Purposes for These Activities
"Jazz and Literature"
By Anne Fleischmann and Andy Jones
1. Answer the Preview Questions: These preview questions are designed to prepare you to consider deeply the issues and contexts of the capstone story for the Jazz and Literature unit: James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues." Answering the preview questions will give you a head start on the story, enabling you to read it and discuss it interactively with greater understanding. Use the preview questions as a forecast of important issues in the story, but don't let them limit your creative interpretations of crucial themes or ideas in the story.
2. Interactive Review of Preview Questions: In this interactive review, you will have an opportunity to see several potential responses to the preview questions. Read these sample responses carefully, listen to the audio clips, and learn about the context of the story. Your preview responses may be different from the ones explored in this interactive review. That's okay! Completing these activities will give you a greater understanding of "Sonny's Blues" as you read it.
3. Read "Sonny's Blues": Be an active reader. Because your early impressions of a story are often useful later as you are writing a paper, you should be jotting down your questions, concerns and ideas in the margins of your book or on a separate sheet of paper. Be sure to mark and look up in the dictionary any new vocabulary words, and note passages that were particularly interesting or confusing. For more on active reading, review the following web site: http://www.yorku.ca/cdc/lsp/read/read2.htm.
4. Questions for Understanding on "Sonny's Blues": Answering these questions will ensure that you are familiar with the plot and characters of the story. If you can't answer some of these questions after one reading of the story, read it again.
5. Read or Hear the Lecture on "Sonny's Blues": Now you're ready to review or listen to the lecture on "Sonny's Blues." This lecture divides the study of the story into six components of literary analysis, which can be applied to most works of fiction: biography, plot, historical setting, characterization, image and themes. Note that the ideas covered in this lecture are not the only valid interpretations of the story. You are likely (and encouraged) to have your own interpretations of the story, its plot, characters, themes and images. Your interpretations can be explored and developed in the papers you will write about "Sonny's Blues."
6. Take a self-evaluated interactive quiz on an important passage from "Sonny's Blues": This quiz, modeled after the multiple choice section on the English Literature AP exam, will give you practice with close reading and with taking an AP style test. Before you begin, be sure to re-read the passage carefully. As you complete this quiz, be sure to read the explanations for why the correct answers are correct. Visit the College Board site for more on "Study Skills and Test-Taking Strategies."
7. Complete Brief Writing Assignment #1: This first writing assignment asks you to perform an analysis of one or more fictional components of "Sonny's Blues." This writing assignment will help you practice the writing skills you will need to complete the "free response" questions on the AP exam. Before you begin, though, study the interactive lesson on thesis development and the handout about paragraph formation. You may want to review the thesis and Paragraph Formation handouts before beginning writing assignment #1.
8. Lesson on Thesis Development: This lesson will help you to learn how to construct a workable thesis statement for a literary analysis paper. The lesson uses "Sonny's Blues" as an example, so your familiarity with the story will help you learn to judge an effective thesis from an ineffective one.
9. Respond to Preview Questions on Jazz and Poetry: As you are working on your paper about "Sonny's Blues," you will study a series of poems by Langston Hughes, a Harlem Renaissance poet who pioneered "jazz poetry." Respond to these preview questions to prepare yourself for studying Langston Hughes's poem "The Weary Blues"
10. Read Poems by Langston Hughes: Read the linked jazz poems by Langston Hughes. Again, be an active reader by jotting down your impressions and questions.
11. Listen to this lecture about "The Weary Blues": Remember that the ideas expressed in the lecture are not the only "correct" ideas about the poem. You will have an opportunity to explore your own ideas about Langston Hughes's poetry in the Brief Writing Assignment #2.
12. Brief Writing Assignment #2: This brief writing assignment will give you practice explicating a poem. Understanding poetic devices and being able to describe how a poem works are crucial skills that will be tested on the AP exam.
13. Lesson on Paragraph Formation: Study this handout to understand how an effective paragraph is put together. A strong topic sentence, convincing evidence, and analysis of that evidence all work together to create a paragraph that makes a clear argument.
14. Complete the Long Writing Assignment: This assignment will ask you to think about two literary texts simultaneously. You will be writing a synthesis paper, one that analyzes two or more works of literature. Many of the AP Free Response questions ask you to compare and contrast two poems or two passages, so this writing assignment will help you practice that skill.
15. Review Lesson on Writing the Comparison and Contrast/Synthesis Essay: Click on this link for helpful advice on tackling the long writing assignment.
16. Challenge Yourself with Related Activities for Further Study: These activities will give energetic students a place to go next. Extra-credit activities will strengthen your knowledge base and introduce you to related authors, texts and music.
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