Tag Archives: poetry

The Weekly Text, Friday 9 June 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 14, The Message: Hip-Hop as Political and Social Manifesto

Don’t worry, after this, only two lessons remain to post in the History of Hip-Hop Unit. This week’s Text is lesson plan fourteen of the unit, on Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s seminal Hip-Hop recording, “The Message.” This lesson begins, after your class change, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a manifesto. The central work of this lesson is a reading, and a listening, for which I use this Official Video of the song on YouTube, and the lyrics to the song, to guide students toward completing these comprehension and analytical questions on these verses.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

The Weekly Text, Friday 2 June 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 13, Breaking into the Charts: Hip-Hop as Party Music

This week’s Text offers the thirteenth lesson plan of the History of Hip-Hop Unit. This lesson opens, after a class change, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Nation of Islam. The principal work of this lesson are the lyrics to “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang and “The Breaks” by Kurtis Blow, and the comprehension and analytical questions about those lyrics. You can find both of these songs on YouTube–and in the case of “The Breaks” a live performance by Kurtis Blow on Soul Train. I’ve shown parts of both–and nota bene, please, that “Rapper’s Delight,” depending on which version you land on, can be a long song.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Rabindranath Tagore at the Seashore

“On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.”

Rabindranath Tagore, “On the Seashore” 1.6 (1918)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Rabindranath Tagore

“Rabindranath Tagore: Bengali poet, writer, composer, and painter. The son of Debendranath Tagore, he published several books of poetry, including Manasi, in his twenties. His later religious poetry was introduced to the West in Gitanjali (1912). Through international travel and lecturing, he introduced aspects of Indian culture to the West and vice versa. He spoke ardently in favor of Indian independence; as a protest against the Massacre of Amritsar, he repudiated the knighthood he had received in 1915. He founded an experimental school in Bengal where he sought to blend Eastern and Western philosophies; it became Vishva-Bharati University (1921). He was awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Matsuo Basho Just Cooling

“Cooling, so cooling,

With a wall against my feet,

Midday sleep—behold.”

Poem (translation by Bernard Lionel Einbond)

Matsuo Basho

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Li Po on Life

“Since Life is but a Dream,

Why toil to no avail?”

Li Po

“A Homily on Ideals in Life, Uttered in Springtime on Rising from a Drunken Slumber” (ca. 750)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

The Weekly Text, Friday 21 April 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 11, Gil Scott-Heron: Black Power Griot of Harlem

This week’s Text, following in sequence, is the eleventh lesson plan of the History of Hip-Hop unit, this one on the late, great, Gil Scott-Heron. This lesson begins with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the National Association for the the Advancement of Colored People. The center of this lesson is this adapted reading on Gil Scott-Heron with its comprehension worksheet to accompany it.

This lesson also includes listening to two of Gil Scott-Heron’s songs, both of which are available on YouTube. Here are the lyrics to “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and “The Bottle.”

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Cultural Literacy: Sonnet

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the sonnet as a poetic form, This is a half-page document with a reading of two sentences and two comprehension questions. A simple–even elegant, if I may say so–and symmetrical introduction to the structure of the sonnet and some of the poems who wrote in the form.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

The Weekly Text, Friday 14 April 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 10, The Last Poets, Harlem Griots

Moving along with the History of Hip-Hop unit, this week’s Text is the tenth lesson plan, on The Last Poets. I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Malcolm X. From there we proceed to the mainstay of the lesson, this adapted reading on The Last Poets and its attendant comprehension-building worksheet.

Incidentally, if you’re interested in the full text from which the reading above was adapted, here is a PDF of the master of the reading. I snipped this from a copy of Uncut magazine back when the Hip-Hop fanzines were still published in paper and available at the Borders on Lower Broadway (very near Wall), near the school where I served at that time and where I would pick them up. So, we’re talking, basically, about pre-2008, which is when Borders ceased to exist, a casualty of the financial crisis that year. I had a hell of a time finding the citation, but I am relatively confident of it.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Phyllis McGinley

“Phyllis McGinley: ((1905-1978) American writer of light verse. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker and other magazines, McGinley was known for her clever and humorous poems about various aspects of modern life. Among her best-known collections are A Pocketful of Wry (1940), Love Letters (1954), Times Three: Selected Verse from Three Decades (1960: Pulitzer Prize), and Christmas Con and Pro (1971). She also wrote essays and numerous books for children.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.