Human Rights Around the World

Using visualization and inference to examine the works of female poets

       

Lesson Plan by Samantha Calarusse and John Hamilton EDRS610                          

The purpose for this particular set of lessons is for students to become more aware about Women’s History Month and to understand the impact women can have and have had on the progression of local and global issues. By focusing on women’s literature from various cultures and time periods, students will observe how many overcame restrictions and boundaries to deliver their messages. As part of a series, different forms of literature from different eras will help place the external struggle in a historical context. Today’s lesson will focus on visualizing the strong imagery contained in three examples of poetry.

Context for Learning

Expectation 1.1 The student will use effective strategies before, during, and after reading, viewing, and listening to self-selected and assigned materials.

Expectation 1.2The student will construct, examine, and extend meaning of traditional and contemporary works recognized as having significant literary merit.

Expectation 1.3The student will explain and give evidence to support perceptions about print and non-print works.

Expectation 4.1The student will describe the effect that a given text, heard or read, has on a listener or reader.

Expectation 4.2The student will assess the effectiveness of choice of details, organizational pattern, word choice, syntax, use of figurative language, and rhetorical devices.

Standards

Students will be able to make predictions about the poem titles.

Students will be able to visualize and infer two different poems.

Students will be able to adjust their inferences based on historical context.

Objectives

On Actiboard: Predict the content of two poems based on their titles.

“And Still I Rise” and “Oh sisters, Honor Lies in Independence”

Warm-up

Students will first work independently reading the two poems and listening to the YouTube video, “And Still I Rise.” Students will then be asked to work in small groups to discuss their findings and regroup to discuss/reassess their ideas.

First, students will listen to the YouTube video of Maya Angelou reading her own poem, “And Still I Rise.” During this period students will be asked to visualize the words and create their own meaning.

Procedural Activities

Click

Here

Second: While students listen to the YouTube video, I will hand out the two poems, “And Still I Rise” and “Oh sisters, Honor Lies in Independence” While students read the two poems silently, they will be asked to visualize the words. They can do this by making notes in the margin, circling visual words, drawing small pictures, etc. By making notations, students should be able to create their own meaning before gathering into their small groups.

Third: After reading the poems independently, the class will gather for a large group demonstration. I will guide the students through the process of visualization and inferring. I will demonstrate the first few examples, then as a class we will complete the chart. When students feel confident about their visualization and inferring abilities, students will then split into small groups.

Procedural Activities (cont’d….)

Procedural Activities (cont’d….) “Still I Rise”

Visualization Inferring Theme

- A historian will write lies about the speaker - Dust rising from trodden dirt - Walking like there are “oil wells pumping in my living room” - Moons and suns, certainty of tides - Sassiness/Haughtiness is upsetting/offending - Shoot me/cut me/kill me with words/eyes/hatefulness - Black ocean - Gifts of ancestors

- Oppression  - Self-respect/self-worth - Power does not only stem from wealth, it can be earned - Human rights should be universal - Breaking from the norm can be uncomfortable - Unjust behavior is just as hurtful as physical violence - Strength - Connection to past injustices and segregation

Fourth, students will split into their small groups for 10 minutes. Students will bring their ideas to their groups and together they can infer about the audiences of the poem as well as the context. I will walk around the room observing the students work, only involving myself in their conversation if needed.

Fifth, for the next 10- 15 minutes, we will come back as an entire class and reveal the actual context for each poem. I will have a visual on the Actiboard for students to observe while we discuss. The students will then discuss their findings and how the new context changed their perspectives. During this period we will discuss how predictions, visualization, inferences and historical are intertwined.

Procedural Activities (cont’d….)

Alvermann, D.E., Phelps, S.E., & Gillis, V.R. (2010). Content area reading and literacy. Boston: Allyn& Bacon.

  “And still I rise.” Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqOqo50LSZ0  Barbauld, A. L. (1790). “The rights of woman.” Retrieved from:

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nap/Rights_of_Woman_Anna.htm  “Core learning goals for English.” (2010). Retrieved from:

http://mdk12.org/assessments/clg/english.html  Harvey, S. and A. Goudvis (2007). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension for understanding and

engagement. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.  “Iranian poets and women!” (2009). Woman's psych: Journal of men, women, and society. Retrieved

from: http://womanpsych.com/poetry.html  Parker, S. (2012). “A poem for International Women's Day: Bridget Minamore performs 'Hypocrites and

Double Ds' (VIDEO).” Huffington Post. Retrieved from:http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/03/08/bridget-minamore-poem-international-womens-day_n_1332168.html

  Pettinger, T. (2007). “Maya Angelou biography.” Biography online. Retrieved from:

http://www.biographyonline.net/writers/maya-angelou.html  Sanasarian, E. (1982). The Women's Rights Movement in Iran. New York: Praeger.

Works Referenced

You may write me down in historyWith your bitter, twisted lies,You may trod me in the very dirtBut still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?Why are you beset with gloom?'Cause I walk like I've got oil wellsPumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,With the certainty of tides,Just like hopes springing high,Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?Bowed head and lowered eyes?Shoulders falling down like teardrops.Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?Don't you take it awful hard'Cause I laugh like I've got gold minesDiggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,You may cut me with your eyes,You may kill me with your hatefulness,But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?Does it come as a surpriseThat I dance like I've got diamondsAt the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shameI riseUp from a past that's rooted in painI riseI'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.Leaving behind nights of terror and fearI riseInto a daybreak that's wondrously clearI riseBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,I am the dream and the hope of the slave.I riseI riseI rise.

Still I Rise By Maya Angelou

Oh, women of this land!

There is no life, nothing.

This is nothing

but failure and grief.

Death for us is hundred times

Better than such a life.

This life is nothing

But a symbol of slavery.

Beware, women of this land!

Be friends to one another!

Dissolve your links with men!

Why do you take on the name of

Your husband, though you have

A name of your own?

Oh sisters, Honor Lies in Independence By Zand-Dokht Zand/Zandokht Shirazi

Yes, injured Woman! rise, assert thy right! Woman! too long degraded, scorned, opprest; O born to rule in partial Law's despite, Resume thy native empire o'er the breast!5 Go forth arrayed in panoply divine; That angel pureness which admits no stain; Go, bid proud Man his boasted rule resign, And kiss the golden sceptre of thy reign. Go, gird thyself with grace; collect thy store10 Of bright artillery glancing from afar; Soft melting tones thy thundering cannon's

roar, Blushes and fears thy magazine of war. Thy rights are empire: urge no meaner claim,- Felt, not defined, and if debated, lost;15 Like sacred mysteries, which withheld from

fame, Shunning discussion, are revered the most. Try all that wit and art suggest to bend Of thy imperial foe the stubborn knee; Make treacherous Man thy subject, not thy

friend;

20 Thou mayst command, but never canst be free.

Awe the licentious, and restrain the rude; Soften the sullen, clear the cloudy brow: Be, more than princes' gifts, thy favours

sued;- She hazards all, who will the least allow.25 But hope not, courted idol of mankind, On this proud eminence secure to stay; Subduing and subdued; thou soon shalt find Thy coldness soften, and thy pride give way. Then, then, abandon each ambitious thought,30 Conquest or rule thy heart shall feebly

move, In Nature's school, by her soft maxims taught, That separate rights are lost in mutual love.

The Rights of Woman (1790)by Anna Letitia Barbaul

Still I Rise  Written by Maya Angelou. Born in St. Louis Missouri in 1928, Angelou

experienced a difficult childhood, partly due to her African-American race. Her personal hardships with racism and trauma were chronicled in her 1969 autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The book quickly became a bestseller, exposing Angelou to a larger audience and establishing her credibility as an author and messenger. The book was published at the end of the African-American Civil Right’s Movement of the 1960s.

  The poem was part of a published collection And Still I Rise in 1978, based on a

musical of the same name, which premiered in 1977.

During the 1960s, in the USA and the UK, a movement towards expanding women’s rights so that they were equal with men’s gained strength. It became known as “feminism” or “women’s liberation.” This lead to the creation of the National Organization for Women in 1966. This group supported an amendment to the Constitution known as the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972. However, this did not pass ratification.

During the 1970s, the feminist movement also attempted to raise awareness of domestic violence and sexual assault. Angelou had experienced such abuse when he was younger.

Historical Context

Oh sister, Honor Lies in Independence  Prior to the 20th Century, Iranian women had very little rights and were viewed

as being “less valuable” than men. From 1905-1911, the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (which helped establish a parliament in Iran) sparked a strong desire for a women’s liberation movement. This change was partially inspired by similar movements occurring across the world.

Zandokht Shirazi (born in 1909/10) was an educated middle-class poet, journalist and teacher who led the activist organization Women’s Revolutionary Association.

She published magazine/newspaper known as Dokhtran Iran (Daughters of Iran) in 1931, at the age of 18. Her poem was published within this magazine between 1931 and 1951/53 (her death date).

Although major changes to woman’s rights in Iran didn’t fully take hold until the 1960s, Shizari helped spread the movement, which lead towards better forms of education for women during the ‘30s and ‘40s.

Historical Context