2 Food for Bonding, Food for Resistance
Authors: Mary Beth Cancienne, Hayes Davis, Teri Cross Davis, Brian Hannon, TJ Hendrix
Target Group: Middle School (7th-8th grade)
About the Unit
This is a three-day poetry unit for 7th and 8th grade learners. The lessons have been planned for 90-minute blocks but can be broken up into 45-minute blocks. They can be taught together or separately as a one-or two-day workshop.
Common Core Standards (7th and 8th grade)*
Text Complexity
- Read and comprehend poems. (7)
Craft and Structure
- Determine an author’s purpose in a text. (7)
Vocabulary Acquisition and Use (7 and 8)
- Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings (interpret figurative language).
- Gather vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression.
Range of Writing (7 and 8)
- Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
Comprehension and Collaboration (7 and 8)
- Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse groups or teams on grade 7 and 8 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
* Please note that this language comes directly from state/national standards
By engaging with Black poetry, the students will:
Understand
- A poet uses poetic devices to capture experience.
- A poet arranges words to create meaning in a poem.
- A poet uses poetic devices to create meaning in a poem.
- Participation in group discussions provides an opportunity to learn from others, including unique viewpoints.
Know
- Identify and discuss an author’s purpose (theme) in a poem.
- Examine poetic devices and structure, such as imagery, sensory details, repetition, alliteration, enjambment, and caesura and how they add meaning to the message of the poem (author’s purpose).
- Interpret information presented in diverse media formats.
- Compare and contrast poems.
Do
- Modeling the structural form of either poem, write a poem using imagery, sensory details, and repetition.
- Revise using the writing process (first and second drafts, revision and editing, and peer reviews).
|
Poem |
Themes |
Devices |
Craft |
|
“Bread Pudding Grandmamma” by Darrel Alejandro Holnes |
Pain Family Food Comfort Nourishment: individual (emotional, spiritual, physical) Maternal love |
Sensory details Imagery Alliteration |
Stanzas Enjambment Speakers other than the protagonist (multiple voices)
|
|
“My Resistance is Black” by DéLana R.A. Dameron |
Nourishment: A Movement Maternal love Food Comfort Unsung heroes: people working behind the scenes |
Imagery Repetition
|
Prose Poem Caesura
|
Food for Bonding (Day One)
Poem: “Bread Pudding Grandmamma” by Darrel Alejandro Holnes (Furious Flower 2019, pp. 47-48)
Activities
Additional Materials
Food for Resistance (Day Two)
Poem: “My Resistance is Black” by DéLana R.A. Dameron (Furious Flower 2019, p. 187)
Activities
Food for Bonding & Food for Resistance (Day Three)
Poems: “My Resistance is Black” by DéLana R.A. Dameron, “Bread Pudding Grandmamma” by Darrel Alejandro Holnes
Activities
Options for Differentiation
- Student Interviews
- Peer Review and Peer Editing
