Week 3 Black History Lesson Plans

COMMON CORE STANDARDS

NC.CC.9-10.SL. Speaking and Listening Standards

Students will

• Identify connections between an author's work and the sociohistorical context in which it was written
  
  
• Analyze a poem by Langston Hughes in its historical context
  
  
• Summarize in writing the connection between one poem's meaning and the sociohistorical context in which it was written
  
  
• Create an online visual representation of one poem's meaning supported by examples from research
  
  
• Orally present the poem and its relevant historical connections
  
  
• Compose an original poem that reflects a personal view on a current social issue
  

1.

Initiate a class discussion about how social context has a dramatic impact on one's goals and choices. (You might use the example of the many Americans who enlisted in the armed forces after September 11.) Ground this notion in students' lives by asking students to respond in writing to the following questions: How have world events influenced your actions and the way you communicate? What about the world grabs your attention and encourages you to speak out? How would you define passion? What are you passionate about? How are one's goals directed by one's passions? Can you think of examples of people who are passionate about what they do? Divide students into groups of two and ask them to share their responses. Ask students to brainstorm examples of how the times in which a writer lives can impact his or her writing.