Analyzing Poetry: Imagery & Emotions Transcript

[00:00:00;00] - [00:14:03;14]

Debora Gaten (in class): Good morning.

Students: Good morning Dr. Gaten.

Debora Gaten (in class): Today, we are going to talk about what happens to a dream deferred --- we're going to actually analyze the poetry of Langston Hughes.

Debora Gaten: Today's lesson was about students comparing and contrasting two poems written by Langston Hughes. both poems dealt with the same subject matter and that's dreams. They were to look for imagery using figurative language and talk about their emotions.

Debora Gaten (in class): Our objectives --- we're going to compare and contrast two poems by determining the meaning and the phrases as they are used in text. We're also going to write an opinion about which poem best uses imagery to convey its message and we're gonna represent it by illustrating it.

Debora Gaten: I teach 5th grade gifted education students at an optional school.

Debora Gaten (in class): I want you to take from your packet - there are two poems, one is...

Debora Gaten: The lesson is part of a larger unit about the Harlem Renaissance. This was actually in the middle of the lesson. They already had a working knowledge of what the Harlem Renaissance was about and the theme of the Harlem Renaissance. We want to introduce them to the rich text, to the poems, to the artwork and we want them to analyze poetry because that was strong part of the Harlem Renaissance.

[00:01:41;28]

Debora Gaten (in class): I want you to read Dreams to yourself. I want you to just read it in your mind and then we're gonna read it aloud.

Debora Gaten: I wanted my students to be able to analyze text. I wanted them to compare and contrast and state their opinion about which poem best conveys imagery.

Debora Gaten (in class): Okay, let's read it aloud.

Students: Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams for when dreams go, life is bare field frozen with snow.

Debora Gaten (in class): Let's look at this because we're gonna go line by line and we're gonna try to analyze this poem.

Debora Gaten: If teachers are teaching poetry, they need to have the students analyze the poem line by line. Look at things like the figurative language, the similes and the metaphors and personification and then have them write about it.

Debora Gaten (in class): Did anyone see personification in there at all? Can you physically hold a dream?

Student: It's a figure of speech.

Debora Gaten (in class): Very good and that's what we're doing. Ok, Darryl?

Student: I think what Langston Hughes meant by, "hold fast to dreams," is --- if you hold fast to dreams, you can remember them and they if you don't remember them and you just forget them --- then life is basically a barren field and there's nothing in it.

Debora Gaten (in class): Very good. Let's do this line by line. I want you to go through this poem if you see imagery in the first line, put "one," the line number...

[00:03:25;14]

Debora Gaten: We numbered the lines of the poem so they could go line by line and we used the graphic organizer. This graphic organizer's called the imagery think sheet, it has a column that has line number and they wrote what is it that they saw when reading those lines. And then, the emotions that they felt when actually reading that line.

St; Or you could say, "don't rethink your dreams.

Student: You could see someone holding a book with their dream inside.

Student: The broken-wing bird. When it's wings are broken, then eventually it will die and you think about life, we have life. But eventually, we will all die. I think he was trying to say that, if you like letting go of something, just let it go. Give up.

Student: You don't have to really give up on dreams, you can just hold them tight.

Debora Gaten: My students have never just line by line analyzed a poem. I was pleasantly surprised with how well they did it --- with how they could take the metaphors and the similes from someone like Langston Hughes and actually build on that imagery.

Debora Gaten (in class): "Holdfast to dreams for when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen with snow." When you think of a barren field, what do you think of?

Student: When ice falls on trees, you know how they bend over and lay down? Well, that kinda make me feel like depressed and full of anxiety because the burden of that dream --- you can't get it back. You're trying to keep on pushing up but the burden is too heavy.

Debora Gaten: After we read and analyzed Dreams, we looked at Harlem, A Dream Deferred.

Students: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun or fester like a sore and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load or does it explode?"

Debora Gaten (in class): Okay, very good. In a group, I want you to look at personification.

[00:05:52;01]

Debora Gaten: They analyzed the poem line by line and my students did a group discussion before actually writing anything on their graphic organizer.

Student: Now you feel relieved because you...

Student: You feel like you played your own game.

Student: I disagree. I say you feel relieved because the dream is aching and you want it to go away and it does, it goes away.

Student: I disagree but you should put --- you should put frustrated and relieved.

Debora Gaten: No one got upset cause we know that we can disagree without being disagreeable. That's part of our strategy for working in groups. Part of our group dynamics. We know that everyone has an opinion, you do not have to agree with their opinion but you do have to respect that person for their opinion.

Student: I think that what they mean by line 6 is --- you've grown up and the dream has just been sitting their like a rottening and now it stinks. It's not really that you’ve forgotten about it, it's just that you've left it sitting their for a long time.

Debora Gaten: After my students complete the analysis of the two poems, we actually do a quick write.

Debora Gaten (in class): You have now read two poems about dreams, you're gonna complete a quick write about which of the two poems best uses imagery to convey its message. Be sure to use examples from both poems to support your opinion. So, I want you to look at the similes, the metaphors, think of the figurative language surrounding this and you have...

Debora Gaten: A quick write is something --- maybe 5 to 7 minutes -- if that long. It's just something really short that they're putting their thoughts on paper instead of just actually talking. They're stating their opinion and they're backing it up with facts from the poems.

Student: If you think about the Harlem Renaissance, and now he was talking about that one day that we will all be able to do our jobs and pursue our dreams free.

Debora Gaten (in class): That is great and you've explained it, you've backed it up. Thank you, Brea.

[00:08:04;19]

Student: I think A Dream Deferred had more similes than Dream Variations because, on every other line it said "like" or "as" which, of course, we all know is what a simile needs to be a simile.

Debora Gaten: They were able to see the similarities and differences in the two poems using that figurative language so that was something great that came out and they were actually able to put that in their writing.

Debora Gaten (in class): We're gonna do the creative problem-solving and we know...

Debora Gaten: The next activity we did was to create a problem-solving where students are given a prompt -- something hypothetical and, in this particular instance, they were commissioned by the Schomberg museum in New York to illustrate one of the poems.

Debora Gaten (in class): You've read the poems, we've analyzed the poems, now you get an opportunity to illustrate the poem ---

Debora Gaten: When we're doing creative problem solving, we use this graphic organizer. It has four parts: the think part, where they are brainstorming, the evaluation part where they are actually assigning points to items that they brainstormed, then they decide which two best illustrate their best idea and then they act upon it. They actually create it.

Debora Gaten (in class): We're going to brainstorm for three different ideas. How can you illustrate this poem?

Student: It can be like a dream. It could be like...

Student: Pictures to represent.

St; These are metaphors.

Student: It could be birds.

Student: The girl in the picture, she had one of those dreams.

Debora Gaten: Once the brainstorming is complete, students evaluate what they brainstormed.

Debora Gaten (in class): You're gonna look and you're going to evaluate your ideas. Whether it's unique. Does it convey the message? Can it be illustrated within the time allotted.

[00:09:58;26]

Debora Gaten: They had to answer "probably not, maybe, yes, absolutely," and they give it points. After they add the numbers, the one that has the highest score is the one that they decide on and they create their own collage.

Student: This is mad. This can be mad.

Debora Gaten: We had already looked at Ramira Beardon's technique of collage. He was one of the artists during the Harlem Renaissance so we thought that that would be a good technique for them to illustrate their poem.

Student: She looks sad. She gonna be sad.

Student: She got mixed emotions. They just happen everywhere!

Student: You serious?

Debora Gaten: The students completed the collage in their groups. They had to work within a certain timeframe, so a lot of them did not finish but they presented what they had.

Debora Gaten (in class): Okay, you're on, Brea. I want you all to pay attention to her and you're gonna give her feedback as to whether that art piece illustrates the poem. Okay?

Students: We are the young, black and gifted dreamers. Our picture represents a woman who is shining shoes and she doesn't really like her job, so...

Debora Gaten: Different groups got up together because all of them have to participate, even if they're just standing there in support of their team. And the other students were able to critique.

Student: May I please ask why you -- it looks like that's a face and that's dreads --- why did you turn it like that?

Student: Because we felt they were mixed emotions.

Student: This right here represents a girl in a barren field and this is the sky. She is troubled and she has forgot her dream. And she needs to remember her dream or else life will end up like her, in a barren field.

[00:12:00;09]

Student: I think y'all coulda put some snow in the blank spaces beside her.

Debora Gaten (in class): All right, thank you.

Debora Gaten: We want to make sure that every lesson is challenging. After the presentations, we had students give us feedback on the lesson to see if they're actually challenging.

Debora Gaten (in class): What part of this lesson was a dream for you?

Student: The quick write because we got to write down the thoughts that we felt about the poems.

Debora Gaten: Students also do self-assessments because it helps them in the next lesson.

Debora Gaten (in class): What can you do to become a better teammate?

Student: I could have said my ideas more and speak up.

Student: I think I could be a little more focused.

Debora Gaten: After this lesson, students would actually write their own dream poems and illustrate them. They don't necessarily have to go the same depth as Langston Hughes did, they can look at their own dreams and compose poems from that perspective.

Debora Gaten (in class): I hope you all enjoyed this lesson as much as I did. I think you all did a phenomenal job.

Debora Gaten: I think it's important for students to have some sort of artistic representation of what they're doing. I think it helps them to learn because they're reading about it, they're writing about it and then they're actually creating something. That just helps them to own it and to learn about it and they're gonna know about it and remember it.

Debora Gaten (in class): Thank you all very much.

[00:14:03;14]

END