This is a week long project for students who are in the 8th or 9th grade. To accomplish this lesson, the teacher must have a good deal of knowledge of the students so that they can be grouped accordingly.

The students will be divided into groups of 4 or 5 students. The students should be grouped in such a way that at least one creative student and one student who is not shy are in each group.

Day 1: The students will be introduced to the poems The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes¹ and Yet Do I Marvel by Countee Cullen². They will be asked to read them in their groups and try to comprehend as much as possible. Teacher lead discussion will be used to help the students understand the poems.

Day 2: The students will write a compare/contrast short essay about the two poems. One essay is due per group so they can work on this together.

Day 3: The students will use the information they learned on the first two days to rewrite both of the poems. The poems will be rewritten in such a manner that the poems still contain the same meanings that the students found but in a modern day language.

Day 4: The students will continue rewriting the poems and will also prepare for the poetry reading.

Day 5: Each group will present their custom written versions of the two poems. They will also read their comparison/contrast essay to the class.

Some notes about this assignment:

• Students should be encouraged to be as creative as possible with their rewrites of the poems. To incorporate more “modern” language, they could make the poems sound like a conversation that takes place on the Internet or use jargon that is prevalent these days.³
• Students should also be allowed to prepare for the poetry reading in a creative manner. The poetry reading should be set up to be a similar atmosphere as could be found during the Harlem Renaissance. The smoky jazz clubs are where these took place, so provide candlelight and maybe some piano jazz in the background. Dry ice could be used to create the smoky environment. The children could wear costumes that fit the time period or if that’s not feasible, maybe hats could be found to give some semblance of the era.
• The instructions are provided in a simple manner because the creativity of the teacher truly comes into play with this type of lesson. The school administration might allow this to be a presentation to the entire school. Parents could be invited and asked to dress in their Sunday best. There are many routes a teacher could take with this lesson to make it fun for the students⁴.

1. Hughes, Langston. “The Weary Blues.” Anthology of Modern American Poetry. Ed. Cary Nelson. New York: Oxford Press, 2000. 504-505. [«]
2. Cullen, Countee. “Yet Do I Marvel.” Anthology of Modern American Poetry. Ed. Cary Nelson. New York: Oxford Press, 2000. 530-531. [«]
3. As long as they leave out the spam language like “Leptovox” and other such nonsense found in e-mails today. [«]
4. Or even the whole school [«]

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