Poetry for Young People: Langston Hughes

Multicultural Poetry and Verse
2006

Grades 3-8

This book is filled with 26 of Langston Hughes best known and most-loved works.  The book is edited by David Roessel and Arnold Rampersad and illustrated by Benny Andrews.  Andrews' beautiful collage and watercolor illustrations with angular figures express a strong sense of African American music, dreams, and daily life.  The illustrator leaves lots of white space for the words.  The picture book format makes Hughes' work accessible to grade school children for sharing and read alouds.  

Classroom Activity Grades 6-8

Provide students with a copy of Hughes' poem "Dream."  Each stanza of the poem is one sentence, and each sentence contains a metaphor for a dream.  Explain that a metaphor compares two objects or ideas that are not generally associated with one another.  Have them identify the metaphor in each sentence, and then ask them to write about what Hughes was trying to convey about dreams by using these metaphors.  What kind of dream would a "broken-winged bird" represent?  How about a "field frozen in snow?"  Working in groups, students can compose poems using metaphors for dreams coming to fruition.

Classroom Activity Grades 3-5

This graphic organizer will help students brainstorm imagery about word pairs.  For example, the moon/boils noun/verb pair are divided into why, how, and where columns.  The graphic organizer and lesson can be found at http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/dancing-minds-shouting-smiles-860.html

St. Leo Core Value of Respect: Poetry For Young People Langston Hughes, teaches the St. Leo Core Value of Respect because of Hughes' message that we all need each other through the power struggles and burdens of human life.  Nature and freedom coexist and people eventually learn to find freedom from the confines of society, oneself, and finally freedom within one's soul.  Through our deep respect of faith and trust in the lord, freedom from fears and worries will come.  

References

Roessel, D. & Rampersad, A. (2006). Poetry for Young People: Langston Hughes. New York, NY:  

Sterling Publishing