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Jazz
and Literature
"Sonny's
Blues," by James Baldwin
1. Answer the
Preview Questions [What
is the purpose of this activity?]
Write one or two
paragraph responses to each of the following preview questions:
a. What do you know
about jazz or blues music?
b. How are artists different from the rest of us?
c. What is the artist's function in society?
d. What do you know or suspect about the conditions of African American
life during the 1940s and 50s?
2. Review Interactive Responses to Preview Questions [What
is the purpose of this activity?]
When you link to
the page with the possible
responses to the preview questions, you can also link you to sites
with definitions of jazz and blues, biographies of important jazz musicians,
and audio clips from some of their most famous tunes.
3. Read "Sonny's
Blues" by James Baldwin [What
is the purpose of this activity?]
This "longish"
short story can be found in The
Norton Introduction to Literature, The
Norton Anthology of African American Literature, and in other
anthologies commonly used in high school and college literature classes.
4. Read and Study
"Questions for Understanding" on "Sonny's Blues" [What
is the purpose of this activity?]
5. Link to the
six-part lecture on "Sonny's Blues" [What
is the purpose of this activity?]
Ultimately, this
lecture will be available as an audio clip, divided up into six 20 or
25 minute mini-lectures, so students can hear and read it. You
can access the entire lecture or
link directly to the following sections:
6. Take a self-evaluated interactive quiz on a passage from "Sonny's
Blues" [What
is the purpose of this activity?]
Practice your AP
Exam taking skills here. When you choose the correct answer to one of
these multiple-choice questions, the correct
answers will be revealed and explained.
7. Complete Brief Writing Assignment #1 [What
is the purpose of this activity?]
Write a short essay
that responds to one of the "Questions
for Close Reading and Analysis of Fictional Elements." The
writing prompt specifies the length and style of the expected essay.
8. Review the Lesson on Thesis Development [What
is the purpose of this activity?]
Click here
to read our interactive lesson on writing a thesis.
9. Respond to Preview Questions on Jazz and Poetry [What
is the purpose of this activity?]
1. Once when Louis
Armstrong was asked to define jazz, he replied, "If you have to
ask, you'll never know." What does this response imply about jazz,
or about musicians in general? To what extent do you think Armstrong's
remark applies to poetry?
2. Are the rhythms of a jazz song more difficult to represent with language
than those of other forms of music?
3. When compared to the prose in James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s
Blues," what do you think might be lost or gained if one were to
represent jazz poetically?
4. Some music critics have argued that one can hear jazz in more contemporary
(and popular) styles of music, such as rock, blues, and hip-hop. How
would one determine if this were true?
10. Read Poems by Langston Hughes
[What is
the purpose of this activity?]
"The
Weary Blues"
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers"
"Mother to Son"
"Jazzonia"
"Po' Boy Blues"
"Hard Daddy"
"Ballad of the Landlord"
"Juke Box Love Song"
"Dream Boogie"
"Harlem"
11. Read lecture on Langston Hughes's poem "The Weary Blues"
with accompanying poem [What
is the purpose of this activity?]
Read this lecture
on "The Weary Blues."
12. Complete Brief Writing Assignment #2: Explicate a Jazz Poem [What
is the purpose of this activity?]
For this writing
assignment, choose a Langston Hughes poem or jazz poem and explicate
it, remembering the model of explication we provide with the lecture
on Hughes' "The Weary Blues."
Review the
Explication Assignment. For more on explicating a poem, see this
handout.
13. Review the Lesson on Paragraph Formation [What
is the purpose of this activity?]
This
lesson explains how best to envision and organize paragraphs for
any essay, including the Explication Essay.
For more on paragraphs,
see this
handout.
14. Complete the Long Writing Assignment [What
is the purpose of this activity?]
Write a synthesis
essay in which you respond to one of the "Questions
for Writing About "Sonny's Blues" and Other Texts."
15. Review Lesson on Writing the Comparison and Contrast/Synthesis
Essay [What
is the purpose of this activity?]
The
description for the "Jazz and Literature" Synthesis assignment.
For an excellent
review on synthesizing sources, see Professor
Frances Fitch's "Synthesizing Others Coherently."
16. Challenge
Yourself with Related Activities for Further Study: [What
is the purpose of this activity?]
Participation in
these extra-credit activities will
give you a more well-rounded understanding of jazz, its history, and
its contemporary audiences.
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