1. DO YOU TEACH READING?

2.  Constructs  Prepare students for reading  Background  The “closet hooks” on which to “hang” new information and learning ACTIVE READING STRATEGIES

3.  Purpose- Why am I reading this?  Historical content/context  Author’s personal experience  Common personal experience of African Americans ACTIVE READING STRATEGIES

4.  Step behind the author  Why is she/he writing?  to share a personal experience  to promote a cause  To expose wrong  To relate to a shared common experience  Why has she/he created these characters?  does any character represent an idea or group bigger than the actual character?  Why is she/he manipulating these characters in this way ?  Rather than “why does Walter get angry with Beneatha?” ask “why does Hansberry create this conflict between Walter and Beneatha?” ACTIVE READING STRATEGIES

5.  Journaling/Notetaking  Mark the text (underline historical references, circle writer/group experiences)  Summarize each scene in a sentence or two  Write down one question or comment for each scene  Track one or more characters for each scene, summarizing what happened to that character, how she/he changed, and a favorite or important line said by that character ACTIVE READING STRATEGIES

6. Lorraine Hansberry A RAISIN IN THE SUN

7. What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— Like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags Like a heavy load. Or does it explode? “DREAM DEFERRED” LANGSTON HUGHES

8. The Younger family, ruled by matriarch Lena Younger (Mama), lives in the South side of Chicago, in a shabby, small apartment some time after WWII. Walter, a chauffeur, and his wife, Ruth, who does domestic work in a white family’s home, share one bedroom. Mama, who takes in laundry to earn money, and Beneatha, a student/aspiring doctor share the other. Travis, Walter and Ruth’s ten year old son, sleeps on the couch in the tiny living room. Lena’s husband left her a ten thousand dollar life insurance policy when he died, and the family’s conflict begins when they all have different ideas about how to spend the money. Shattering Walter’s dream of investing in a business, Mama uses a portion of the money as a down payment on a house in a white neighborhood. The Youngers are black. Aside from the conflict begun by her choice of neighborhood, all but Walter, who is despondent, drinking, and missing work, the rest of the family is thrilled. Realizing she has to save Walter from self-destruction, Mama gives him half of the remaining money to invest, and elevates him to head of the family. The rest is to be put in the bank for Beneatha’s education. Walter gives all the money to an associate, who runs off with it. The move to the new house seems an impossibility, as does Beneatha’s education. When Walter invites the future “New Neighbor’s Orientation Committee” leader, Mr. Lindner back to the apartment to accept Lindner’s earlier offer to buy them out at a profit, he changes his mind, and tells Lindner he has “decided to move into our house because my father—my father—he earned it.” Energized by Walter’s restored pride and leadership, the family makes plans to take on extra work to pay the mortgage, and the play ends with Mama saying goodbye to the apartment, empty now, before she joins the rest of the family as they move to Clybourne Park. SYNOPSIS

9. Employment Discrimination: ”Negro Jobs” “WALTER … Mama, a job? I open and close car doors all day long. I drive a man around in his limousine and I say ‘Yes, sir; no, sir; very good, sir; shall I take the Drive, sir?’ Mama, that ain’t no kind of job…that ain’t nothing at all” (Act I scene 2). “WALTER I mean—I have worked as a chauffeur most of my life—and my wife here, she does domestic work in people’s kitchens. So does my mother” (Act 3). THEME

10. Housing Discrimination/De facto Segregation “MAMA Well—what you think your grandmama gone and done with that money?...She went out and she bought you a house!...Four o six Clybourne Park…. RUTH …Mama, there aint’ no colored people living in Clybourne Park….wasn’t there no other houses nowhere?.... MAMA Them houses they put for colored in them areas way out all seem to cost twice as much as other houses” (Act II scene1) “LINDNER ….Well—I am a representative of the Clybourne Park Improvement Association…You people—or at least your mother—has bought a piece of residential property….It is a matter of the people of Clybourne Park believing, rightly or wrongly, as I say, that for the happiness of all concerned…Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities….Our association is prepared, through the collective effort of our people, to buy the house from you at a financial gain to your family” (Act II scene 2) “MAMA …did he threaten us? “ “BENEATHA Oh—mama—they don’t do it like that any more.” “RUTH You should hear the money those folks raised to buy the house from us. All we paid and then some.” (Act II scene 2) THEME

11. Poverty “MAMA ….Big Walter used to say…’Seem like God didn’t see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams—but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worth while” (Act I scene1) “MAMA ….stand up and look like your daddy and say we done give up one baby to poverty and…we ain’t going to give up nary another one” (Act I scene 2) “WALTER ….I’m thirty-five years old; I been married eleven year and I got a boy who sleeps in the living room…and all I got to give him is stories about how rich white people live” (Act I scene 1) “BENEATHA ….we’ve all got acute ghetto-it is” (ACT I scene 2) “MAMA I seen…[Big Walter]…night after night…come in …and look at that rug…and then look at me… the red showing in his eyes…the veins moving in his head…I seen him grow thin and old before he was forty…working and working and working like somebody’s old horse…killing himself” (Act III) “RUTH The notes ain’t but a hundred and twenty five a month ….Lena—I’ll work…I’ll work twenty hours a day in all the kitchens in Chicago…I’ll strap my baby on my back if I have to and scrub all the floors in America and wash all the sheets in America if I have to—but we got to move…We got to get out of here” (Act III) “MAMA Son—I come from five generations of people who was slaves and sharecropppers—but ain’t nobody in my family never let nobody pay ‘em no money that was a way of telling us we wasn’t fit to walk the earth. We ain’t never been that poor…We ain’t never been that dead inside” Act III) THEME

12. Cultural Assimilation “BENEATHA ….What’s wrong with my hair? ASAGAI …Were you born with it like that?....And it is ugly to you that way?....you said:…”Mr. Asagai—I want very much to talk with you. About Africa. You see, Mr. Asagai, I am looking for my identity!’” (Act II scene 2) “RUTH Why must you and your brother make an argument out of everything people say? BENEATHA Because I hate assimilationist Negroes!” (Act II scene 1) “RUTH Will somebody please tell me what assimila-whoever means! GEORGE Oh, it’s just a college girl’s way of calling people Uncle Toms—but that isn’t what it means at all. RUTH Well, what does it mean? BENEATHA ….It means someone who is willing to give up is own culture and submerge himself completely in the dominant, and in this case, oppressive culture!” (Act II scene 2) THEME