MASARYK UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Department of English Language and Literature

Discovering African American Culture through African American Literature

Thesis

Brno 2005

Supervisor:

Written by:

PhDr. Irena Pibylov, Ph. D.

Magdalna Hjkov

Acknowledgements I would like to thank all the teachers of the English Department at the Faculty of Education who have influenced my opinions about foreign language teaching and teaching itself.

My grateful thanks belong to PhDr. Irena Pibylov, Ph.D. for her kind help, comments, and valuable advice that she provided me throughout the thesis as my supervisor.

Declaration: I hereby declare that I worked on the thesis on my own and that I used only the sources mentioned in the bibliography.

I agree with this diploma thesis being deposited in the Library of the Faculty of Eduaction at the Masaryk University and with its being made available for academic purposes.

...............................................

CONTENT
Content ... 4 1 Introduction .... 5 2 African American English . 8 2.1 The origin of AAE .. . 9 2.2 The status of AAE 10 2.3 The lingustic features of AAE 10 2.3.1 Speech events in AAE .. 11 3 History of African American literature .. 12 3.1 Time chart ... 12 3.2 Harlem Rennaisance ... 18 3.2.1 Young generation . 19 3.2.2 Inspiration in the South 19 3.2.3 Inspiration in music .. 20 3.2.4 More representatives ... 21 3.3 Literature after 1970 ................................................................................ 21 3.3.1 The inner diversity and problems of African American community ................................................................................ 22 3.3.2 The search for identity .............................................................. 22 4 African American writers and their selected works ....................................... 24 4.1 Langston Hughes ....................................................................................... 25 4.2 Martin Luther King, Jr. ............................................................................. 30 4.3 Amiri Baraka ............................................................................................. 31 4.4 June Jordan ................................................................................................ 37 4.5 Toni Morrison ........................................................................................... 43 4.6 Yusef Komunyakaa ................................................................................... 47 4.7 Walter Mosley .......................................................................................... 54 4.8 Gloria Naylor ............................................................................................ 60 4.9 Rita Dove .................................................................................................. 66 4.10 Introduction to poetry ............................................................................. 72 5 Questionnaire ...................................................................................................... 74 5.1 Questionnaire form ................................................................................... 74 5.2 Commentary ............................................................................................. 75 6 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 78 Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 81 Appendix ................................................................................................................. 86

1 INTRODUCTION
African American authors and artists present an important part of American culture and literature. Their work and contribution to culture in general was being rejected and overviewed for a long time. On account of the former slavery and racial segregation, they were regarded as inferior and so were their thoughts and works. This has been already in process of change, but works of African American authors can be found only in the anthologies of American literature published after 1990; except for the most famous publications. Literature written in English offers a wide range of books and authors. I decided to focus on contemporary literature, for I find it topical and interesting, and for it is usually less presented and even less discussed in Czech schools. I chose African American literature, because of three main reasons. Firstly, I personnaly like it. Secondly, African Americans underwent an immense social change in history and they are likely to reflect this in the literature. Books written by African Americans provide a special kind of experience that cannot be granted by literature in Europe or in other continents. Finally, in a few past years, there has been the rise in popularity of black actors (Will Smith, Hale Berry), black singers (Beyoncee, Jay-Z), and black music and culture in general (rap, hip hop, r&b). This contemporary middle-stream pop industry has its largest consumers in adolescents. The young are naturally interested in these celebrities- their idols lives. As most of the contemporary black artists come from the U. S., this pop industry could bridge over the gap that may be perceived between Czech students and texts by African American writers

As I passed courses of literature at the university, I created an idea of how to work with literature in my future work as a teacher. During the teaching practice I found out with a regret that in English classes there was usually very little space contributed to literature in general, the contemporary one was presented rarely. As a result, the present work is aimed to be used during summer schools, optional courses of reading, or in extra lessons for interested students. On the other hand, with the Educational Framework Programme comming, the content of the thesis can be incorpored into a School Educational Plan, if the focus of school alows it.

6 The objectives of the present work were therefore assigned as follows: To present selected texts by nine African American writers of the second half of the 20th century. To propose how the texts can be employed in English lessons in third and fourth years of Czech grammar schools. To put emphasis on the education towards tolerance and multiculturality.

The present project is created to serve as a guideline or an aid for teaching contemporary African American culture and literature; ideally in the third or fourth year in ELT (English Language Teaching) in Czech grammar schools. The aim is to provide students with texts, characters and stories, that will broaden their mind and provoke their thinking of various social and ethnic groups and minorities. Consecutive reflexion, discussion and argumentation are emphasised over the reading itself. The instrument, the literature, should encourage students to see and feel the reality from many different angles. The present work is designed to serve as an instrument in contemporary educational trend education towards tolerance and multiculturality. All of the selected texts are set in the United States. Students will discuss enthusiastic essays about Negro identity at the beggining of the second half of the 20th century, study fates of unordinary black characters during the 1970s till they reach recent history with its wide range of themes, problems and emotions depicted in works by African Americans.

As the texts are primarily provided in English language, students are also supposed to widen their language skills, to acquire new vocabulary, and to observe stylistically or graphically marked texts and language structures.This developement in linguistic field is nevertheless not stressed as crucial one, in contrary, students language progress should be a natural accessory output of the literary and mental work.

The structure of the present work is divided into six main parts. The first chapter is an introduction. The second chapter deals with a chronological overview of African American literature. Attention is paid to possible links to synchronical events in the politics and public life of the United States of that time. The third chapter discusses and illustrates the role and status of African American English within the todays United

7 States. The fourth chapter is the main and the broadest part of the present work and deals with the texts of African American writers, their analysis and suggestions for their use in English lessons. The fifth separate chapter is dedicated to a questionnaire for secondary school students that was constructed and administrated in order to get an idea about the adolescents awareness of African American culture and literature and about their willingness to learn more. The last chapter concludes the achieved aims and comments the creation of the present work. Materials for furthter classroom use are included in the Appendix.

Texts by nine African American writers of the second half of the twentieth century will be introduced. Every text is presented in a unifying scheme: a brief presentation of the authors life and work, the text itself, and suggestions how to work with the material in lessons. Each text is provided on separate sheet of paper to facilitate possible future use in practice. The main focus is to work with texts to broaden students mind and ability to reflect, think over, and contemplate about various aspects hidden in selected works. In the consequence, not large attention is payed to the lives and life stories of authors. On the other hand, students will be always encouraged to find out more information if they need or desire to search for it for better understanding or widening the knowledge.

2 AFRICAN AMERICAN ENGLISH

This chapter introduces attitudes towards the origin and status of African American English (AAE). I chose Lisa J. Greens book African American English as a main reference book for the present part. Lisa J. Green is Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Texas, Austin. Her book is clearly organized and it is the first textbook to provide a full description of AAE as a system. Its features will occur in the selected works and students should be therefore familiar with the variety and ought not to confound it with slang. I find the best way to open this chapter is to provide an example of AAE together with its translation to Standard English. Here are opening lines of Alice Walkers The Color Purple (1982) with the following translation done by a class of June Jordans students in one of her courses in 1985.
You better not never tell nobody but God. Itd kill your mammy. Dear God, I am fourteen years old. I have always been a good girl. Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening to me. Last spring after Little Lucious come I heard them fussing. He was pulling on her arm. She say it too soon, Fonso. I aint well. Finally he leave her alone. A week go by, he pulling on her arm again. She say, Naw, I aint gonna. Cant you see Im already half dead, an all of the children.1

Absolutely, one should never confide in anybody besides God. Your secrets could prove devastating to your mother. Dear God, I am fourteen years old. I have always been good. But now, could you help me to understand what is happening to me? Last spring, after my little brother, Lucious, was born, I heard my parents fighting. My father kept pulling my mothers arm. But she told him, Its too soon for sex, Alfonso. I am still not feeling well. Finally, my father left her alone. A week went by, and then he began bothering my mother, again: Pulling her arm. She told him, No, I wont! Cant you see Im already exhausted from all of these children? (Our favourite line was Its too soon for sex, Alphonso.) 2

1 2

June Jordan. Nobody Mean More to Me than You (Unidentified source. 407.) June Jordan (Unidentified source. 408.)

2.1 Origin of African American English

Crucial and determining for making an appropriate attitude to AAE should be knowledge of its origin and evolution. Nevertheless, like in most cases, there is no universal explanation of the roots of AAE. Green provides in her work a clear overview of theories on the origin of AAE.1 One of the theories claims that the beginning of AAE is dated to the period where first African slaves were brought to America, when they were thrown into a place, people and language they did not know. In the need to understand and to be understood, they simplified and modified the language they heard, which was, of course, English. Another theory believes that the basis of AAE structurally comes out of West African languages and its similarity to English is only superficial. Other theory considers the basic role of African languages in structure and sound system in contemporary AAE, and asssumes pidgin2, Jamaican Creole3 and Gullah4 to be basic constituants of AAE. In general, the theories do not interfere as it could be perceived at the first sight. They only grade different components differently according to what they consider to be the most influential or constituing element. All the presented views are based on research data and to obtain them, researchers based the investigation on comparative data from different varieties of non standard English, pidgin, Caribbean Creole, woodoo texts and interviews with ex-slaves, as Green summarizes.5 On the other hand, it seems that the theories do not incorporate the data from African languages. They mention the relation of AAE with them, but one is not reassured that researchers investigated African languages in depth for there are extremely rare notes on concrete and particular words or sounds. Yet, as Green claims, an analysis of African languages should be done beforehand of any other analysis if a research dealing with the origins of AAE should be considered serious.

Lisa J. Green. African American English. ( Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002). 8-9. A form of speech that usually has a simplified grammar and a limited often mixed vocabulary, and is used principally for intergroup communication. (West African pidgin, e.g.) 3 Creole is a language resulting from the acquisition by a subordinate group of the dominant group, with phonological changes, simplified grammar and an admixture of the subordinate groups vocabulary, and serving as the mother tongue of its speakers. 4 The language of the Gullahs one of a group of negroes inhabiting the sea islands and coastal districts of Southern Carolina, Georgia, and a small part of Florida. 5 Green 8.
2

10

2.2 Status of AAE

The present status of AAE is also under investigation; approaches and attitudes vary and so does their justification. Although there are various theories that dispute whether AAE is slang, dialect, or language of its own, the most recent works tend to perceive AAE as a variety of English in which the slang plays an important role. Greens textbook is one of them. The exploration of linguistic aspects of AAE began in the 1960s. However, AAE was a subject in an inquiery for sociolinguistics and a few other external sciences. The pure linguistic studies were produced mostly from the 1980s. June Jordan was maybe the first one to design a university course on AAE (Black English) in 1985. A vivid discussion on AAE was raised by so called Oakland controversy.1 Nevertheless, the resulting idea of teaching AAE as a subject next to the mainstream school English did not find many supporters. Walter Mercer expresses one of the possible reasons for rejection. Regardless of the genuineness of the dialect, regardless of how remarkably it may add flavor and soul to a poem or song or novel, regarless of the solidarity it may lend to a political rally, I say, it is illogical, nonsensical, and harmful to teach an innocent black child that its quite all right to say I done gone to school.2

2.3 Linguistic features of AAE

Green underlines that AAE is governed by a system and should not be therefore presented as a list of separate items. She proves it by exploration of AAE in all linguistic levels. Green studied lexicons and their meaning, syntax, phonology and speech events in AAE. Her textbook deals with the listed items in a great detail. For the purpose of the present work, speech event patterns will be introduced here in greater detail because they will occur in the selected texts (in written form). Besides that, students can identify them in many r&b or hip hop songs by African American artists currently played on radio.

It was claimed that the childrens first language (AAE) is so different from the school-taught mainstream English, that it prevents them to understand in school and causes their failure. 2 Green 216.

11

2.3.1 Speech event patterns

Call and response represents the basic model of interaction between many African Americans and therefore can be heard in streets as well as in churches. Almost all speech events in AAE follow the pattern. The exchanges may lead to a great amusement on one hand, on the other they can bring down a sensitive person who has no idea about their rules. Most visible in the dozens but characteristics of all mentioned types, the interaction between speaker and listener and the listners feedback are very important. Here is a list of the most frequent speech events with a short explanation. Playing the dozens can be simply described as a mean game. It is a set of exchanges where the speakers are trying to bear down each other by critisizing him but mostly his family. The statements are exaggerated which implies that they cannot be true and should not therefore hurt the person to whom they are delivered. Nevertheless, playing the dozens with somebody outside a group of buddies can come to blows. Sometimes signifying is supposed to be a lighter version of playing the dozens, because it presupposes the speakers themselves to be the only aim of verbal attacs, family and friends are excluded. Rapping is decribed as a stylized speech; examples are easy to find in popular songs, in particular in the branches of music like rap, hip hop and r&b. Loud-talking can be immensely rude if a partner does not know its rules. It is the situation, when someone says a line that was alloted to somebody else loud enough to be heard by people outside the original conversation. Toasts are performed when someone wants to render homage to somebody, they are usually narrated in the first person singular, and the lines are prepared beforehand and include a hero and his brave achievements.

The problematics of AAE is being under investigation and discussion of theorists, therefore one cannot conclude simply and explicitely on its status and origin. In this chapter I pointed at some theories to demonstrate the evolution of AAE itself and opinions about its origin and status. I also offered short list of AAE speech events that will occur in the selected texts and students should be able to recognize them. The next chapter focuses on the history of African American literature and provides the brief summary of chronologically ranged important dates and events that may have affected it.

12

3 HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE

In the folowing section, I would like to give an overall view of African American literature, on the background of historical and political events that marked its developement. As I focus on the latest production of African American writers, the very beginnigs of their tradition will not be discussed in great details. On the other hand, the history is very important and for that reason any period should not be ommited. To deal with the lenght of nearly four hundred years of African American literature history, the chapter is supplemented by a time chart. The chart was compiled from different sources, nevertheless the Norton Anthology chart served as a base. Due to the aim of the present work, important period of Harlem Renaissance and literature after the 1970 will be discussed in greater detail.

3.1 Time chart

The chart was based on the folowing sources: Gates and McKays Northon Anthology, Davidsons Nation of Nations and Encyklopedie Diderot.

USA HISTORICAL EVENTS1

AFRICAN AMERICAN

LITERARY AND 2 CULTURAL EVENTS

1492 Discovery of America 1607 Three ships with settlers from Europe land in America, giving to the place name of Jamestown 1619 Twenty Africans are brought to Jamestown, Virginia, and sold as servants 1641 Massachusetts is first colony to legally recognize slavery

A few important events that did not take place in the U.S.A. are also included, printed in lighter font. Some important authors and events others than African Americans are also included, printed in lighter font.
2

13

1645 First American slave ship sails from Boston following the triangular trade route. African slaves are taken to West Indies in exchange for sugar, tobacco, and wine, which are then sold for goods in Masachusetts. 1652 Rhode Island passes first North American law against slvary 1662 Declaration that mothers status determines whether a child is born free or into slavery (Virginia) 1663 English guinea gold coin first minted celebrating slave trade.; it was used until 1967 1688 Pennsylvania Quakers sign first oficial written protest against slavery 1734 Great Awakening religious revival begins; Methodist and Baptist churches attract blacks by offering Christianity 18th and 19th century Vernacular tradition for all 1740 South Carolina outlaws teaching slaves to write. (In response to Stono Rebellion when 30 whites were killed.) 1756-63 African Americans fight in French and Indian War 1758 First black Baptist churchin colonies is erected in Virginia 1770 Slave trade responsible for 21% to 55% of capiton increase in English economy 1775-83 American Revolutionary War

1746 Lucy Terry writes Bars Fight, the first poem written by an African American (not published until 1895) 1760 The first poetry published by an African American Jupiter Hammon, An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penintential Cries

1776 Declaration of Independence (all men have a natural right to life, liberty 1771-1832 Walter Scott (UK) and the pursuit of happiness) declares the American colonies independent and 1773 Phillis Wheatley, Poems on Various officially names them the United States Subjects, Religious and Moral of America

14

1777 Vermont is one of the first states to abolish slavery in state constitution. 1787 Constitution ratified, classifying one slave as three-fifths of one person for congressional apportionment and demanding return of fugitive slaves to masters. 1794 U. S. Congress prohibits slave trade with foreign countries 1798 Georgia is last state to abolish slave trade 1803 Louisiana Purchase doubles size of the United States (stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Border and west from the Mississippi to Rocky Mountains) 1808 United States outlaws importation of new slaves, but law is widely ignored; Britain abolishes slave trade 1815 Underground Railroad is established to help slaves escape to Canada 1820 Missouri Compromise allows Maine into Union as free state, Missouri as slave state and outlawing slavery in all new Northern Plains states

1800-1870 spirituals (Swing Low, Sweet Chariot; Go Down, Moses) 1870-1890 gospels (Stand By Me) secular rhymes and songs (Run, Nigger, Run) 1800-1900s ballads and work songs (Pick a Bale of Cotton)

1821 African Grove Theatre, first all-black U.S. acting troupe, begins performances 1836 U.S. House of Representatives passes in New York City first gag rule, preventing any antislavery petition or bill from being 1845 Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the introduced, read, or discussed Life of Frederick Douglass, an 1838-39 Trail of Tears (driving American Slave, Written by Himself Amerindians from their homeland after 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Toms Indian Removal Act passed in 1830) Cabin 1849 Massachusetts Supreme Court upholds separate but equal ruling in 1850s Collected folk tales by Charles first U.S. integration suit Chesnutt and Joel Chandler Harris 1859 Last U.S. slave ship lands in Alabama 1853 William Wells Brown, Clotel

15

1860 South Carolina secede from Union 1861-1865 American Civil War 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in rebel states 1865 Slavery is outlawed by 13th Amendment; Ku Klux Klan founded in Tennessee 1867 First Reconstruction Act grants suffrage to black males in rebel states 1870s half the children in the U.S. receive no formal education at all; one American in five cannot read 1875 Civil Rights Act gives equal tratment in public places and acces to jury duty 1876 40 percent of African American children enrolled by the new public school system 1893 Paul Laurence Dunbar, Oak and Ivy 1877 Federal troops withdrawal from South, officially ending Reconstruction 1895 Booker T. Washington delivers Atlanta Exposition Speech; Dunbar, 1890 Oklahoma is first state to grant suffrage to women Majors and Minors 1909 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded by Du Bois 1910-30 Great Migration of over one million southern blacks to norhtern cities 1914-18 World War I (United States enters WWI in 1917) 1919 Prohibition rattified 1920 Ratification of 19th Amendment that grants suffrage to women 1900 Publication of compiled book about African American history A New Negro for a New Century 1903 W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk 1912 James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man; Claude McKay, Songs of Jamaica 1916 Angelina Weld Grimkes Rachel is the first full-lenght play written, performed, and produced by African Americans in the twentieth century 1872 William Still, The Underground Rail Road: A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters 1874 Brown, The Rising Son; or, The Antecedents and Advancement of the Colored Race 1884 Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

16 1923 Oklahoma declares martial law to Ku Klux Klan (KKK) 1917 Russian Revolution

1917-35 Harlem Renaissance 1929 Stock market crash, Great Depression Blues and jazz singers - Duke Ellington, begins Lewis Armstrong, Bessie Smith 1930 Nation of Islam founded (by W. 1922 Claude McKay, Harlem Shadows D. Fard) 1923-25 Marcus Garvey, The Philosophy 1933 President Roosvelt pushes New and Opinions of Marcus Garvey; Deal through Congress; Prohibition Magazines Crisis and Opportunity ends sponsore Annual literary contest 1935 National Council of Negro Women 1923 Jean Toomer, Cane; James Joyce, founded; the median income of married Ulysses black couples is only 34% that of white 1925 Alain Locke, The New Negro; couples Countee Cullen, Color; Josephine Baker becomes sensation in Paris; F. S. 1936 Jesse Owens wins four gold medals at Fitzgerald, Great Gatsby Nazi Olympics in Berlin 1939-45 World War II (United States enters 1926 Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues war after Japanese attack on Pearl 1929 Martin Luther King born, Willam Harbor in 1941) Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury 1943 First successful sit-in demonstration staged by Congress of Racial Equality 1934 LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) born (CORE) 1935 Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men 1945 Atomic bombs dropped on Japan, 1937 Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching WWII ends, UN begins opereations God 1948 President Truman approves 1938 Richard Wright, Uncle Toms desegregation of the military and creates Fair Emloyment Board Children 1950-53 Korean War 1955 Marian Anderson is first African American singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in NYC; Disneyland opens; Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama (starts with Rosa Parks) 1956 101 southern congressmen sign Southern Manifesto against school desegregation 1940 Wright, Native Son; Robert Hayden, Heart-Shape in the Dust 1942 Margaret Walker, For My People 1945 Wright, Black Boy; Gwendolyn Brooks, A Street in Bronzville 1946 Ann Petry, The Street 1947 Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man; Yusef Komunyakaa born

17 1960 Sit-in staged by four black students at 1950 Gwendolyn Brooks wins Pulitzer Prize for Annie Allen (first African lunch corner in North Carolina; Student American to win Pulitzer Prize in any Non-violent Coordinating Committee category); Gloria Naylor born (SNCC); half of all black Americans live in central cities 1951 Langston Hughes, Montage of a 1962 Riots break out after Supreme Court Dream Deferred orders University of Mississippi to accept James H. Meredith as first black 1952 Rita Dove and Walter Mosley born student federal troops are employed to 1953 Eugene ONeill dies; James Baldwin, restore order and ensure Merediths admission Go Tell It on the Mountain 1963 Civil rights March on Washington; King emprisoned; Civil Rights Bill; John F. Kennedy assassinated 1965 Malcolm X assassinated in NYC; Watts riot is most serious single racial distubance in U.S. history 1957 Jack Kerouac, On the Road 1959 Lorraine Hansberry, Raisin in the Sun 1960s Black Arts movement 1961 Joseph Heller, Catch-22; Ernest Hemingway dies; LeRoi Jones, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note and Dutchman

1966 Senator Edward W. Brooke becomes first elected black senator since Reconstruction; Black Power concept 1963 Martin Luther King delivers I Have a is adopted by CORE and SNCC Dream speech, then emprisoned, writes 1965-75 US combat role in Vietnam, Letter from Birmingham Jail Vietnam War 1965 (Malcolm X) Alex Haley, The 1967 Worst race riot in Detroit kills 43; Autobiography of Malcolm X major riots in Newark and Chicago; 1967 Langston Hughes dies Supreme Court overturns law against interracial marriage 1968 John Steinbeck dies, Martin Luther King assassinated 1969 Armstrong and Aldrin on the Moon, Woodstock music festival 1970 Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye; Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird 1972 Watergate scandal Sings 1978 Supreme Court disallows quotas for 1972 Ismael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo college admissions but gives limited approval to affirmative action programs 1975 Nzotake Shanges For colored girls 1983 Vietnam Veterans memorial in who have considered suicide/when the Washington rainbow is enuf is second play by an African American woman to reach 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev summit (end of Broadway Cold War), Challenger space shuttle disaster

18 1976 Alex Hayley awarded special Pulitzer 1989 L. Douglass Wilder of Virginia is first Price for Roots elected black governor; General Colin Powell becomes first black Chief of 1982 Alice Walker, The Color Purple Staff for U.S. Armed Forces (awarded Pulitzer price in 1983); Gloria Naylor, The Women of Brewster Place 1990 The Gulf War begins (U.S.A. supports president of Iraq Saddam 1987 Dove wins Pulitzer Prize for Thomas Hussein) and Beulah (1986) 1991 Persion Gulf War ends, Kuwait liberated 1992 Bill Clinton electer President 1995 Million Man March in Washington organized by Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan 1996 Bill Clinton re-elected President of US 1990 Jamica Kincaid, Lucy; Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress; Johnsons Middle Passage wins National Book Award 1992 June Jordan, Technical Difficulties ; Derek Walcott is first West Indian to win Nobel Prize for Literature

1993 Toni Morrison is first African American to win Nobel Prize for Literature; Maya Angelou reads On the 1999 USA joins NATO against Yugoslavia, Pulse of Morning at Clinton Clinton impeachement trial inauguration, becoming the first black poet to participate in a U.S. presidential 2000 George Bush elected President inauguration 2001 Terrorist attack on World Trade Center 2003 War in Iraq begins 2004 Saddam Hussein captured in Iraq; George Bush re-elected President 2006 Situation in Iraq is still precarious; Barack Obama is a black democrat presidential candidate for elections in 2008; Hillary Clinton is Obamas democrat rival 1995 Jamaica Kincaid, The Autobiography of My Mother; Rita Dove, Mother Love 1996 Walter Mosley, A Little Yellow Dog; Baraka, Transbluesency 2004 Baraka, Somebody Blew Up America; Rita Dove, American Smooth 2006 Baraka, Tales of the Out & the Gone

3.2 Harlem Renaissance

The period of Harlem Renaissance is supposed to be the golden age of African American intelligence and literature. This age is limited approximately by the years 1917

19 to 1935. As Johnson suggests, the term of renaissance - rebirth, is not as proper as it may seem, for it is in fact the first blossom of fiction (belles-lettres) that resulted from various social changes.1 Harlem, a quarter of New York City, was one of quickly growing neighbourhoods in the North. Originally designed for the middle and upper class white families that did not filled them, it offered wide streets and nice houses for African Americans whose number was growing over the past years and over the years to come. The number of African Americans in Harlem reached already 200,000 by 1930.2 Harlem therefore constituted a large basis for African American population. A considerable portion of African American writers came or come from this part of the U.S. biggest city.

3.2.1 Young generation

The leaders of the Harlem Rennaisance movement were young intellectuals, artists and writers of the new generation that had already the chance to attend courses at universities and gain degrees.3 Educated and aware of their roots, they desire to prove their qualities and confess the pride of being black. In comparison to the previous generation of writers and artists, there was a significant difference in their works. In contrary to what the old generation considered to be crucial and inevitable in works of black artists, the young generation was trying to stay out of the political issues and engagement. The young wanted to free themselves not only in the content but also in the form of their works. Some of the old generation went on with the young freeing and optimistic spirit, others, like W. E. B. Du Bois for instance, did not hesitate to critize their works judging them as immoral, as Rampersad records.4

3.2.2 Inspiration in the South

The situation of blacks in the South did not differ much from those of slavery times. As Rampersad puts it, legal separation and continuing lynching proved that in the eyes of many whites, black continued to be less than human.5 In spite of that, the South was the homeland of one of the most important writers of the Harlem Renaissance Zora
Charles Johnson, Spisovatele pameti, Spektrum 65/1989: 32. North by South. Kenyon College. 3 Apr. 2007. <http://northbysouth.kenyon.edu/1998/harlemhome/index.htm> 3 So called The Talented Tenth as the number of educated expressed 1/10 of the African American population. 4 Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay, eds. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (New York: Norton, 1997) 934. 5 Gates and McKay 930.
2 1

20 Neal Hurston (1891-1960). Her Mules and Men (1935) and Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) reflected the beauty of Southern vernacular and country traditions. Although produced after the end of the Harlem Renaissance movement, these works are considered to be of the best that resulted from the Harlem Renaissance era. Other work that deals with South is Jean Tommers novel Cane (1923). The book inspired and motivated many young authors by its new style rooted in modernism, combining poetry, prose and songs. Striking was not only the new form, but also the atmosphere of its content that expressed authors experiences from the life in South and in Washington D. C. Cane recovered both the beauty and the pain of African American life in the South and as celebration of racial self-discovery it recuperated an identity that had been undetermined and distorted by racial oppression and economic victimization.1

3.2.3 Inspiration in music

The 1920s were also time of black music. It was the music that had a great influence not only on writers but also on all the nation of the United States and later it spread all around the world. Blues and jazz gave new spirit to the literature, especially to poems. The twenties were marked by the great generation of black musicians as were Duke Ellington, Lewis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. Black music has been so strong and inspiring that even many contemporary authors admit being influenced by the blues or jazz rhytm, sound and authenticity. One of the first and best known books of poetry to combine words with music is The Weary Blues. The collection was written by Langston Hughes (1902-1967), poet, essayist, intellectual, and the leading spirit of the movement. The essay The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain (1926), in which he stresses and fiercely defends the influence of family background, street life and exploiting the colour (blackness), can be viewed as a manifesto for himself and his contemporaries.2 He was very productive throughout all his life and therefore his works can be identified even in 1950s, as for example the appreciated collection of poems Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951).

1 2

Emory Elliott, gen.ed. The Columbia history of the American novel (New York: Columbia UP, 1991) 419. Wikipedia. 2 Apr. 2007. 3 Apr. 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langston_Hughes>.

21

3.2.4 More representatives

Among other remarkable authors should be certainly mentioned Count Cullen Color (1925), Claude McKay Harlem Shadows (1922) and Home to Harlem (1928), and Wallace Thurman editor, critic, and author of novel Blacker the Berry.

The Harlem Renaissance movement was drawing to an end in the mid thirties. The Great Depression which broke out in America in the early thirties hurried the process. In 1935, so called Harlem Riot bursted out. People in Harlem were expressing their disagreement with the situation of those days. Not to be confused the writers and artists involved in the Harlem Rennaisance were not all aware what was the reality. It is highly probable that most of African Americans who were not engaged in the movement, did not even suspect that the movement existed. The Depression Years with its problems and uncerntainety violated the optimism set up by the young black generation of the Harlem Renaissance. Nevertheless, the benefit of the young and enthousiastic generation did not disappear, for the next generation would take on.

3.3 Literature after 1970

From the 1970s, writers and artists continue in tendencies which were introduced by the previous generation and put up to their African roots. Literature opens to the flood of woman writers, partly probably as a reaction to mostly man-dominated last decade. Other argumentation is proposed by Ruland and Bradbury who claim that thanks to the fight for rights of black people, a larger group of population women, realized that they were forced to accept their roles in mostly white, but man dominated world; so women decided to muscle in, too.1 One way or another, the most important break is in the reality that women writers picture in their works. For the first time, we do not see a monolithical black community, in contrary, literature reflects the real life with all the predjudice, hatred, racism within the black community. Up to these years, it used to be only the white people who caused problems and was the originator of all the evil in blacks life. Reasons for the important change may be various, although one will prevail. In the past, from the beginning of African American presence in America till the success
1

Richard Ruland, and Malcolm Bradbury. Od puritanismu k postmodernismu. (Praha: MF, 1997) 369-370.

22 of the Civil Rights Movement, blacks were oppressed so hard and continuously, that they needed to hold together very closely in order to be able to gain a little progress in their rights and status. Though the fight against racial predjudice and discrimination has not ended till today, the seventies were already liberate enough to break down the tie.

3.3.1 The inner diversity and problems of African American community

As the inlook to the diversity of black community reveals relations between its members and as the literature is produced predominantly by female authors, it gets close to observe the role of woman, woman-mother and mother-daughter relationship. Examples can be found, among others, in Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye (1970), June Jordan His Own Where (1970), and Alice Walker The Color Purple (1982). Another focus of the 1970s and 1980s literature is that on the sexual identity and preference of African Americans. It is probably for the first time when the topic is openly inquired in fiction. June Jordans A New Politics of Sexuality (1991) is one of works that represents this trend. If the sexual identity was being discussed, one can assume that it originated in or soon turned to question of identity in general.

3.3.2 The search for identity

One can assume that the search for the identity is natural for every human being. From the very beginnig of their presence in America, the black were immersed into slavery, their basic human rights have been often violated as the African Americans were subject to constant humiliation. The search of identity is pictured in the literary works. One guideline can be contents of literary works, starting from slave narratives in the 19th century, through dreams of the 1920s and the following rage of the 1950s and the 1960s, reaching the inner diversity in the 1970s, and continuing in the 21st century in ficton, poetry and prose that does not differ significantly from the mainstream literature for it is one of its constituents. Another distinctive feature of search for identity can be the notion for black people. At first, black people reffered to themselves in literary works negroes, then Negroes, later coloured people, black people, till the evolution reached todays label African American. Today, Negro is a highly offensive term, black is neutral and African American is considered to be the only politically correct expression, although some people strongly disagree with the term. As Amiri Baraka claimed in an interview,

23 African American is a term for specific nationality and not every black man you will meet will be an African American, in comparison with the term black which is common for all black people and is therefore right.1 All the generations with all their movements and streams had one common aim the effort to picture their view of the world in which they try to find themselves. As with new blood comes new spirit, generations varied in their ideas on the world and relations covered under its lid. The majority of the black who escaped slavery felt hatred and wanted to forget this part of their peoples history. Generations after sought back though. They realized that the time of slavery must not be forget, because of the influence it has on contemporary society. Social changes can be usually observed in long-time period and therefore it is hard to believe that once the slavery and apartheid is over, the identity of black people will be onlooked as if the history has not existed at all. Still, there are black neighbourhoods, schools with predominantly white or black pupils and students.

The way the literature changed during 1970s is beneficial mainly for its depicting the real present life of black Americans with all its problems and pathologies that are naturaly present in every nation or culture. It can be seen as a declassifying message that black people have the same problems as any other society and want to be therefore taken as any other society. Simply, no discrimination nor affirmation is desired from their side. Although or for the colour of their skin is different from that of the white majority, they want to be treated equal. Regrettably, this desired state is still not established in reality, though efforts have been made on both sides. Anyhow, it would be very naive to hope that after more than three hundred years of slavery or segregation, all men will be treated equal within a flow of one single human generation.

Hana Ullmanov. Nepotebujeme dn klony USA! MF DNES 25th Oct. 2003: B3.

24

4 AFRICAN AMERICAN WRITERS AND THEIR SELECTED WORKS

The present chapter is divided into nine main undersections, each one is dedicated to an African American writers life, work, selected text and suggestions for the use of the text in school practice. A deeper analysis of the text itself is not provided, for the aim is discovering the texts by students and the developement of their thoughts. Literature and poetry especially should always involve the readers interaction as it appeals to his or her experience and feelings. Students at schools are often discouraged from reading when they are forced to guess one single possible right meaning. Consequently, a teacher wishing to follow the designed lessons should not demand any right answers from students. However, some of the selected works may seem not to be appropriate for the secondary school learners. As the present work is designed for the third or fourth year of Czech grammar school, students should be on the level of English to get over the laguage difficulties. Concerning the core and value of the selected texts, I believe that students are able to think in depth and find the texts therefore enriching. I refer here to one of Rita Doves statements, which can be applied to these selected texts and grammar school students, too. I believe even 5-year-olds can get something from a Shakespearean sonnet...as long as you DONT tell them, This is really hard..1 The Suggestion parts include prereading or warm up activities as well as follow up questions. The majority of provided possibilities how to start or finish the topic are based on questions. With one or two exceptions, the organization in class is up to the teacher. The original thought is that students usually work in groups of 2-3, come up with some conclusions and share them with other students in a circle; the follow up questions then serve as a base for furhter discussion that can develop from what has been said. On the other hand, different students, topics and forms demand different approach. Sometimes it may be useful to hide the title of a poem and let students figure out their own, sometimes to give the title and let them figure out the poem, etc. Objectives are stated in the beginning of each Suggestions and the teacher should bear them in mind when he or she prepares their lesson plan.
1

Poetry archive. 2005. 15 Apr. 2007 <http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=6719>

25

4. 1 Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

4.1.1 Biography
Born in 1902, Langston Hughes witnessed as a young student the beginings of the Harlem Renaissance1, and let himself carried by the emotive feeling of proudness to be black. Hughes soon became the leading spirit of the movement. As a brilliant poet, essayist, writer and intellectual, he produced many works that expressed the fierce voice of the Harlem Renaissance movement. Hughes was one of the very first writers who could make their living through writing. Unlike the other authors of that time, Hughes continued writing after the end of the Harlem Renaissance and was in favour with new tendencies in literature that came after 1940s. Hughes popularity was world-wide; even some Czech poets (e.g. Josef Kainar) admitted having been influenced by his poetry.

4.1.2 Work
Hughess wrote his first remarcable poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers in 1921, but his first collection of poems was The Weary Blues published in 1926. It was widely accepted for the novatory use of blues form in poetry. Although the next collection Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927) is now considered Hughes finest single book of verse, critics of that time gave it very harsh evalution.2 They disliked probably most the fact that Hughes decided to picture black people of low working-class and even some rude or erotic aspects of their life. This attitude towards own community had to wait to be appreciated till 1970s.3 Hughes reacted by a brilliant essay The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain published in the Nation, that became a manifesto for the new genaration of young artists. Later Hughes sough inspiration in his childhood to create his first novel Not without Laughter (1930). Then, a certain shift to the left can be marked in Hughes work, for he starts to publish his essays and poems in New Masses, a journal controlled by Communist Party. Hughes easily passed the end of the Harlem Renaissance movement, for he was busy in many other areas. In 1930s he wrote plays and published his first collection of short stories The Ways of White Folks. Hughes also published his autobiography The Big Sea (1940), where he overviewed the Harlem Renaissance

1 2

For Harlem Renaissance see section 3.2. Gates and McKay 1252. 3 For literature of 1970s see section 3.3.

26 movement. A number of essays, poems, collums, and books followed; the book of verse Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951) among them.

4.1.3 Reading
OBJECTIVES Cultural to show the ways how black people in America saw themselves to realize the barriers which cultures build and should also pass to think of what is a dream and how to achieve it Historical to show that literature reflects history to compare the dreams of black people in the 1920s with the reality of present world Literary to observe the figurative language of poetry to think of what it means to be a writer (or an artist)

Hughes, Langston. I, Too. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Gen. Ed. Paul Lauter. Lexington: D. C. Heath ans Company. 1619. Langston, Hughes. The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Eds. Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay. New York: Norton, 1997. 1267-1271.

27

I, Too
I, Too, sing America.

I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong.

Tomorrow, Ill be at the table When company comes. Nobodyll dare Say to me, Eat in the kitchen, Then.

Besides, Theyll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed

I, too, am America.

1925

28

From The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

One of the most promising of the young Negro poets said to me once, I want to be a poet not a Negro poet, meaning, I believe, I want to write like a white poet; meaning subconsciously, I would like to be a white poet; meaning behind that, I would like to be white. And I was sorry the young man said that, for no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself. And I doubted then that, with his desire to run away spiritually from his race, this boy would ever be a great poet. But this is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardiazation, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible. (...) We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesnt matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesnt matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves. 1926

29

4.1.4 Suggestions
Poem Warm up Think about things, deeds and actions that most people do and that you do, too. When you have a couple of items, pick them up and convert them into a short poem. Start or end (each) line with words I, too. (Time limit can be 5-10 minutes.)

Poem Follow up a) What is your immediate response/reaction to the poem? b) Who is the company and why do they send the speaker to kitchen? c) Does it make the speaker angry? Why so/not? d) Where do you realize the speakers colour of skin? e) How do you understand the poem, can it be applied to wider context than a house with a kitchen? f) Consider the year of publication. What can you say about the atmosphere in the black society at that time, knowing that the poem reflects it? (reality/dream)

Essay Prereading a) Think of famous and respectable people in Czech Republic, then in world. b) What makes them famous and respectable? c) What characteristics shoud a man have to be able to achive his goals? d) Think of examples that can support your arguments. Be ready to stand for them. (Class is invited to intervene, ask for explanation and elaboration.) e) Now concentrate on yourself. What influences your personality? Brainstorm and then try to range the aspects in order of importance.

Essay Follow up a) Why a great poet must not be afraid of themselves? Can we say it about other professions, too? b) What is the mountain Hughes speaks about? c) Consider the year of publication. What can you say about the atmosphere in the black society at that time, knowing that the essay reflects it? d) Could you identify such a mountain in your own life? What is it and why? e) Try to summarize the last article in one sentence. (e.g. L art pour lart)

30

4. 2 Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

4.2.1 Life and activities
A Baptist minister, political activist and Civil Rights movement leader, Dr. Martin Luther King cannot be probably considered a literary writer like the other writers in the present selection. Neverheless, King is author of many speeches and letters that marked history. King served as a reverend and devoted his life to fight for the civil rights of black people. King alongside organized peaceful protest demonstrations, delivered speeches, negotiated with clerks and presidents. In 1964 he was the youngest Nobel Prize awardee for his contribution to nonviolent resistance and equal treatment for all races.1 Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968.

4.2.2 Reading and listening

OBJECTIVES Cultural to discuss the forms of non-violent and violent resistance to oppression along with their consequences to identify the rights that should be never denied to any human to think of what is a dream and how to achieve it Historical to become more familiar with the Civil Rights movement and reasons that had led to it Literary to know the form of public speech together with its performance to identify the facts used for argumentation

Martin Luther King, Jr. I Have A Dream. Usinfo.state.gov. U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Information Programs. 7 Apr. 2007.
<http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/38.htm>

Martin Luther King, Jr. I Have A Dream American Rhetoric. 7Apr. 2007.
<http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm>
1

Wikipedia. 4 Apr 2007. 7 Apr. 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_luther_king>

31 I decided to include this work for four main reasons. Firstly, Martin Luther King is a personality that students are or will be familiar with from History lessons and therefore it should be better acceptable than something altogether new. Secondly, I believe that learners of English (at appropriate level) should know the speech. Thirdly, it is delivered in spoken, not written form and students can enjoy the original authors delivery. Fourthly, both the text and the audiovisual record of the speech are legally downloadable from the internet, and therefore easily accessible to students. The text of the speech with links to web pages are included in the Appendix.

4.2.3 Suggestions
If the school disposes of a computer study room and headphone sets, students can be taken there and simultaneously watch and listen to the recording, having texts in front of them. If there is no such equipement, teacher can play the audio recording in class; or encourage students to watch video at home or in a library. In any case, students start by reading the short introduction to the topic.1 Key words should be explained beforehand. For the pace of speech is moderate, reading before listening is not necessary, though possible. During listening, students can follow the text or just watch, the choice is up to them. Because of the lenght of the recording, I suggest fixing the number of listenings from standard three to two. After the listening, I recommend leaving space for students questions. A bridge to past can be done by remembering Hughess poem Negro and the discussion about dreams. (Which dreams did black people have and were they achieved? What is the reaction of black people? Etc.)

4.3 Amiri Baraka / LeRoi Jones (b. 1934)

4.3.1 Biography
Baraka was born LeRoi Jones in a middle-class family in Newark, New Jersey. Baraka was gifted and graduated at the age of 15. On the other hand, Baraka must have been very extravagant as a teenager. His reflections on the early part of his life follow When I was in high school I used to drink a lot of wine, throw bottles around, walk
1

See Appendix 1.

32 down the street in womens clothes just because I couldnt find anything to satisfy myself.1 At the age of 18, Baraka enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D. C. The atmosphere of the university world was so tight that Baraka did not stay there more than two years and left. However, he had managed to attend classes of several famous black scholars whose influence was certainly reflected in Barakas works. One of them was Sterling A. Brown who introduced young Baraka to themes and techniques of African American music. Having left Howard, Baraka joined the air force and served three years in Puerto Rico. After being discharged, Baraka moved to Greenwich Village in New York and became a part of the Beat scene which was already formed by Gregory Corso, Allan Ginsberg, and other artist around them. Baraka gained reputation as a music critic, contributed to several magazines and in the late 1950s started to create his own poetry which raises attention even today. During the early 1960s, Baraka is famous and popular for his attacking and, to a certain extent, cruel poetry which reflects the heated atmosphere of that time. As time went, Barakas opinions shaped, he became the member of the Nation of Islam and changed his name from LeRoi Jones to Amiri Imamu Baraka. In the mid sixties, Baraka founded the Black Arts Repertory/School which became the basis for the Black Aesthetic movement. Baraka has been one of the most creative and prolific writers during the last forty years. New collections of his poetry are published almost every two years. Barakas poetry expresses the authors harsh opinions on the contemporary President Bush and Secretary of State Rices international policy.

4.3.2 Work
Baraka is the author of over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history and criticism, a poet icon and revolutionary political activist who has recited poetry and lectured on cultural and political issues extensively in the USA, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe.2 Baraka is also famous for his poetry performance, when he lets himself the freedom to occasionally change or expand the poem as he improvises with the jazz music. His first volume was Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, published in 1961 and was appreciated for its technical innovations. Baraka shares his experience from
1 2

Gates and McKay 1877. Amiri Baraka. 15 Mar. 2007. <http://www.amiribaraka.com/p2.html>.

33 Cuba in Cuba Libre (1961) and retrospectively in The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones (1984). In the 1960s, Baraka publishes his second book of poetry, The Dead Lecturer, writes essays and several plays, including The Slave, The Toilet, and the most famous and the most popular one, The Dutchman. Baraka also co-edited Black fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing (1968) with Larry Neal. Some of the lately published Barakas titles: Transbluesency (1996), a book of selected poems from years 1961-1995, The Essence of Reparations (2003), a new collections of essays on American history, and Somebody Blew Up America And Other Poems (2004).

4.3.3 Reading
OBJECTIVES Cultural to discuss the tension between black people and white people and people of different races in general to learn how historical experience is reported Historical to decode the authors figurative language using historical facts to review what caused/causes the tension between races Literary to observe the unusual form of the poems and their graphics to reveal writers figurative language

Baraka, Amiri. Wise I. Fooling with words. PBS. 13 Mar. 2007. <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/mainlst_baraka.html>. Baraka, Amiri. Monday in B-Flat. Fooling with words. PBS. 13 Mar. 2007. <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/mainlst_baraka.html>.

34

Wise I If you ever find yourself, some where lost and surrounded by enemies who wont let you speak in your own language & instruments, who ban your oom boom ba boom then you are in trouble deep trouble they ban your oom boom ba boom you in deep deep trouble humph! Probably take you several hundred years to get out!

Monday in B-Flat

I can pray all day & God wont come.

But if I call 911 The Devil Be here in a minute!

35

4.4.4 Suggestions
Warm up Wise I Tell students that the class is going to have a noisy beginning of the lesson. Announce to students that they are not allowed to say a word, but they can shout, scream, mumble, fizzle, snuffle, etc. for 3 seconds as soon as you say start and that they have to stop immediately as you say stop. As the teacher you may wish to clasp hands instead, ring a bell or find different signal. Practise it more times, the length of pauses is variable. Then, ask students to produce always the same sound (each student has his or her own), and to add a movement of their body as they produce the sound. Again, pracise it more times, encourage students to move from their chair, but at the moment you signall stop, nobody can move. Improvise with the pauses to make the whole production rhytmical, students should enjoy it. Calm them down by taking a deep breath and sighing out (done by the whole class all at once). Consequently, ask them to sit down and write down the sound they were producing, encourage them. What does the sound remind them of? They can put it down as well. Finally, ask students to write a few lines, that would feature the written sound in case you do not like saying explicitely write a poem. Volunteers read aloud their lines to the class. By this activity, students are more likely to evaluate Barakas use of oom boom ba boom in Wise I.

Prereading Monday in B-flat Students work in groups. Hand out or write on a blackboard the title and do not say it is a title of a poem. Given the title of a text, students are asked to write down all words that could appear in it. If they are puzzled, whole class can brainstorm what B could mean, which can get them on a path. Students should announce, after a minute or two, how many words they have and whether they need more time to finish. Draw a chart on the blackboard. Write down how many words each group have. Group may present their list of words. Then hand out and/or read the poem. Did any of their words appear in the poem? How many? Put the results on the blackboard, you may count percentage of succesful tips.

36 Follow up Wise I a. Is there anyhing in the poem that you would not expect to find in a poem? What is it? b. Look at the title, who is I and why is he wise? c. (How would you describe a wise person? old, experience, ...) d. Does the speaker try to warn you? Specify. e. What can be the oom boom ba boom? f. What instruments can the speaker mean? g. Do you feel the rhytm of the poem? How did the author achieve it? h. If you were inspired by the Barakas poem, you may like fix the few lines you wrote at the beginning of the lesson. i. Volunteers can read aloud the fixed version or the original one and explain why they decided / did not decide to change it.

Monday in B-flat a. What is 911? b. Who is the speaker? (sex, age, colour of skin, opinions, address...) c. Why is 911 for him close to Devil? d. Who is Devil in the poem? e. Who is God in the poem? f. Are the two paragraphs in contradiction? Specify. g. The poem is short, try to say it in your words.

Listening (optional) Teacher may wish to play 911, a song recorded by Wyclef Jean and Mary J. Blidge, African American r&b singers in 2002. The CD that featured 911 is called Ecleftic 2 Sides A Book. The song is slow and words comprehensible and therefore I suggest letting students listen and relax. Lyrics are attached in the Appendix.

37

4. 4 June Jordan (1936-2002)

4.4.1 Biography
Jordan was born in Harlem in a working-class family. Her father was a postal clerk, her mother worked as a nurse. Both of her parents escaped from their home in Jamaica to get out of the poverty into the desired United States. Jordan began writing early as a child at the age of seven. As years passed, she moved through many influential tendencies, currents and trends and she gained a truly literary appreciation.1 Jordans mothers unfullfilled desire to become an artist and her later possible suicide could have quite strong influence on Jordans later writing. After passing many life experiences, she was a columnist for The Progressive and tried to pass her knowledge and enthousiasm as a teacher onto students at the University of California at Berkeley where she taught African American and womanss studies. She died of cancer in 2002.

4.4.2 Work
June Jordan was one of the most procreative and prolific writers of the late 20th century. She published books for children, about seven collections of poetry, three plays and four books of political essays. She gained awards for her work and mainly her activism. All her works thrive with passionate enthousiasm and zeal for any subject she broached, which is most visible in her essays and her poetry work. This Jordans ardour can origin, among others, in the fact that she travelled in Africa and visited coutries of the Central America; she had the chance to get to know places and people that later appeared in her writings that can be found very emotive and fierce.

4.4.3 Reading

Jordan, June. A New Politics of Sexuality. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Eds. Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay. New York: Norton, 1997. 2238-2241.

Gates and McKay 2227.

38 OBJECTIVES Cultural to show diversities in understanding the contemporary world to think of tolerance to discuss homosexuality Historical to think of the level of tolerance throughout the centuries Literary to become familliar with the form of essay to identify what predetermines a persuasive essay

Sexuality is seldom discussed in schools so students should be interested in text immediately as they read the title. On the other hand, this work is very long and difficult for secondary school students. However, it is worth the effort to read it. I cut out a few paragraphs to make it simpler and more understandable. The text below is the shortened version, how to work with it most effectively is explained in the next section 4. 4. 4.

39

From A New Politics of Sexuality

As a young worried mother, I remember turning to Dr. Benjamin Spocks Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care1 just about as often as Id pick up the telephone. He was God. I was ignorant but striving to be a good: a good Mother. And so it was there, in that best-seller pocketbok of dos and donts, that I came upon this doozie of a guideline: Do not wear miniskirts or other provocative clothing because that will upset your child, especially if your child happens to be a boy. If you give your offspring cause to think of you as a sexual being, he will, at the least, become disturbed; you will derail the equilibrium of his notions about your possible identity and meaning in the world. It had never occured to me that anyone, especially my son, might took upon me as an asexual being. I had never supposed that asexual was some kind of positive designation I should, so to speak, lust after. (...) Years passed before I came to perceive the perversity of dominant power assumed by men, and the perversity of self-determining power ceded to men by women. A lot of years went by before I understood the dynamics of what anyone could summarize as the Politics of Sexuality. (...) When I say sexuality, I mean gender: I mean male subjugation of human beings because they are female. When I say sexuality, I mean heterosexual institutionalization of rights and privileges denied to homosexual men and women. When I say sexuality I mean gay or lesbian contempt for bisexual modes of human relationship. The Politics of Sexuality therefore subsumes all of the different ways in which some of us seek to dictate to others of us what we should do, what we should desire, what we should dream about, and how we should behave ourselves, generally. From China to Iran, form Nigeria to Czechoslovakia, from Chile to California, the politics of sexuality enforced by traditions of state-sanctioned violence plus religion and the law reduces to male domination of woman, heterosexist tyranny, and, among those of us who are in any case deemed despicable or reviant by the poweful, we find
1

First published in 1946, Spocks book is the best-selling American book on child care and was for years, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, regarded by new parents as the bible of child rearing.

40 intolerance for those who choose a different, a more complicated for example, and interracial or bisexual mode of rebellion and freedom. We must move out from the shadows of our collective subjugation as people of color/as women/as gay/as lesbian/as bisexual human beings.

I can voice my ideas without hesiation or fear because I am speaking, finally, about myself. I am Black and I am female and I am a mother and I am bisexual and I am a nationalist and I am an antinationalist. And I mean to be fully and freely all that I am! Conversely, I do not accept that any white or Black or Chinese man I do not accept that, for instance, Dr. Spock should presume to tell me, or any other woman, how to mother a child. And, likewise, I do not accept that anyone any woman or any man who is not inextricably part of the subject he or she dares to adress should attempt to tell any of us, the objects of her or his presumptuous discourse, what we should do or what we should not do. (...) If you can finally go to the bathroom wherever you find one, if you can finally order a cup of coffee and drink it wherever coffee is available, but you cannot follow your heart you cannot respect the response of your own honest body in the world then how much of what kind of freedom does any one of us posess? Or conversely, if your heart and your honest body can be controlled by the state, or controlled by community taboo, are you then, and in that case, no more than a slave ruled by outside force? (...) Freedom is indivisible; the Politics of Sexuality is not some optional specialinterest concern for serious, progressive folk. (...) Last spring, at Berkeley, some students asked me to speak at a rally against racism. And I did. There were four or five hundred people massed on Sproul Plaza, standing together against that evil. And, on the next day, on that same plaza, there was a rally for bisexual and gay and lesbian rights, and students asked me to speak at that rally. And I did. There were fewer than seventy-five people stranded, pitiful, on that public space. And I said then what I say today: That was disgraceful! There should have been just one rally. One rally: freedom is indivisible.

41

As for the second, nefarious pronouncement on sexuality that now enjoys massmedia currency: the idiot notion of keeping yourself in the closet that is very much the same thing as the suggestion that black folks and Asian-americans and MexicanAmericans should assimilate and become as white as possible in our walk/talk/music/food/values or else. Or else? Or else we should, deservedly, perish. (...) Finally, I need to speak on bisexuality. I do believe that the analogy is interracial or multiracial identity. I do believe that the analogy for bisexuality is a multicultural, multi-ethnic, multiracial world view. Bisexuality follows from such a perspective and leads to it, as well. (...) If you are free, you are not predictable and you are not controllable. To my mind, that is the keenly positive, politicizing significance of bisexual affirmation: To insist upon complexity, to insist upon the validity of all of the components of social/sexual complexity, to insist upon the equal validity of all of the components of social/sexual complexity. This seems to me a unifying, 1990s mandate for revolutionary Americans planning to make it into the twenty-first century on the basis of the heart, on the basis of an honest human body, consecrated to every struggle for justice, every struggle for equality, every strugle for freedom. 1991

42

3. 4. 4 Suggestions
Warm up Students are told that the title of the next text they are going to read and work with is A New Politics of Sexuality. In groups of 3-4 they try to figure out the form (poem, speech, ...) and the content of the text, characters (if any), words that may occur in the text, etc. They may also like trying writing a short introduction to the announced title. Creativity is welcomed. Time limit may vary according to students zeal from 5 minutes for the indifferent to 20 minutes for the enthousiastic so they have time to finish their ideas and put them down. Groups can share their work with class.

Reading For the text is long and demanding, it may be cut into short paraghraphs with translated vocabulary attached. Each student then picks up one paper from a pile, reads it, and tries to find out where his part fits by reading other students papers. The whole text should be then analogically reconstructed. Cards with the cut text and translated vocabulary are attached in Appendix. Code for quick correction is JORDAN SEXUaLITY.

Follow up Reading of the whole essay was probably difficult. Students should be given some time to range ideas in their head. Teacher can then ask: What are your reactions? Did you like it? Why? Did you dislike it? Why? Students should point at lines that influenced their opinion. Further discussion can then follow.

Questions on the form of an essay a. Who is the author? What can you say about him/her? Support your points using the text. b. Did the author persuade you? If yes, how did he/she achieve it? c. If not, what prevents you from accepting her opinions? (By this question students should already discover that author is a women.) d. What does the author believe you believe or know? e. What is the author trying to do? f. How does the writer want or hope that we would respond?

43 The questions should help the students to get deeper in the essay and to realize what aspects make it persuasive for one and indifferent for other. The fact that they will discover that the writer makes a character of himself and that she refers to items she hopes the audience will accept could help them creating their own essay. Besides, they should be able to formulate aspects of the form of essay. The definition of essay can be done by brainstorming in small groups of 3-4, then one smaller groups should agree with another and finally the class should agree of some typical characteristics. Teacher can help hesitating students by asking: Does the essay have a strict form? Is is based on a research? What kind of arguments is used? Etc. Possible students findings: relatively open form, persuasive, based on authors interest and opinion, author does not bother with opinions that stand opposite to their opinions; uses narrative (like a story), meditation (like a poem), interaction (like a play).1

Questions for further discussion. Students are always asked to explain their opinion and support it with arguments. Discussion may involve the whole class or start in groups of three. Summary should be done with the whole class. a. What do you think about the following sentence from the text, If you are free, you are not predictable and you are not controllable. b. Is our society free? c. How do you understand the repeated phrase Freedom is indivisible? d. What are positive and weak aspects of such freedom? e. Do you think that todays world is male governed? f. Should be something done about that? What would you do?

4.5 Toni Morisson (b. 1938)

4.5.1 Biography
One of the most important contemporary representatives of African American literature, with a full name Cloe Anthony Wofford, was born in an industrial city of Loraine, Ohio. She was the second of four children in a black working-class family.
1

Modified from: Richard W. Beach, and James D. Marshall. Teaching Literature in the Secondary School. (San Diego: HBJ, 1990) 360.

44 Morrison displayed an early interest in literature. She enrolled Howard and Cornell Universities for humanity studies and continued her academic career at Texas Southern University, Howard University, and Yale. During the years at Howard University she changed her first name from Chloe to Toni, explaining that Chloe was too difficult for people to pronounce. In 1958, Morisson got married, had two children with her husband and divorced in 1964. After the divorce Morrison moves to New York City where she works as an editor, specializes on African American literature. She played an important role in establishing the African American literature into the mainstream American literature. Morrison was awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. She was the first African American to receive Nobel Prize. In 2005, Oxford University awarded Morrison an honorary Doctor of Letters degree.

4.5.2 Work
Probably because of where she was born, and because she wanted to step out of a certain stereotype, Morissons works take place in black villages rather than in the urban North or the rural South, traditional settings of African Americans work. Her first novel The Bluest Eye (1970) was immensely succesful so were her following titles: Sula (1974), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981), Beloved (1987), Playing in the dark (nonfiction collection published in 1991), Jazz (1992), Paradise (1998), and Love (2003). Morrison has also worked as an editor at headquaters of Random House, famous New York publisher. From 1989 to 2006 Morrison held the Robert F. Goheen Chair in the Humanities at Princeton University. She currently holds a place on the editorial board of The Nation magazine.1

4.5.3 Reading
The extract is from the first third of the book (page 68 in English original and page 82 in Czech translation). Author draws look on young black women who grew up differently than the average black population. Further on in the book, reader meet Geraldina, who was brought up in the described way, and her family.

Wikipedia. 5 Apr. 2007. 7 Apr. 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison>.

45 OBJECTIVES Cultural to observe and understand black communitys inner diversity to think of what may influence one to change their behaviour Historical to consider the reasons why literature starts to bring a negative image of a black man or woman when the author is also African American Literary to catch the meaning of a word that has no direct equivalent

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: WSP, 1970. Morrison, Toni. Nejmodej oi. Trans. Michael antovsk. Praha: Odeon, 1983.

46

From The Bluest Eye

They go to land-grant colleges, normal schools, and learn how to do the white mans work with refinement: home economics to prepare his food; teacher education to instruct black children in obedience; music to soothe the weary master and entertain his blunted soul. Here they learn the rest of the lesson begun in those soft houses with porch swings and pots of bleeding heart: how to behave. The careful developement of thrift, patience, high morals and good manners. In short, how to get rid of the funkiness. The dreadful funkiness of passion, the funkiness of nature, the funkiness of the wide range of human emotions. Wherever it erupts, this Funk, they wipe it away; where it crusts, they dissolve it; wherever ot drips, flowers or clings, they find it and fight it until it dies. They fight this battle all the way to the grave. The laugh that is little too loud; the enunciation a little too round; the gesture a little too generous. They hold their behind in for fear of sway too free; when they wear lipstick, they never cover the entire mouth for a fear of lips too thick, and they worry, worry, worry about the edges of their hair. 1970

Chod do sttnch vych kol, na pedagogick instituty, a u se, jak nejlpe pracovat pro blochy: U se domcmu hospodstv, aby jim mohly pipravovat jdlo, pedagogice, aby mohly vychovvat ern dti v poslunosti; hudb, aby potily unavenho pna a pobavily jeho otuplou dui. Tady si osvoj zbytek ltky, kterou se zaaly uit v tch pjemnch domech s houpakami na verand a s kvtini srdcovek: jak se sprvn chovat. Peliv se cvi v etrnost, trplivosti, mravnost a dobrch zpsobech. Zkrtka u se, jak se zbavit ernho pachu. Toho stranho pachu vn, pachu prody, pachu irokho spektra lidskch emoc. Kdykoliv se ten pach vzbou, setou ho; kde se sraz, rozpust ho; kde ukapv, kvete i pilne, tam ho najdou a bojuj s nm, dokud nezmiz. Vedou ten boj a do hrobu. Smch, kter je trochu moc hlasit; vslovnost trochu moc mkk; gesto trochu moc irok. Zatahuj zadky ve strachu, e by se jim pli houpaly; kdy pouvaj rtnku, nikdy si nenamaluj cel sta ve strachu, e by mly moc pln rty, a strachuj se, strachuj a strachuj, aby se jim pli nekudrnatily vlasy.

47

4.5.4 Suggestions

a. Think of possible ways to translate the funkiness, the Funk in Czech. b. Compare your version with the translation of Michael antovsk. c. Would you like to be brought up like these young women? Why so/why not? d. Does the author criticize or support this education and way of life? How can you know it? e. Summarize in one or two phrases the way of upbringing and education described. f. Lets innvert the situation. Imagine you are a female member of white minority in predominantly black/Roma/other society. You are not in the 1970s but in the present time. What would be your education like so that it responds to the model described? Write a paragraph on that.

4. 6 Yusef Komunyakaa (b. 1947)

4.6.1 Biography
This African American poet was born in the United States, in Bogalusa, a town near New Orleans. His suggestive poems influenced by the rhythm of jazz and blues are available in valuable Czech translation thanks to Prof. Josef Jaab. Komunyakaa was born into the time of segregation in the South and into the time of Civil Rights movement. During his life, he has published a few collections with different topics. Like some other African American poets, Komuyakaa likes readings poetry in public, when he can express the rhythm and musicality of his work.

4.6.2 Work
In Magic City, a book of verse published in 1992 Komunyakaa seeks inspiration in his childhood and adolescence. Early Copacetic (1984) is, on the other hand, devoted to the authors passion for jazz. As a young man Komunyakaa fought in the U.S. army in Vietnam in the 1960s. His experiences as a soldier in the Vietnam War, as Jarab clarifies in his afterword (2003), must have been suppressed for a considerable amount of time

48 when it suddenly and unexpectedly sprouted from the authors subconsciousness.1 This lapse of time hand in hand with still lively images of the dread of war create an unusual suggestive, coherent and cohesive piece of poetry in the collection Dien Cai Dau (1988), to which belong the folowing poems.

4.6.3 Reading
OBJECTIVES Cultural to show history through the eyes of one its black participants to see how historical experience can be reported in a personal poem to think of an attitude towards war in arts Historical to pick up information on the Vietnam conflict to gain wider insight on the probematics Literary to compare various interpretations of poetry to reveal the metaphors and figurative language

Komunyakaa, Yusef. Facing It. Internet Poetry Archive. University of North Carolina Press. 11 March 2007. <http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/komunyakaa/facing_it.php>. Komunyakaa, Yusef. Ped zd. Oarovn. Comp. and trans. Josef Jaab. Praha: Paseka, 2003. Komunyakaa, Yusef. Tu Do Street. Internet Poetry Archive. U of North Carolina P. 11 March 2007. <http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/komunyakaa/tu_do_street.php>. Komunyakaa, Yusef. Ulice Tu Do. Oarovn. Comp. and trans. Josef Jaab. Praha: Paseka, 2003.

Josef Jaab, afterword, Okouzlen, by Yusef Komunyakaa, trans. Josef Jaab (Praha: Paseka, 2003) 93-94.

49 Facing It My black face fades, hiding inside the black granite. I said I wouldn't, dammit: No tears. I'm stone. I'm flesh. My clouded reflection eyes me like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning. I turn this way--the stone lets me go. I turn that way--I'm inside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial again, depending on the light to make a difference. I go down the 58,022 names, half-expecting to find my own in letters like smoke. I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash. Names shimmer on a woman's blouse but when she walks away the names stay on the wall. Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's wings cutting across my stare. The sky. A plane in the sky. A white vet's image floats closer to me, then his pale eyes look through mine. I'm a window. He's lost his right arm inside the stone. In the black mirror a woman's trying to erase names: No, she's brushing a boy's hair. Ped zd Moje ern tv bledne a ztrc se v ern ule. ekl jsem si ne, jen k ertu dn slzy. Jsem z kamene. Ale i z masa. Mj zamlen odraz m pozoruje jak drav ptk, profil noci naklonn k rnu. Hnu se - a kmen mi dovol vystoupit. Zmnm smr a jsem opt v pomnku vietnamskch vetern, jen na hlu svtla zle, kde se ocitnu. Prochzm tch 58 022 jmen, Nejist, zda nenajdu sv vlastn v kouovm psmu. Dotknu se jmna Andrew Johnson; zahldnu bl zblesk miny. Jmna se zatpyt na halence eny, Ale kdy poodejde, zstvaj ve zdi. Svtiv tahy ttce, erven kidlka ptka nap mm pohledem. Nebe. Na nebi letadlo. Obraz blho veterna ke mn piplouv a jeho bled oi hled skrze m. Jsem okno. On ztratil pravou ruku v pomnku. Z ernho zrcadla se sna ena vymazvat jmna: vlastn ne, jen ee chlapekovi vlasy.

50 Tu Do Street
Music divides the evening. I close my eyes & can see men drawing lines in the dust. America pushes through the membrane of mist & smoke, & I'm a small boy again in Bogalusa. White Only signs & Hank Snow. But tonight I walk into a place where bar girls fade like tropical birds. When I order a beer, the mama-san behind the counter acts as if she can't understand, while her eyes skirt each white face, as Hank Williams calls from the psychedelic jukebox. We have played Judas where only machine-gun fire brings us together. Down the street black GIs hold to their turf also. An off-limits sign pulls me deeper into alleys, as I look for a softness behind these voices wounded by their beauty & war. Back in the bush at Dak To & Khe Sanh, we fought the brothers of these women we now run to hold in our arms. There's more than a nation inside us, as black & white soldiers touch the same lovers minutes apart, tasting each other's breath, without knowing these rooms run into each other like tunnels leading to the underworld.

Ulice Tu Do
Hudba rozsne veer. Zavu oi a vidm, jak chlapi do prachu kresl hranici. Amerika se protlauje membrnou mlhy a koue, a j jsem zas mal chlapec v Bogaluse. Npisy Jen pro bl & Hank Snow. Ale dnes veer vchzm do baru, kde dvky uvadaj jak tropit ptci. Kdy si objednvm pivo, madam za pultem se tv, e nerozum, a jej zrak sleduje kadou blou tv, zatmco Hank Williams vyzpvuje ze svtlkujcho jukeboxu. Zrazujeme se navzjem tam, kde ns jedin kulometn palba dovede sblit. Dle v ulici si svoje msto dr i ern vojci. Zkaz vstupu m vtahuje hloubji do uliek, kde hledm nhu v hlasech zrannch vlastn krsou & vlkou. V dungli u Dak To & Khe Sanh jsme bojovali s bratry tch en, kter se te chystme vzt do nrue. Spojuje ns vc ne jen Nrod, kdy se ern & bl vojci dotkaj v rozmez minut stejnch milenek, ct vzjemn dech, ani by vdli, e ty pokoje se sbhaj jak tunely vedouc do podsvt.

51

4.6.4 Suggestions
To facilitate students comprehesion, imagination and understanding, I suggest speaking with class briefly about the Vietnam conflict and let the students watch a very short part of a film on Vietnam War (e.g. Stanley Kubricks Full Metal jacket). The historical background could be taught by students themselves as they would be encouraged to search for the information to present it coherently to the class in a form of presentation. Details are listed in the following section.

Preparation Students form groups of four. Each group will make research on one of the following topics. After having done the research, groups prepare a presentation of the findings and deliver it the class. One week time for research is suggested, one or two weeks for preparing the presentation, which means that presentations should not be performed earlier than three weeks after the announcement of topics. Teacher will propose available sources. Time limit for presentations can be 10-20 minutes per each group, students can use materials for demonstration, but they are strongly advised not to simply read text.

1) Vietnam War. Find out which states were involved and why. Find out where and how long the war lasted. How is the war onlooked more than 40years later? 2) Vietnam War. Find out about specific combat strategies of belligerent armies. 3) Cold War. What was it and how was it linked to the Vietnam War? 4) The Media. Find out what books, movies or ther production were published on the Vietnam War. 5) (Optional) Focus on the position of U.S. soldiers who are members of minorities in the U.S. army during the Vietnam War. 6) (Optional) Who or what was Hannoi Hannah?

Sources available for research: o School and town library books on American history, wars; encyclopedias, etc. o History teachers materials o Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org> (or pages is Czech)
o Seznam. <http://encyklopedie.seznam.cz/heslo/180817-vietnamska-valka>

o Veterans History project, <http://www.loc.gov/vets//>

52 o <http://americanhistory.about.com/od/vietnam/Vietnam_War.htm>
o <http://dmmc.lib.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Texts/Scholarly/North_Hanoi_Hannah_01.html>

o Studen vlka. http://www.volny.cz/huhu/cw1.htm o A forum on <http://forum.valka.cz/index.php/f/11>

o Further bibliography, printed as well as electronic, on

<http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/vietnam.html>

Reading Students read poems two or three times, they have both the English and the Czech text. Difficult words are explained by teacher if necessary. Students then listen to reading aloud. A record of the authors reading, which is available on-line, is highly reccomended to use parallelly with the reading, for the rhytm and changes of pace are marked and very interesting.

Follow up a) What are your feelings after reading and hearing the poems? b) Was the authors reading different from what you have expected? In which aspects? c) In what aspects are the poems similar and in what do they differ? Facing It1 a) At what point do you realize the setting of the poem? b) What does the speaker reveal about himself? c) What does he remember? d) How could the white vet lose his arm "inside the stone"? e) Why does the speaker mistake the woman brushing the boy's hair? f) How many reflections are there? g) Why does he change from "stone" to "flesh"? h) What could "facing it" mean? i) Is the speaker "facing it"?

Questions modified from an online source: Fooling with Words. 14 Mar. 2007. <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/main_lesson.html>.

53 Homework Write a poem about "reflection" in which you "face" something difficult to face.

Tu Do Street a) Where is the poem set? b) Why the speakers thought fly back to his childhood? c) Why the woman at the bar pretends not noticing the speaker? d) What does playing Judas mean? e) What feelings or thought about the war poem reveals in you? Underline lines that are the most strong for you. f) What could the underworld and the tunnels mean? g) With a partner, think about absurdity of war, is it somehow implied in the poem? h) Find examples of absurdity in ordinary every day life.

Extension In the beginning, as teacher announces the new topic, research, etc., students are also informed about a final output of the topic their own group project a portfolio on the Vietnam War. They can focus on any aspect they wish (history, movies, poetry, anti-war movements, veterans, link to the present world conflicts, etc.), unless it is justificated and fit into the covering label of Vietnam War. The form can be discussed with students, project may include literary as well as art works by respected writers and artists, or by students themselves, or both. Introduction and conclusion should be, however, done in words. The projects should be then displayed in school so that everyone could enjoy the students effort and results. More pragmatically, the fact that there is a task to do after his or her group presentation should force the student to pay attention and make remarks during other group presentations, for he or she may need the information afterwards. The project should also encourage students to ask questions if they do not understand or need reexplanation.

54

4.7 Walter Mosley (b. 1952)

4.7.1 Biography
Walter Mosley was born in a section of Los Angeles called South Central, where he later attended public schools. Mosleys family background was linked to school, for his mother was a Jewish schoolteacher and his father worked as a school custodian. Mosley owes his narrative and litterary succes to his father, who as a gifted storyteller attracted young Mosley to both the language and the tales from his growing up in south Texas and Louisiana. The personality of Walter Mosleys father can be traced in the main character of most of Mosleys stories Easy Rawlins.1

4.7.2 Work
The character of Easy (Ezekiel) Rawlins is obviously the central link in Mosleys An Easy Rawlins Mystery series. Most of his stories are situated in afterwar Los Angeles. Easy is a black man who can have any occupation but he always starts acting like a detective. He is uncompromising, extremely intelligent and good-hearted. Simply, the character of Easy is seen as a continuing in the tradition of a hard-boiled detective, the term that was firstly introduced by Raymond Chandler through the character of his detective Phil Marlowe. Another predecessor of Mosley work can be an African American author Chester B. Himes with his characters of Coffin Ed and Gravedigge Jones. Some of Mosleys published titles: Gone Fishin (written in 1980s but published after succes of following titles in 1996 ), Devil in a Blue Dress (1990), A Red Death (1991), White Butterfly (1992), Black Betty (1994), and A Little Yellow Dog (1996). All of the books were highly succesful. In 1995, Mosley also published R. L.s Dreams, his first book that do not feature Easy and stands out of the Mystery line.

4.7.3 Reading
Mosley, Walter. A little yellow dog. An Easy Rawlins Mystery. New York: Pocket Books, 1996.

Gates and McKay 2594-2595.

55 OBJECTIVES Cultural to observe interactions to observe the (racial) tension involved in professions Historical to find a black mans aspects of life in the 1960s Literary to create a detective story to reveal qualities of characters

A Little Yellow Dog (1996), as it is obvious from the list of Mosleys works, belongs to the series of Easy Rawlins. In the present book, Easy is a head custodian in one of the Los Angeles schools for black students in 1960s. He helps one of teachers who is in troubles by looking after her little dog. However, this goodwill draws Easy in big problems. To get out of the mess and police suspiction, he tries to solve on his own the mystery of a murdered man in the school yard. Easy has gained a new life by being appointed to his present position but the investigation leads him back to streets and makes him use former skills and meet his old friends and enemies. As Easy traces back what has happened to the murdered man, he faces predjudice and suspicions because of his colour of skin, nevertheless he always knows what to do and deals with the situation with a great skill. The exctract is a compiled set of short parts from the first chapters of the book. I wanted to catch the beginning of the story along with a few situatitons that reveal more the Easys character, the background and which are at some point funny. This may appeal students.

56

When I got to work that Monday I knew something was wrong. Mrs Idabell Turners car was parked in the external lot and there was a light on in her half of bungallow C. It was six-thirty. The teachers at Sojourney Truth Junior High school never came in that early. Even the janitors who worked under me didnt show up until sevenfifteen. I was the supervising senior head custodian. It was up to me to see that everything worked right. Thats why I was almost always the first one on the scene. But not that morning. (...) I knocked but nobody answered. I tried my key but the door was bolted from inside. Then that damned dog started barking. Who is it? a womans voice called. Its Mr. Rawlins, Mrs. Turner. Is everything okay? Instead of answering she fumbled around with the bolt and then pulled the door open. The little yellow dog was yapping, standing on its spindly back legs as if he was going to attack me. But he wasnt going to do a thing. He was hiding behind her blue woolen skirt, making sure that I couldnt get at him.

(... The Sojourney Thruth Principal received a call blaming Easy for a robbery in the school and calls Easy to come to his office.) Principal Newgate, as he preferred to be called, always wore a dark suit with a silk tie of bold and rich colors. Come in, Rawlins. Newgate held up the back of his hand and waggled his fingers at me. Mr. Newgate, I said. Jacobi, he said. Say what? That jacket. Gino Jacobi line. Astors downtown is the only place that sells it. He knew his clothes. I did too. Ever since I wangled my job at the Board of Ed I decided that I was going to dress like a supervisor. Id had enough years of shabby jeans and work shirts. (...) Arent you afraid to get those nice clothes dirty if you ever have to do some real work? Newgate asked. You said you wanted to see me? I replied.

57 Newgate had a smile that made you want to slap him. Haughty and disdainful, the principal hated me because I wouldnt bow down to his position. (...) You sure that you dont know anything, Ezekiel? No, Hiram, I replied. I might as well have slapped him; no one called Principal Newgate by his first name.

(... Easy meets his friend called Mouse) We went out to my Pontiac and we drove off. I took a southerneast route because, like I said, that was the 1960s and black men couldnt take a leisurely drive in white Los Angeles without having the cops wanting to know what was going on.

(...sergeant Sanchez interrogates Easy about the dead body found in the school garden) Sanchez had his eyes on me. Anybody here last night? he asked. About four or five in the morning? Not sposed tbe. Nobody works on Sunday, and nobody works that late anyway. Idabell Turner flitted across my mind but I turned my thoughts back to Sanchezs questions. Where were you when the body was found, Mr. Rawlins? I went to pick up one of my men. His care broke down and he needed a ride. You always give taxi to your janitors? Hes my night man. If I dont have a night man we wont be ready for the morning. The hour or so gets paid back with a full nights work. Anyway, I took my lunchtime to do it. Sanchez just stared. He was a living lie detector. I was a living lie. You two can go now, he said. Mr. Rawlins, tell your people that Ill be around either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Ill need to talk to each one of them. Will do, I said. I wanted to cooperate. I wanted to do my duty. I didnt have anything to do with that mans death. But the way Sanchez looked at me made me feel guilty maybe he could smell something that I had yet to sense.

58

4.7.4 Suggestions
Preteaching Let students figure out what the terms Junior and Senior High School mean and give them short inlook into the U.S. educational system. Explain K-12 system and let them compare it to the system they know from the Czech Republic.

Prereading Tell students to imagine the following situation: It is early morning and there is a dead cat found in front of the school door. It was a cat that belonged to one of the unpopular teachers... What do you think will follow? Work in groups of 3-4, you have three minutes. This short activity should get students prepared for the detective genre. If students seem to be puzzled, give them a few supportive questions, for example, will the teacher start lesson as usual? Will he/she accuse somebody? Who did it? Was the cat poisoned or shot? Etc. Groups then present their ideas to the class.

Follow up Questions on the text answer and be as specific as possible a. Where is the story taking place? b. How does Easy notice that something was wrong that morning? c. Did the dog attack Easy? d. Does Easy like the Principal and viceversa? How can you tell that? e. Why would be cops interested in two black men in a car? f. Is Easy frank in aswering sergeant Sanchez? Why/why not?

Further questions a. Can you determine what colour is the characters skin? How do you know? b. Read through the situation at Principals office. o Is it a conversation you would expect at such a place? If not, what is unusual? o Explain Principal Newgates attitude. o How would you react being Easy?

59 o How would you react being Principal Newgate? c. Try to depict sergeant Sanchez how does he look like? You can draw him. What is he like? d. Figure out reasons why Easy does not tell sergeant the full truth in spite of the fact that he is not involved in the murder. e. Now think about yourself: o Do you speak truth all the time? If not, on what occasion/condition are you likely to lie? o Would you speak truth if this could cause you troubles?

A short language exercise is designed in order to facilitate students comprehension of the text with which they are going to work.

Match pairs that go together and then translate the word to Czech. Unknown word 1. (parking) lot 2. janitor 3. to show up 4. bolt 5. custodian 6. to wangle 7. Board of Ed(ucation) 8. shabby 9. disdainful Letter; transl. b. Explanation in English to get something by cheating, or to fake something c. scornful, showing no respect, proud d. a person who is responsible for looking after a public building (here school) e. area of land used for parking cars f. to arrive, come (to work), inf. g. something you have to do that is morally or legally right h. a metal bar that you slide across a door or window to fasten it or lock it i. ragged, old, worn, in bad condition j. someone who looks after a school or a large buiding k. a group of people in an organization (school district, e.g.) who make the rules and important decisions l. to hit someone quickly with your hand

10. to slap 11. duty

60 Writing Choose one of the short extracts, use it as the beginning or the end of a story you will make up. Work in groups of two or three and write it down. Approximate lenght is 100 to 150 words. Work can be done at school, or started there and finished at home. Teacher can consider collecting stories and evaluating them. The evaluation should focus on coherency and continuity of the story rather than on grammatical features. Originality values, too. Optional writing or drawing. Write a paragraph or more, or draw a picture that will express Easys personality and character. Reinvest your asnwers on the questions.

Role play Ask the class to brainstorm everything that they would change in their classroom, corridors and school. Each pair of students then choses from the list two items that appeal to them the most. Consequently, students toss a coin and one each pair then becomes the director of the school and the other becomes the self-confident student who wants to iniciate one of the chosen changes. Both the two in each pair have one or two minutes to prepare their arguments, then five minutes for the preparation of their role play. Students then perform their role play to class. Note: Funny ideas and fierce argumentation on both sides are reccomended. Other students may wish to support the self-confident student actively.

4.8 Gloria Naylor (b. 1950)

4.8.1 Biography
Gloria Naylor was born in New York City. From her early childhood she has borne a respect for education and written word. It was passed on her by her mother, a dedicated reader, who decided to remove the family from Mississippi, where black were not allowed to enter libraries. After graduating from high school, Naylor joined the Jehovahs Witnesses and became a missionary. From 1968 to 1975 she served in New York, North Carolina, and Florida. When Naylor disbanded with the Witnesses, she enrolled in Brooklyn College where she gainded her B. A. in English and continued her studies at Yale, where she gained a masters degree.

61

4.8.2 Work
Naylors first novel The Women of Brewster Place (1982) became immensely succesful, it won American Book Award in 1983. Three other Naylors titles then followed: Linden Hills (1985), Mama Day (1988), Baileys Cafe (1992), and The Men of Brewster Place (1998). All these novels draw on Western sources as well as they reflect the authors African American female experience.1

4.8.3 Reading
OBJECTIVES Cultural to think of the role of relationships in a small community to observe the typical speech acts of African American English and its meaning Literary to observe wide range of similies and metaphors for an abstract notion to produce own and rich description of an abstract notion

From The Women of Brewster Place, The Two Naylor, Gloria. The Two. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Eds. Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay. New York: Norton, 1997. 2544-2571.

The novel could be seen as one in the line of books that tend to portrait black men in negative light. After appereance of the character of Cholly in Morrisons The Bluest Eye or Mr. Freeman in Angelous I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; Naylor comes with a novel that portrays lives of black women in a city in the Northern part of the United States. The women all have in common one thing searching for a home, for they came to Brewster from many different corners of the counry. In The Two, Naylor tells a narrative of two nice lesbians, Lorraine and Tee, who unwillingly move to Brewster having lost better housing nearer to the city. The story though features a band of about five youngsters. These young boys wait one evening when a fragile girl returns home and rape her one after another, just because she is

Gates and McKay 2543.

62 lesbian. When she wakes up after a few hours from agony, Lorraine goes up the street lunatic and perplexed; she kills old Ben, a friend of her with a large brick. Naylor seems to stress the importance of relationship within a community. As the two move in, skinny and light-skinned Lorraine would like to fit in with other women but she is rejected and feels sorry. Self confident Theresa, on the other hand, does not care about other people or neighbourghs. However, both of them have to bear the predjudice and condemnation because of their sexuality from people they daily meet or live next door. These are also the reasons why Lorraine and Tee have had to move more times already.

a) The first extract is taken from the first pages of The Two. It is almost the beginning; two women (fragile and sensitive Lorraine, and cheery and plump Theresa) came to settle in Brewster Place and as time goes by a rumour emerges.

b) The second extract catches the following situation: Lorraine is going back from work and meets her friendly neighbour, Kiswana. They have a chat at the front door when a crowd of young boys passes by.

63

a)

(...) And so no one even cared to remember exactly when they had moved into Brewster Place, until the rumor started. It had first spread through the block like a sour odor thats only faintly perceptible and easily ignored until it starts growing in strength from the dozen mouths it had been lying in, among clammy gums and scum-coated teeth. And then it was everywhere lining the mouths and whitening the lips of everyone as they wrinkled up their noses at its pervading smell, unable to pinpoint the source or time of its initial arrival. (...) The smell had begun there. It outlined the image of the stumbling woman and the one who had broken her fall. Sophie and a few other women sniffed at the spot and then, perplexed, silently looked at each other. Where had they seen that before? They had often laughed and touched each other held each other in joy or its dark twin but where had they seen that before? It came to them as the scent drifted down the steps and entered their nostrils on the way to their inner mouths. They had seen that done that with their men. That shared moment of invisible communion reserved for two and hidden from the rest of the world behind laughter or tears or a touch. In the days before babies, miscarriages, and after intimate walks from church and secret kisses with boys who were now long forgotten or permanently fixed in their lives that was where. They could almost feel the odor moving about in their mouths, and they slowly knitted themselves together and let it out into the air like a yellow mist that began to cling to the bricks on Brewster.

64 b)

While they were talking, C. C. Baker and his friends loped up the block. These young men always moved in a pack, or never without two or three. They needed the others continually near to verify their existence. When they stood with their black skin, ninth-grade diplomas, and fifty-word vocabularies in front of the mirror that the world had erected and saw nothing, those other pairs of tight jeans, suede sneakers, and tinted sunglasses imaged nearby proved that they were alive. (...) The boys recognized Kinswana because her boyfriend, Abshu, was director of the community center, and Lorraine had been pointed out to them by parents or some other adult who had helped to pread the yellow mist. (...) C. C. Baker was greatly disturbed by the thought of a Lorraine. He knew only one way to deal with women other than his mother. Before he had learned exactly how women gave birth, he knew how to please or punish or extract favors from them by the execution of what lay curled behind his fly. It was his lifeline to that part of his being that sheltered his self-respect. And the thought of any woman who lay beyond the lenght of its power was a threat. Hey, Swana, better watch it talkin to that dyke she might try to grab a tit! C. C. called out. Yeah, Butch, why dont ya join the WACS1 and really have a field day. Lorraines arms tightened around her packages, and she tried to push past Kiswana and go into the building. Ill see you later. No, wait. Kiswana blocked her path. Dont let them talk to you like that Theyre nothing but a bunch of punks. She called out to the leader, C. C., why dont you just take your little dusty behind and get out of here. No one was talking to you. The muscular tan boy spit out his cigarette and squared his shoulders. I aint got to do nothin! And Im gonna tell Abshu you need a good spankin for taking up with a lesbo. He looked around at his reflections and preened himself in their approval. Why dont ya come over here and Ill show ya what a real man can do. He cupped his crotch. Kiswanas face reddened with anger. From what I heard about you, C. C., I wouldnt even feel it. His friends broke up with laughter, and when he turned around to them, all he could see mirrored was respect for the girl who had beat him at the dozens. Lorraine smiled at the absolutely lost look on his face. (...)

Woman Army Corps

65

4.8.4 Suggestions
Follow up for a) A rumour: a. Can you explain what it is from the context? b. Underline the expressions that author uses for its description. c. Where do rumours come from? Where do they have their roots? d. When you hear a rumour, do you pass it by? Why/why not? e. Have you ever had to face a rumour? How did you feel? f. Can you think of possible (extreme) consequences of a rumour onto the involved person/people? g. What environment favour rumours? h. Think of other possibillities how to express a rumour (short writing exercice). Other questions a. How do the women recognize that Lorraine and Tee are lesbians? b. What is the womens reaction? Highlight the part in the text. c. How can you re-tell the highlited part? d. Will the women be friendly to the girls or not? How do you know? e. Can you reveal the colour of skin of any of the characters? Where? Would the story make any difference if the colour of skin of any of characters was different? How?

Follow up for b) Possible questions and tasks a. Cross out words from the text that you should never use when you speak or write, at least when the language is not your mother tongue. (individually) b. Compare the words with your partner(s) and find reasons why you should omit using these words. c. How are the boys described? (Do you like them?) d. Is the image of boys and their talk familiar to you? (Consider songs, TV, books, ...) Share the ideas with your colleagues.

66 e. Why does Kinswana suggest C. C. Joining WACS although he is a man? f. Is the language of all characters the same? What can you point out? Playing the dozens1 a. Try to reveal what does playing the dozensmean and make your definition. b. Do you think you can experience playing the dozens in your everyday life? If yes, how? If not, why? c. Are there any rules concerning playing the dozens? If yes, coud you formulate some of them? d. How is the reaction of Lorraine and Kinswana different and why? Think of more possible reasons.

Thinking Have you ever been addressed in a street like Lorraine? How did you react? What do you do if a stranger wants to start talking to you and he/she is not nice? Do you scream, flee, call for help, ignore the stranger, start conversation, ...? What is the best way to act in such a situation?

4.9 Rita Dove (b. 1952)

4.9.1 Biography
Dove was born in Akron, Ohio, in a family where education was greatly valued. Dove displayed interest in literature by writing plays and stories at an early age. Supported by her high school teacher, Dove then became interested in professional writing. She did well in her studies, in 1970 she was among the top one hundred U.S. high school seniors. Dove enrolled at Miami University in Oxford and graduated in 1973. The same year she received a Fulbright scholarship to study at Tubingen University in West Germany. She travelled in Europe, northern Africa, and Israel; the influence of different cultures is reflected in her works.
1

producing creative and witty rhymed insults whose language is often rough in order to humble ones enemies

67 Dove taught creative writing at Arizona State University and from 1989 she has been teaching at the University of Virginia. She was awarded Pulitzer Prize in 1987, was elected first black and the youngest Poet Laureate of the United States (1993-1995), served as a Consultant to the Library of Congress, has received a Guggenheim, a Lavan Younger Poets award, and a Walt Whitman award. Dove is married and with her husband, a German-born writer, and their daughter they live in Charlottesville, Virginia.

4.9.2 Work
Doves first poems were published in major periodicals only a year after her graduation from Miami University. Her first volumes were Ten Poems (1977) and The Only Dark Spot in the Sky (1980) were published as chapbooks and were later reprinted in The Yellow House on the Corner (1980). Although judged to be too personal, The Yellow house is appreciated for discipline in the form and for the way author combines historical images with private ones. Doves experience from travelling abroad is reflected in her second major volume, Museum (1983) where she performes interest in other cultures. The next poetry volume, Thomas and Beulah (1986) is vaguely based on her grandparents lives. Dove divided this collection in two parts, one contains events from her grandfather Thomass perspective, the other section deals with the same events but from her grandmother Beulahs perspective. Interesting is that the author mentiones historical events together with the private stories in the chronological order to provide the reader a time path. Dove is celebrated for the economy of her style which she exhibited in Thomas and Beulah as well in The Other Side of the House (1988) and in Grace Notes (1989). Dove also published a book of short stories Fifth Sunday (1985) and a novel, Through the Ivory Gate (1992). Her following collection of poems, Mother Love (1995), is focused on mother-daughter relationship performed by characters of Greek Myths, Demeter and Persephone. Next title, On the Bus with Rosa, was published in 1999. Doves most recent book of poetry, American Smooth, was published in 2004.

68

4.9.3 Reading
OBJECTIVES Cultural to think of parental love and home, and what it means for one (Does the meaning / importance of home differ by culture?) Historical to (re)discover the Greek Myths about creation of the world Literary to show influence of different cultures to observe the play of colours and its significance

Rita Dove, Demeters Prayer to Hades. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Eds. Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay. New York: Norton, 1997. 2594. Rita Dove, Exit. Modern American Poetry. 13 Apr. 2007. <http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dove/onlinepoems.htm> Rita Dove, Wiring home. Modern American Poetry. 13 Apr. 2007. <http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dove/onlinepoems.htm>

I selected three poems by Rita Dove. The first one, Demeters Prayer to Hades refers to Greek Mythology. Students may not guess that the author is an African American and can be surprised. The link to Greek Creation Myths should also refresh students knowledge from Czech lessons where Greek myths are usually discussed during the first year of secondary school. However, students may also need some information about the writers private life to decode the message. Dove has a daughter and by the time Dove was writing Mother Love, her daughter left home and stayed on her own will abroad in uncomfortable conditions; Dove expresses feeling of losing her daughter in most of the poems in Mother Love. The second and the third poem, Exit and Wiring home are, I believe, not difficult to understand and appealing to students; they refer to feelings adolescents could have experienced, leaving and coming home after a longer period of time. The poems succeed in natural order, one has to leave sadly to come back happy and satisfied.

69

Demeters Prayer to Hades

This alone is what I wish for you: knowledge. To understand each desire has an edge, to know we are responsible for the lives we change. No faith comes without cost, no one believes without dying. Now for the first time I see clearly the trail you planted, what ground opened to waste, though you dreamed a wealth of flowers.

There are no curses-only mirrors held up to the souls of gods and mortals. And so I give up this fate, too. Believe in yourself, go ahead-see where it gets you.

70

Exit Just when hope withers, the visa is granted. The door opens to a street like in the movies, clean of people, of cats; except it is your street you are leaving. A visa has been granted, "provisionally"-a fretful word. The windows you have closed behind you are turning pink, doing what they do every dawn. Here it's gray. The door to the taxicab waits. This suitcase, the saddest object in the world. Well, the world's open. And now through the windshield the sky begins to blush as you did when your mother told you what it took to be a woman in this life.

Wiring Home Lest the wolves loose their whistles and shopkeepers inquire, keep moving, though your knees flush red as two chapped apples, keep moving, head up, past the beggar's cold cup, past the kiosk's trumpet tales of odyssey and heartbreakuntil, turning a corner, you stand, staring: ambushed by a window of canaries bright as a thousand golden narcissi.

71

4.9.4 Suggestions
Prereading Demeters Prayer to Hades Students are told a week before reading this poem, to look in their old copybooks or brows <www.pantheon.org> to remember Greek Creation Myths. As there is a large number of Greek Gods, teacher may suggest focusing on Demeter and her daughter. Then, one lesson before starting poems by Rita Dove, students share what they found out. I recommend a chain story to narrate Demeters and Persephones lives; first student says one sentence and the second says also one sentence which must fit as continuing of the first one, etc., till the whole story is told. After this lesson, a copy of the poem is handed to each student so that they can find words they do not know.

Follow up Demeters Prayer to Hades What are your reactions to the poem? Who is the speaker? Who does he or she address? What feelings/emotions can you see in the poem? Where?

Warm up Exit and Wiring home The selected Doves poems deal with home and parental love. I suggest playing a calm song about home, or plain comfortable music. Students are kindly told to think about their home, parents, and brothers or sisters. After listening, students can discuss a few questions to get prepared for this topics. Students work in small groups of 2-3. The last task is to write a short poem on the topic; students reinvest the previous discussion. Volunteers are encouraged to read their poem aloud to class.

Possible questions: a. What did you think about during the listening to the song? Was it a pleasant thought? b. There are always some squablles (light disputes) in a family. Besides these moments, what relationship do you have with your parents? c. d. How would your parents react, if you, for example, left home? Do you imagine leaving your home for a longer period of time? (summer holiday, two months or more)

72 e. f. g. How do you think you will handle it, will you feel homesick? If you have already had such an experience, how was it? Write a short poem about leaving and/or coming home. Your answers to previous questions can inspire you.

Follow up Exit and Wiring home a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. Did the poems touch you? What feeling did they reveal in you? Who is the speaker? What does he or she do? How does he or she feel? How are the poems similar and in what do they differ? Focus on the play of colours, what role does it have in the poems? Do you know the speakers colour of skin? Where is it in the text? Would the poem differ if it was written in Australia, for example? How do you know that is was not written in Australia? Is the meaning of home and parental love similar in all cultures? Give examples.

Note The theme of home and parental love is sensitive for a student who has lost one or both of his or her parents or who was raised in childrens home. Teacher must be aware of this situation and consider fixing questions or take thought whether to bring the present topic to the class at all.

3. 10 Introduction to poetry
The overwhelming majority of students usually dislike poems. In spite of that, or because of that I chose to include four poets in the present work. However, a special activity may be useful for a good start. The activity can start by conversation based on question What is poetry? and on task to invent the definition. While students work, teacher may hand out three different examples of poems to deepen students thoughts. Examples should be of a great variety; a prose poem, a sonnet, lyrics to a song, an example of a free verse, and a traditional

73 narrative poem so that students could discuss their similarities and differences. Students then formulate their definition which can be put down on a blackboard together with definition of poets themselves. Class may then vote for the best definition.

74

5 QUESTIONNAIRE
The questionnaire was distributed in a secondary school outside Brno to students in third and fourth year.1 The data from the questionnaire serve as supportive and not base information for further shaping of the present work. The questionnaire was made up in reason to confirm or disprove my presumption of students will to work with literature written in English during their English language lessons; students awareness of events in history of the United States; and students attitude towards reading as such. For reasons of avoiding students misunderstanding and usually shy expression in English, I choosed to distribute the questionnaire in students mother tongue Czech. Instructions were clearly given at the beginning. Students had enough time to think over and answer the questions. It took them about fifteen minutes in average to answer the questionnaire.

5.1 Questionnaire for the 3rd and 4th grade of grammar school students

Dotaznk: Afroamerick kultura a literatura 1) te rd/a? a. Ano emu dv pednost: komiksy, asopisy, romny, denn tisk, jin (co)? b. Nepro? (nem as, chu, bol t oi) 2) Kdy u nco pete, zamysl se nad tm rd/a? 3) Kdyby sis ml/a vybrat z tchto knih, se kterm z nich bys rd pracoval/a ve kole (v hodinch anglitiny)?

sbrka bsn, historick romn, pohdky, sci-fi, detektivky, povdky, jin (co) 4) Me kniha ovlivnit Tvj nzor? Jak? 5) Kdo je Tvj oblben autor?

Gymnzium Tinov, Na Hrdku 20, Tinov. 16 Mar. 2007.

75

6) Doke jmenovat njakho americkho spisovatele/spisovatelku? (Vzpome si i na ltku z hodin etiny nebo anglitiny.) 7) Zn njak Afroamerick (ern) spisovatele/ky, umlce, intelektuly nebo znm osobnosti (herce, zpvky,)? Napi jejich jmna a pokud mono upesni profesi, eventueln stolet. 8) Kter zem se astnili vlky ve Vietnamu a kdy se vietnamsk vlka odehrla? 9) Ct njak rozdl mezi pojmy black, Negro a African American? Pokud ano, zkus krtce vysvtlit, jak jim rozum. 10) Najdeme rozdl mezi spoleenskou pozic ernoch v Americe 17.-18.stolet a dnes? Jestli mysl, e ano, napi v em. 11) Chtl/a by ses dozvdt vc o udlostech a skutenostech zmnnch v otzkch 7-10? Pro/pro ne? 12) Chtl/a bys st hodin anglitiny vnovat prci s literaturou, kter se tchto bod (7-10) dotk? Pro/pro ne? 13) Jestli se u te chce na nco zeptat nebo nco poznamenatjen do toho Ale prosm jen psemn. Dkuji za spoluprci a pravdiv vyplnn dotaznku.

5.2 Commentary
Re 1-3 First three questions were for warming up. It is possible to say (ith one or two exceptions from the total number) that students like reading, however, they tend to read only daily press or magazines. Many students complained of the lack of time for reading a book. It was interesting to note that the lack of time bothers more third year students than those at the fourth year heading to their school leaving examination. In the third question answers varied, nevertheless detective stories, short stories, and science fiction prevailed; a book of poetry was mentioned altogether once. Re 4 & 5 The fourth question implied consciousness of the formative effect of literature. Answers varied on the whole scale. Four students answered that a book could never change their mind. One third of the students was assured about the power of the book, the

76 other third thought that book could change their mind, under the condition that it is a special/professional book; the rest suggested maybe. The answers in the fifth question varied. One fifth of students, approximetely, had no favourite writer, the others named at least one. The diversity of writers names and nationalities was great. Re 6 Both the third and fourth year students coped well with the sixth question. Names probably reflected authors mentioned in lesson, as Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, and Mark Twain figured on almost every sheet of paper. A few students named also Walt Whitman, and Stephen King. Mostly fourth year students were also able to name some others authors like Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Saroyan, and Tenessee Williams were mentioned, too. Re 7 The seventh question drew mainly to the present knowledge of famous people from media. However, all students listed Martin Luther King and nearly all at first place; Louis Armstrong was also mentioned frequently, as well as Whitney Houston and Will Smith. Other names like Jay-Z, Eddie Murphy, James Brown, or Michael Jackson appeared too. Re 8 There was a big difference in the answers to the eight question. While the third year students mostly wrote in appologetic tone to jsme jet nebrali, most of the fourth year students was able to indicate approximate years or decade and knew that the U. S. A. were involved. A few students answered in detail, probably because of their own interest in military history. Re 9 Answering the nineth question, the overwhelming majority identified Negro as a pejorative and insulting term. Some students then argued that African American is a black man born or just living in America. Three students rightly identified black as neutral term, three others considered it pejorative. Two students assumed the difference in terms is hidden in the shade of the black skin not specifying it further. Two students did not see any difference between the terms at all. Re 10 Students managed to point at basic facts in history slavery, oppression, discrimination. They also seem to be aware of present situation: all of them wrote that things had changed; that there was no slavery in todays America, but on the other hand,

77 racism and discrimination were still likely to be present in the contemporary American society. One student compared the position of black people in the United States to the position of Roma people in Czech Republic, stating that the equality of races is proclaimed only officially. One student believed there was no great difference in the position of black people in 17th and 18th centrury and today, one student did not respond at all. The most striking were answers of two students from the fourth year who presumed there was no difference in the position of blacks at all. Re 11 & 12 Results from the eleventh and the twelfth points were proportionally same in both of the groups (3rd and 4th year students). In general, a half of the students would appreciate learning more about mentioned items, as well as using literature as a means. One quarter of students would like to learn more on the subjects but they would not involve literature in the process. Their main argument was that the literature taught in lessons of Czech covers these topics sufficiently. The rest of the students, 25% approximately was not interested in the proposed topics or literature at all. Re 13 I decided to include one open point to let students express their curiosity by asking questions or making remarks. Nevertheless, this possibility was exploited by five students only. The reason for the low reponse could have been in the written form of questionnaire; students could assume there would not be any time left to their questions so they did not write anything.

78

6 CONCLUSION
The present work pursued contemporary African American literature and dealt with its use in secondary school English teaching. I selected the following writers of the second half of the 20the century: Martin Luther King, Jr., Amiri Baraka, June Jordan, Toni Morrison, Yusef Komunyakaa, Walter Mosley, Gloria Naylor, Rita Dove, and Langston Hughes who is the only exception that does not precisely fit the time limit. Hughes was the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance movement in the 1920s.The aim of the present work was to present selected texts by African Americans of the second half of the 20th century together with suggestions how to use them in English lessons of third or fourth years at Czech grammar schools. The emphasis was put on education towards tolerance and multiculturalism. As the work itself and the following conclusion point out, the assigned aims were succesfully achieved.

The first task before starting writing was to choose writers. I worked with The Norton Anthology of African American Literature that gave me general and historical overview, as well as detailed information on writers. There was about twenty authors in the first choice, whose life and work I studied in detail. It was not possible to include all of them so the number was cut to seven but then rose to the final nine.In the meantime, I browsed and studied secondary literature which helped me later to go into the depth of the texts. The next difficult task was the selection of texts from the wide range of African American fiction. A certain compromise had to be achieved in the contents, form, language and topic of the selected text with regard to secondary school audience. Some texts that I decided to include in the present work were printed in the anthologies and therefore not hard to find. Nevertheless, the majority of the texts caused more troubles. I will comment on a few of the problematic texts further. Amiri Barakas anthologized works were predominantly poems from his rebel years of the 1960s, the period that their author considers closed and finished. I found a poem written in September 2001 which would be interesting and more recent, but I considered it too long for it had seven pages. Finally, I got myself inspired by a web page that suggested a few activities on three of Barakas poems. A different problem occured with June Jordans works. Her anthologized poems were exactly the text I desired to

79 work with fierce, self-confident and persuasive poems on current problems question of human rights of people in Guatemala, Palestine, etc. Yet, their values were the reasons why they had to be finally left out. I do not assume that teenagers are aware of political issues in the Central America or in the Middle East and the preparation of the topic would be therefore very demanding, complicated and probably out of students interest. However, I did not wish to abandon Jordans work at all. The result was chosing an anthologized essay A New Politics of Sexuality with the title presumably appealing to teenager students; the text is again difficult, but a special plan on the essay has been designed to facilitate it. The last commentary is dedicated to Yusef Komunyakaas poems. I chose three poems from Oarovn, a book of Komunyakaas selected poems translated by Prof. Jaab. Two of the three chosen poems were easy to find in English on the internet, but not the third one I wanted to include, Hanka z Hanoje/Hanoi Hannah. Dr. Pribylova was so kind to contact Prof. Jaab who replied readily by sending a copy of Hanoi Hannah by mail. I would like hereby to thank Prof. Jarab for his help. Unfortunately, the poem is finally not included in the present work; Hanoi Hannah is attached in the Appendix. The next task, to design the use of the texts in a class, was shaping along with the process of the selection of texts. In spite of the fact that teaching literature is not the aim of the English teachers study, it may be useful to know how to work with literary texts. Although there are various books on teaching literature in the library of Faculty of Education, I did not find suitable any of them for the purpose of the present work. The book that did inspire a part of my ideas was Richard W. Beach and James D. Marshalls Teaching Literature in the Secondary School, that was aimed for American students.The book was clearly organized in chapters dealing with different literary forms and suggested approaches to them. In addition, special chapters on authors of different ethnic groups or on selecting texts were included, too. In consequence to the lack of specific didactic materials on African American literature, I had to create them on my own. The purpose of the present work was to teach thinking, tolerance and empathy by the means of African American literature. The majority of the exercises is therefore based on the open-ended questions that should excite students thinking. The following discussion then leads to the development of communicative competence, for students are asked to explain themselves, weigh arguments and listen to the ideas of other classmates. Besides, the discussion should lead

80 to students self confidence to express and stand for their opinions. On the other hand, this way of teaching is very demanding for teachers. They have to be well prepared and able to feel the point where discussion loses its purpose and turns to mess. Teachers aid can be Penny Urs book, Discussions that work : task-centred fluency practice. Teachers may also wish to use some additional activities to support tolerance and respect for the ideas of other people, which is highly desirable. The present work is flexible and does not offer concrete lesson plans. However, most of the topics should be discussed in one or more units of 90 minutes, yet the final time management and the final choice of texts is on the teacher.

The questionnaire I distributed to the students of third and fourth years affirmed my assumptions. A similar questionnaire could be handed out to students at the beginning of each school year and the answers would serve as a feedback. The teacher would be able to compare easily whether the number of readers increased or lowered, whether more students are willing to work with poetry, whether the topics and the language level of texts had been selected appropriately.

Here is the final summary of discussed writers, topics and relevant literary forms.

Writer
Langston Hughes

Topic

Form
speech poems essay novel poems detective story novel poems

dreams, cultural predetermination poem, essay

Martin Luther King dreams, civil rights, segregation Amiri Baraka June Jordan Toni Morrison sounds, musicality tolerance, sexuality, freedom diversity within a community

Yusef Komunyakaa segregation, Vietnam War Walter Mosley Gloria Naylor Rita Dove black mans life in the 1960s power of relationships, tolerance home, parental love

81

BIBLIOGRAPHY
PRIMARY LITERATURE Baraka, Amiri. Wise I. Fooling with words. PBS. 13 Mar. 2007. <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/mainlst_baraka.html>. ---. Monday in B-Flat. Fooling with words. PBS. 13 Mar. 2007. <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/mainlst_baraka.html> Dove, Rita. Demeters Prayer to Hades. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Eds. Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay. New York: Norton, 1997. 2594. ---. Exit. Modern American Poetry. 13 Apr. 2007. <http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dove/onlinepoems.htm>. ---. Wiring home. Modern American Poetry. 13 Apr. 2007. <http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dove/onlinepoems.htm>. Hughes, Langston. The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Gates, Henry Lewis, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay, eds. New York: Norton, 1997. 1267-1271. ---. I, Too. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Gen. Ed. Paul Lauter. Lexington: D. C. Heath and Company. 1619. Jordan, June. A New Politics of Sexuality. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Eds. Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay. New York: Norton, 1997. 2238-2241. King, Martin Luther, Jr. I Have A Dream. Usinfo.state.gov. The U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Information Programs. 7 Apr. 2007. <http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/38.htm>.

82 Komunyakaa, Yusef. Facing It. Internet Poetry Archive. Paul Jones. U of North Carolina P. 11 March 2007. <http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/komunyakaa/facing_it.php> ---. Tu Do Street. Internet Poetry Archive. Paul Jones.. 11 Mar. 2007. U of North Carolina P. <http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/komunyakaa/tu_do_street.php> ---. Ped zd. Oarovn. Comp. and trans. Josef Jaab. Praha: Paseka, 2003. ---. Ulice Tu Do. Oarovn. Comp. and trans. Josef Jaab. Praha: Paseka, 2003. Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: WSP, 1970. ---. Nejmodej oi. Trans. Michael antovsk. Praha: Odeon, 1983. Mosley, Walter. A Little YellowDog. An Easy Rawlins Mystery. New York: Pocket Books, 1996. Naylor, Gloria. The Two. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Eds. Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay. New York: Norton, 1997. 25442571.

SECONDARY LITERATURE akov, Michaela. Open Gates. A Course in 20th Century American Culture and Literature. Voznice: Leda. 2005. Beach, Richard W., and James D. Marshall. Teaching Literature in the Secondary School. San Diego: HBJ, 1990. Carter, Ronald, and Michael N. Long. Teaching Literature. Burnt Mill: Longman, 1991. Davidson, James West, et al. Nation of Nations: A Concise Narrative of the American Republic. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1996. Elliott, Emory, gen. ed. The Columbia History of the American Novel. New York: Columbia UP, 1991.

83 Ellison, Ralph. Introduciton. Invisible Man. By Ellison. New York: Vintage Books, 1952. vii-xxiii. Encyklopedie Diderot, Praha: Diderot, 1999. Gates, Henry Lewis, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay, eds. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: Norton, 1997. Gates, Henry Lewis, Jr. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. ---. Ethics of Identity. Palack University, Olomouc. 25 Nov.1996. Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: MLA, 2003. Green, Lisa J. African American English. A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. Hilfer, Tony. American Fiction since 1940. London: Longman, 1992. Jaab, Josef, ed. Dt na sklenku: vbor ze souasn americk poezie. Praha: Odeon, 1989. ---, ed. Masky a tve ern Ameriky. Praha: Odeon, 1985. ---, Z lousiansk Bogalusy do bezbeh e svtov poezie. Afterword. Okouzlen. By Yusef Komunyakaa. Trans. Josef Jaab. Praha: Paseka, 2003. Johnson, Charles. Spisovatel pamti. Stejn jako jejich pedchdci v obdob harlemsk renesance posunuj dnes ern spisovatel osmdestch let pomysln hranice americk literatury. Spektrum 65/1989: 32-37. Jordan, June. Nobody Mean More to Me than You And the Future Life of Willie Jordan. July 1985. 406-417. Unidentified source. Ruland, Richard, and Malcolm Bradbury. Od puritanismu k postmodernismu. Praha: Mlada fronta, 1997. 369-370. Ulmanov, Hana. Ismael Reed: I kapitalist jsou dnes svm zpsobem multikulturalisty. MF DNES 21st Apr. 1999: 18.

84 ---. Nepotebujeme dn klony USA! Castro je hrdina, zato Condoleeza Riceov je schizofrenika, hls americk aktivista a spisovatel Amiri Baraka. MF DNES 25th Oct. 2003: B3. Ur, Penny. Discussions that work: task-centred fluency practice. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981. Urbanov Ludmila, and Andrew Oakland. vod do anglick stylistiky. Brno: Barrister, 2002. Wilson, Charles Reagan, and William Ferris, coeds. Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Chapelhill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Websters Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged. Springfield: Merriam, 1986.

INTERNET SOURCES American Rhetoric. 7Apr. 2007. <http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm>. Amiri Baraka. 15 Mar. 2007. <http://www.amiribaraka.com/p2.html>. Encyclopedia Mythica. 2006. 10 Apr. 2007. <www.pantheon.org>. Fooling with Words. 14 Mar. 2007. <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/main_lesson.html>. Lyrics Search Engine. 24 Mar. 2002.
<http://lyrics.astraweb.com/display/1002/wyclef_jean..ecleftic2_sides_ii_a_book..911.html>.

North by South. Kenyon College. 3 Apr. 2007. <http://northbysouth.kenyon.edu/1998/harlem-home/index.htm>. The Official Web site of the Nobel Foundation. 1993. 6 March 2007. <http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1993/morrison-bio.html>. The Poetry Archive. 2005. 15 Apr. 2007 <http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=6719>.

85 Usinfo.state.gov. U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Information Programs. 7 Apr. 2007. <http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/38.htm>. Wikipedia. 29 Jan. 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toasting>. Wikipedia. 11 Apr. 2007. 13 Apr. 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rita_Dove> Wikipedia. 4 Apr 2007. 7 Apr. 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_luther_king>. Wikipedia. 5 Apr. 2007. 7 Apr. 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison>.