages of a symbol?

Teacher introduces imagery, pictures made with words that create an effect, a feeling, a meaning

Class goes over the first stanza: what the imagery and verb choice in the first stanza say about the free bird (leaps, floats, dares), (wind, water, sun)

How is “claims the sky” different? (Metaphor—one thing stands for something else)

Teacher introduces concept of metaphor, a special kind of imagery.

“bars of rage” and “grave of dreams” are also metaphoric. What do they suggest?

Break students into small groups to find and discuss the rest of the imagery about the free bird and caged bird

Class goes over what the imagery conveys.

Alliteration, use of sounds to create mood. What kind of mood does the poet create with “the trade winds soft through the sighing trees” versus “his wings are clipped and his feet are tied”?

Rhythm, Rhyme, Repetition: look at how these also add to the poem's effects.

Close: Question revisited: what could the caged bird symbolize? (and what is the poem about) --(eg: literal imprisonment? Imprisonment by past memories? By racism?) Students vote.

Homework: students write half a page on what they think the cb symbolizes and why. Due next class.

3 Lesson 2: Caged Bird II: Meaning and Ambiguity

50 minutes.

Opening: Play class a video of Maya Angelou reading the poem.

Body: deeper into “Caged Bird” and poem analysis

Students read out loud their ideas of what CB symbolizes

Play brief video biography of Maya Angelou: raised in poverty, African American woman, victim of child sexual abuse. Author of autobiography, “I know Why the Caged Bird Sings”

Question: What difference does it make knowing a little bit about the author? (eg, gender, race, nationality, historical and cultural context)

COULD give us clues to what the poem means

Small Group Work:

Students get into groups and discuss what MA leaves out. Why does she leave out any mention of race, class, gender, nationality, historical and cultural context?

Class reunites, discusses.

Close: Maybe Angelou meant the poem to be ambiguous.

To a victim of school bullying, etc., the poem could be about his/her life. Person in Chechnya, also. Tibetan political prisoners. Etc.

Power of poetry: speaking to different experiences. Ambiguity of symbols, metaphors, imagery allows poem to mean several things at once and have layers of meaning.

M.Angelou may have wanted the poem to speak to many different kinds of people.

Homework: Students given “Still I Rise.” Must read for next class.

4 Lesson 3: “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou

50 minutes

Materials: question sheets about “Still I Rise”

Opening: Play video of Maya Angelou reading the poem --which poem do you like better, “Caged Bird” or “Still I Rise,” and why?

Body: Overall Impressions of Poem:

How is this poem different

--meaning much more specific -clearly, specifically about racial oppression. How do we know?

--Teacher briefly reviews the basic context for the poem, the history of slavery, emancipation, and racial oppression in the USA.

-”Still I Rise” has much more energy, is more dynamic, positive, affirming --Teacher gives example of an energetic metaphors, imagery, and similes (and therefore reviews terms). Explains simile: a comparison using “like” or “as.”

--clear narrator, (already in title), clear implied audience

Divide students into 6 groups. Students to analyze poem, esp. what effects poem achieves and how it achieves them. Each group assigned two questions; two groups will be doing each set.

Question Sheet:

1) Who do you think is the “you” in the poem? Who is the “I”? 2) Write down all the similes and images about nature. When we put them all together, what do they suggest? Why do you think the narrator compares herself to moons, suns, the tide, etc? Eg: “Just like moons and like suns”

3)Write down the three parts about oil wells, gold mines, and diamonds. What do you think this imagery is saying about the narrator? 4)What might the narrator mean by this metaphor: “I am the dream and the hope of the slave.” Does she mean she IS actually a slave?

5 5)Why do you think the narrator repeats “I rise” so many times? 6)Why does the narrator leave behind the night and rise into the daybreak? What do night and daybreak symbolize here?

Class reunites, goes through questions.

Close: We have discovered that “Still I Rise” uses imagery, similes, metaphor, to create the idea of the narrator as an unstoppable natural force, to make her triumph clearly positive, and to emphasize her intrinsic value (gold mines, oil wells, diamonds). The poem's specific imagery makes its meaning much less ambiguous than “Caged Bird”: it is about the narrator's triumph over racial—and sexual—oppression.

Homework: Students write one paragraph that compares one aspect of “Caged Bird” and “Still I Rise.”

Assignment sheet gives suggestions, such as:

The mood (and how it is created, by choice of imagery etc.) The use of a narrator and an audience in SIR versus CB

6 Lesson 4: Writing about the Poems I: Poem Comparison

Opening: Box of Mysteries! (review game)

Teacher brings box decorated with question marks. Inside are phrases from the poem. Students are divided into two teams. They pick one card with a phrase or symbolic picture; their team gets one point if they identify the correct literary device, eg: symbol, metaphor, imagery, alliteration… and another point if they say one thing the phrase or picture symbolizes or could mean or suggest. If one team can’t answer, the other team gets to try

Example of phrases, pictures to put on cards in the box:

Free bird Caged bird Grave of dreams Bars of rage Just like moons Just like suns I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide A light Water Blue sky “trade winds soft through the sighing trees” “You may shoot me/you may cut me/you may kill me”

Body: Discussion: the purposes of poetry

Are the purposes of the two poems different? What are they? --expression of emotions, states of mind --expression of a common human experience in CB, creation of empathy in reader Political poetry: targeting a specific issue --depicting, or bearing witness to oppression, --affirming, declaring, triumph over oppression

Essay Assignment: Teacher hands out essay assignment

Class discusses topics, discussion functions as a summary of major themes that have been covered.

Students pick one topic. They will work on outline in this class and begin writing next class.

Teacher shows students on board how to do an outline for an essay. Due next class: an outline of their topic, with main points plus examples.

7 Essay on the Poetry of Maya Angelou

3-5 pages

Due in two weeks

Topics:

“What, in your opinion, does the caged bird symbolize? Use evidence from the poem to support your answer.”

“Still I Rise” is a poem about African American triumph over white oppression. How does Angelou’s choice of imagery, simile, and metaphor, create a message of affirmation that is powerful yet not frightening?

Who is “you” in “Still I Rise”? How do we know?

“What role does the free bird play in “Caged Bird””?

“How do we know the caged bird is a symbolic bird?”

“How does knowing that Maya Angelou is an African American woman born in the 20th century affect our understanding of “Caged Bird” and/or “Still I Rise”?

“Maya Angelou uses imagery, metaphor and simile to make the narrator of “Still I Rise” a positive role model for African American women. Discuss using examples.”

“Which poem do you prefer? And why? Draw on specific images, metaphors, similes, or symbols in your answer.”

8 Lesson 5: Essay Writing

Opening: Teacher reads some of the more exemplary paragraphs that were homework from Lesson 3; hands back paragraphs

Body: Teacher presents a rubric for the essay, which includes a requirement to use specific evidence from the poems.

Teacher shows students a model of an essay that fulfills the requirements of the rubric on a similar topic, but not on one of the topics handed out (preferably written by a previous student)

Teacher reviews essay form using the rubric: introduction with thesis that makes an argument, paragraphs with supporting points and evidence from the poem, conclusion that summarizes.

Students work on essay quietly. Teacher circulates and helps.

(This is not the first essay of the semester…students have done a unit on essay writing)

Hand in: Outline. Teachers will return with suggestions.