Stevens, 2006

Thematic Unit-Annotated Bibliography Zora Neale Hurston’s

Their Eyes Were Watching God Black Peoples of America: Segregation-Jim Crow Laws. http://www.historyonthenet.com/Slave_Trade/segregation.htm. 22 May 2006.

This site would be great because it not only has historical context but also images. It is full of images of what it must have been like to live in this time in the South. It would be a great tie to The Voice That Challenged the Nation. This site also has many other educational activities such as crosswords and quizzes. There are also activities to get the students involved with the history and issues of the time.

Draper, Sharon A. Copper Sun. New York: Atheneum, 2006.

This book is about a fifteen-year-old girl, Ashanti, in Africa who right before her wedding is taken and boarded on one of the slave ships. She goes through the middle passage and is ultimately sold into slavery in the Carolinas. It is a story of courage as she struggles in slavery on a plantation. This highlights the slave trade and exploitation particularly in Florida, which is where Their Eyes… takes place.

Freedman, R. The Voice that Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights. New York: Clarion Books, 2004.

This book follows the life of the singer Marion Anderson and illustrious career as she fights against racial prejudice. It is a true story including beautiful pictures. This is a great way to not only talk about racial but also gender issues.

Giovanni, N. Rosa. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005.

This is another book that would open the students’ eyes to the issues of race and segregation. This is a picture book that tells the story of Rosa Parks. It is a Caldecott Honor book so it has amazing pictures that bring a different aspect into the classroom. It is a simple picture book that will get them thinking about the South and segregation and will open doors for discussion. It also allows for the discussion of not only racial, but gender issues.

Stevens, 2006

Housten, Julian. New Boy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.

This book would be a great tie to the issues related to race that apparent in Their Eyes…. This book is about a fifteen-year-old black boy, Garrett, who wants to attend a prestigious boarding school in the North. But when sit-ins are happening in his home state of Virginia, he desperately wants to be there and be a part of it. This story is set in the 1950’s but still addresses the same issues of race and prejudice that exist even today. It also addresses the coming age like A Separate Peace, which also is a great tie-in. Since this book is about a boy, it also would get the boys more involved with the issues of gender and their connection with the race issue.

Marian Anderson Historical Society. http://www.mariananderson.org/. 23 May 2006.

This site includes music as well as a history of her life and all that happened to her. A lot of the information follows the history movements as well.

Teacher Cyberguide. http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/eyes/eyetg.htm. 22 May 2006.

This site contains various activities and lesson plans centered on the themes of prejudice and racism, as well as gender issues.

The Anthropology of Mules and Men. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Grand-Jean/Hurston/Chapters/ways/anthropology.html. 22 May 2006.

This site has a lot of references to Black Folklore and interesting stories particularly about Hurston’s own folklore connections. It represents a lot of the stories that Hurston gathered in Haiti. It has some interesting information on the folklore she uses in her novels, including Mules and Men.

Stevens, 2006

The Jim Crow Laws. http://www.africanamericans.com/JimCrow.htm. 22 May 2006.

This site offers a very insightful and educational approach to the Jim Crow Laws. One of the interesting aspects of this text is that it is coming from the African American view. So it is free of a lot of the subjectivity of a history text. It also has images of segregation. This whole website has a lot of good reference material.

Their Eyes Were Watching God. 2005. TV movie.

This film adaptation of Hurston’s book could be a great source to represent specific elements of the text that are specifically dramatic. It also could be used to show the time period and setting of the novel. From reviews, it seems that it is pretty accurate to the novel.

Woodson, Jacqueline. Show Way. New York: G.P. Putman’s Sons, 2005.

This book is about Soonie’s great-grandma who made show ways, quilts with secret messages for runaway slaves. It follows her relatives through history and stories they tell through their quilts. It is a picture book, so it is simple and easy to understand. It also talks about traditions, which could be a great springboard into the oral traditions so prominent in Their Eyes….