“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou Pre-Reading Activities Life in the 1930s and 40s Belonging and Not Belonging Understanding the historical context of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will help your students make sense of the text. Break students into small groups, and assign each group one topic pertaining to life in the United States in the 1930s and 40s. Some possible topics include the Great Depression, race relations, gender relations, religion in society, or rural vs. urban life. Ask each group to conduct some preliminary research into their topic and create a poster sharing their findings. Students can present their posters and ask each other questions to set the stage for their reading of the text. The theme of belonging in certain contexts but feeling displaced in other contexts is a major one in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Give each of your students a piece of paper and a set of oil pastels. Have them fold the paper in half. One on side, they should draw a picture that they associate with the feeling of belonging. On the other side of the fold, they should draw a picture associated with feeling displaced or not belonging. Have students share their images and discuss their similarities, differences, and any ideas they evoke. They can return to these images as they work their way through Angelou's text.

SUMMARY: In her distinctive lyrical prose, Angelou recounts the first seventeen years of her life, discussing her unsettled childhood in America in the 1930s and her changing relationships. When her parents separate, Maya and her brother Bailey, three and four years old respectively, are sent from their parental home in California back to the segregated South, to live with their grandmother, Momma, in rural Arkansas. Momma provides a strict moral center to their lives. At the age of eight, Maya goes to stay with her mother in St. Louis, where she is molested and raped by her mother’s partner. With her brother she later returns to stay with Momma before returning again to live with her mother and her mother’s husband in California. The book ends with the birth of Maya’s first child, Guy. OVERVIEW A. Concept Objectives: 1. The learner can relate to characters undergoing a transformation due to events in their lives, 2. Learners can analyze how the environment plays a major role in human development. 3. Learners can develop a sense of historical empathy by connecting personal experiences, information, insights, and ideas with the experiences of others. 4. Learners can determine and understand how the author’s perspective or point of view affects the text. B. Content from the Core Knowledge Sequence: 1. Autobiography: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, English 10 2. Painting owned by Maya Angelou, Visual Arts: The learner can evaluate how they reflect her story? C. Skills to be taught: Point of view, uniqueness of autobiography as a genre, review characterization, plot, narrator, setting, and relate music to culture, history and society

Faith Ringgold, “Maya’s Quilt of Life” Richard Yarde, “Portrait of Dr. Maya Angelo” (1985), watercolor

TEXT DEPENDANT QUESTIONS 1. The memoir opens with a provocative refrain: "What you looking at me for? I didn't come to stay ... " What do you think this passage says about Ritie's sense of herself? How does she feel about her place in the world? How does she keep her identity intact? 2. Upon seeing her mother for the first time after years of separation, Ritie describes her as "a hurricane in its perfect power." What do you think about Ritie's relationship with her mother? How does it compare to her relationship with her grandmother, "Momma"? 3. The author writes, "If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat." What do you make of the author's portrayal of race? How do Ritie and her family cope with the racial tension that permeates their lives? 4. Throughout the book, Ritie struggles with feelings that she is "bad" and "sinful," as her thoughts echo the admonitions of her strict religious upbringing. What does she learn at the end of the memoir about right and wrong? 5. What is the significance of the title as it relates to Ritie's self-imposed muteness?

“Sympathy” by Paul Lawrence Dunbar I know what the caged bird feels, alas! When the sun is bright on the upland slopes; When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass, And the river flows like a stream of glass; When the first bird sings and the first bud opes, And the faint perfume from its chalice steals— I know what the caged bird feels! I know why the caged bird beats its wing Till its blood is red on the cruel bars; For he must fly back to his perch and cling When he fain would be on the bough a-swing; And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars And they pulse again with a keener sting— I know why he beats his wing! I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,— When he beats his bars and he would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings— I know why the caged bird sings! Lesson One: Introduce A. 1. Read “Sympathy” by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and the poem “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou; why is each poet comparing & contrasting their life to a birds. 2. Key vocabulary: opes, chalice, 3. Autobiography - nonfiction essay, diary, or book about oneself B. Procedures/Activities 1. Write a one page bio on Maya Angelou. 2. Locate a map of Stamps, ARK.

“I Know Why the Caged Sings” by Maya Angelou A free bird leaps on the back Of the wind and floats downstream Till the current ends and dips his wing In the orange suns rays And dares to claim the sky. But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage Can seldom see through his bars of rage His wings are clipped and his feet are tied So he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with a fearful trill Of things unknown but longed for still And his tune is heard on the distant hill for The caged bird sings of freedom. The free bird thinks of another breeze And the trade winds soft through The sighing trees And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright Lawn and he names the sky his own. But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream His wings are clipped and his feet are tied So he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with A fearful trill of things unknown But longed for still and his Tune is heard on the distant hill For the caged bird sings of freedom. Text Dependent Questions 1. What is the meaning of the poem I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings? 2. What is the meaning of the caged bird? 3. Why does the caged bird sing? 4. What is the tone of the poem? 5. Who and or what does the caged bird symbolize? NOTE: Slides 1- 6 due December 6, 2017