Tuesday, January 6, 2015

written by Deborah Ellis

Hope & Perseverance

Voices From Afghanistan - Teens and Radio Azadi

Children of Afghanistan

The Story of Malalai

Video Interview with Malala Yousafzai

Never Ending War

Monday, January 5, 2015

Although there are three and a half centuries and a continent between Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and William Shakespeare’s Othello – thematically, the two dramas turn out to be surprisingly similar. Both plays speak to social issues, addressing racism, generational conflict, and traditional gender roles.

Hansberry’s 1959 play centers on themes of cultural stereotyping and racism, as does Shakespeare’s tragedy of 1604. Walter Lee, Hansberry’s African American protagonist, confronts the same sort of racial discrimination from the neighborhood association’s Mr. Lindner as the Moor of Venice and his ongoing confrontation with Iago. The destructive effect of internalized racism is also presented in both works. At one point, late in A Raisin in the Sun, Walter is so broken by the weight of circumstances beyond his control, he becomes convinced that he is as worthless as the grinning caricature of Black minstrelsy. Likewise, in the final act of Othello, the mighty military leader is brought to his knees by a distorted self-image. Certainly Othello has been weakened by the treachery of others, but he is finally felled by the sword of his own self-perception as having all along been the stereotypical black “heathen” who – by nature – would corrupt and destroy so pure and perfect a jewel as Desdemona.

Each work by Hansberry and Shakespeare explores the ideas of breaking with tradition and the battle between generations. Just as Desdemona is at odds with her father over the matter of her marriage to Othello, Walter’s sister, Beneatha, is at odds with her mother in A Raisin in the Sun, Beneatha and Willy are warned to show respect for tradition or suffer the consequences. This is an echo of the warning given to Othello by Desdemona’s father, Brabantio. The theme of generational conflict is also found in the age difference between Othello and his maiden bride.

Socially acceptable gender roles – and specifically, the expected “woman’s place” in society – is examined in Hansberry’s text and the Bard’s tragedy. Shakespeare makes it clear that Desdemona has eloped with Othello. The young woman’s strategic choice to secretly marry is more than just a break with social tradition, it is a skillful use of the customs and common laws that favor the rights of a husband over those of a father. Desdemona knows that, having already been legally married, should Brabantio wish to fight about it, he would have to do battle with “her lord” Othello. Lorraine Hansberry focuses on gender through the interwoven pressures driving the drama’s three main female characters: Ruth, the struggling new wife, Beneatha, the liberated sister with aspirations; and Lena, the matriarch desperate to maintain her family.

Racism, generational conflict and gender role expectations are not uncommon themes. Still, it is remarkable to consider that these three themes are common to A Raisin in the Sun and Othello, despite the enormous time and distance separating Lorraine Hansberry and William Shakespeare.

Friday, January 2, 2015

Word Games

Free Online Word Games

Thesis Builder

Human Brain Cloud

Thursday, January 1, 2015

50 Word Challenge!

Link to Complete List of Literary Terms

Q U I Z L E T S

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Maya Angelou

Still I Rise

Link to Maya Angelou PowerPoint

Monday, April 7, 2014

Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was a highly regarded poet with the distinction of being the first African American author to win the Pulitzer Prize. She was born on June 7, 1917 in Topeka, KS -- and died December 3, 2000. Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1950, and was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968 and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1985.

The Poetry Foundation's bio quotes George E. Kent of The Dictionary of Literary Biography as saying Brooks' body of work gave her:

"a unique position in American letters. Not only has she combined a strong commitment to racial identity and equality with a mastery of poetic techniques, but she has also managed to bridge the gap between the academic poets of her generation in the 1940s and the young black militant writers of the 1960s."

a song in the front yard
Gwendolyn Brooks

I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back
Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.

I want to go in the back yard now
And maybe down the alley,
To where the charity children play.
I want a good time today.

They do some wonderful things.
They have some wonderful fun.
My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine
How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.
My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae
Will grow up to be a bad woman.
That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late
(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).

But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.
And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,
And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace
And strut down the streets with paint on my face.

Primer For Blacks
Gwendolyn Brooks

Blackness

is a title,

is a preoccupation,

is a commitment Blacks

are to comprehend—

and in which you are

to perceive your Glory.

The conscious shout

of all that is white is

“It’s Great to be white.”

The conscious shout

of the slack in Black is

"It's Great to be white."

Thus all that is white

has white strength and yours.

The word Black

has geographic power,

pulls everybody in:

Blacks here—

Blacks there—

Blacks wherever they may be.

And remember, you Blacks, what they told you—

remember your Education:

“one Drop—one Drop

maketh a brand new Black.”

Oh mighty Drop.

______And because they have given us kindly

so many more of our people

Blackness

stretches over the land.

Blackness—

the Black of it,

the rust-red of it,

the milk and cream of it,

the tan and yellow-tan of it,

the deep-brown middle-brown high-brown of it,

the “olive” and ochre of it—

Blackness

marches on.

The huge, the pungent object of our prime out-ride

is to Comprehend,

to salute and to Love the fact that we are Black,

which is our “ultimate Reality,”

which is the lone ground

from which our meaningful metamorphosis,

from which our prosperous staccato,

group or individual, can rise.

Self-shriveled Blacks.

Begin with gaunt and marvelous concession:

YOU are our costume and our fundamental bone.

All of you—

you COLORED ones,

you NEGRO ones,

those of you who proudly cry

“I’m half INDian”—

those of you who proudly screech

“I’VE got the blood of George WASHington in MY veins”

ALL of you—

you proper Blacks,

you half-Blacks,

you wish-I-weren’t Blacks,

Niggeroes and Niggerenes.

You.

_______________________________

To Be In Love

by Gwendolyn Brooks

my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell

by Gwendolyn Brooks

Thursday, April 3, 2014

MLK

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an important leader in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s. He advocated for a nonviolent approach to change and is regarded as one of the greatest leaders in world history.

Facts compiled from the Flocabulary site . . .