A historical exploration of the Great Migration and Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s accompanies the poetry of Langston Hughes and his contemporaries. Themes of personal identity and pride engage students in Nikki Grimes’ novel, Bronx Masquerade. Students learn types of self-questioning as an additional Reciprocal Teaching strategy. Creating identity masks and staging a classroom poetry slam are unit high points. 

LITERATURE

Bronx Masquerade (Grimes) - Novel told in poems that highlight the personal struggles of teenagers at a New York City high school

Harlem Stomp! (Hill) - Fascinating documentary history of the flowering of African American art, literature, and music with rich illustrations and primary source materials

Poetry for Young People: Langston Hughes (Hughes) - Accessible collection of poems featuring themes of identity

The Great Migration (Lawrence) - Reproductions of Jacob Lawrence’s original paintings that told the story of the Great Migration as experienced by his family and many others; text adapted from the original museum exhibition notes written by the painter 

FLUENCY TOPICS

origins of blues and rap music, ethnic foods in the Bronx, Bronx landmarks, poetry slams, dating violence, teen pregnancy, body image, conceptions of beauty, Michelle Obama, Jason Wu 

FOCUS

Literary analysis

• Genre features of poetry, including mood and metaphor

Reading comprehension

• Questioning as a component of Reciprocal Teaching
• Question-answer relationships (QAR): contrasts between “right there,” “think and search,” “on my own,” and “author and me” questions
• Contrasting facts/details in different nonfiction texts on the same topic

Decoding

• Using syllable division patterns, such as V|CV and VC|V, and word parts (prefix, base, and suffix) to chunk and decode multi-syllable words

Writing

• Students write about appearance versus reality as part of a project on masks
• Persuasive essay about the Great Migration based on several nonfiction texts (optional)

Debate

• At the time of the Great Migration, were African Americans better off in the North?