interpretation paper

Texts for the 3-page paper.html

Reading Choices for the 3-page paper

See the file on topics for further help as well as the prompt and list below:

1. Consider the key ideas concerning social, political, and cultural information about the early 19th century up to 1865. Choose one work (or two if comparing) that we have read. In your own words, explain ways in which these poems, rhymes, songs, and narratives contribute to the body of African-American literature? Identify features of orality, or as editor Gates might say, the “African-American vernacular”. Conclude with the most surprising or disturbing fact you have learned. In other words, what is your takeaway from this unit.
2. Use in-text citations and provide a Works Cited page for examples and texts used. Cite sources if critical quotations are used to back up your claims.

“We raise de Wheat”

“Me and My Captain”

“Promises of Freedom”

“Run, Nigger, Run”  

“Another Man Done Gone”

 

Phillis Wheatley, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45465

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/52519

 

Jupitor Hammon, https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-address-to-miss-phillis-wheatly/

 

George Moses Horton, pp. 239-244,

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/52307

 

Frances E.W. Harper

“Eliza Harris”  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/52447

“The Slave Mother” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/51977

“The Slave Auction” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/47686

 

12 Years a Slave text excerpt

Online: http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/northup/northup.html

Pages to read and analyze: 263-278, 279-288, 289-321

 

OLAUDAH EQUIANO (ca. 1745–1797) The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself

Read Chapter II (2) and Chapter VI (6).

http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/equiano1/equiano1.html#p227

 

The Confessions of Nat Turner

http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/turner/turner.html

Afro-American Poets and Their Verse by Katherine Davis Tillman

The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimke

Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing and Preface to the Book of American Negro Poetry by James Weldon Johnson