“George Moses Horton, Myself” by George Moses Horton and
“Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson
Upper ES / ELA
Choice, Definition, Dream, Hope, Poetry
Enter the text yourself or have students enter the text from the two poems into “Word
Sift,” using the following directions:
Directions for Using Word Sift
http://www.wordsift.com/
1. Copy the text you would like to “sift.”
2. Go to the Word Sift website.
3. Paste the text into the Word Sift box.
4. Click the green Sift button. A tag cloud is created.
5. Clicking any word from the tag cloud creates a web in the Visual Thesaurus.
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6. The default sort order is alphabetical. That can be modified using the options
below the tag cloud box.
(Note: A Tag Cloud contains the 50 most frequent words in the text, excluding function
words [such as is, of, at, the]. The words in the cloud are alphabetically ordered, and
their relative frequency is indicated by text size. Singular and plural nouns are, for the
most part, counted together. The cloud can be sorted according to their frequency in the
printed English language from common-to-rare and rare-to-common, and alphabetically
from A-to-Z and Z-to-A. The cloud can also be made to disappear and re-appear by
clicking on squish and unsquish.)
Display on the (interactive) white board or distribute on paper the Tag Cloud for the two
poems. Ask the students what sort of poem or poems they think would be created out of
these words. Then highlight (or have them highlight) the words that Dickinson chose to
capitalize (Gale, Extremity); ask students if the emphasis on those words changes their
thoughts on what poetry written with these words would be like.
Distribute the two poems and have students examine them without reading them. Ask
whether they think the two texts are poetry or prose and discuss how they know. Have
them number the lines in the each poem (1-20 for Horton and 1-12 for Dickinson).
Discuss what a stanza is and note that there are five stanzas in Horton and three in
Dickinson.
Read the two poems aloud slowly while students identify unfamiliar words or phrases.
Record the unfamiliar terms on the (interactive) white board (including: genius, ancient,
pursue, mount, employ, unfurl’d from Horton; and perches, Gale, sore, abash, Extremity
from Dickinson).
Share as appropriate: George Moses Horton (1798-1884) and Emily Dickinson (18301886) were contemporaries. He was an enslaved black man who was born in the south,
and she was a free white woman who was born in the north. They never met and it is
highly unlikely that they ever read each other’s poetry.
As a boy, Horton taught himself to compose poems in his mind. As a young adult,
Horton delivered produce to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he
composed and recited poems for students. By 1832, he had learned to write for himself,
having learned with the aid of a professor’s wife. He published several books of poetry
during his lifetime.
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While Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly 1,800
poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was published during her
lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic
rules of the time. Dickinson’s poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they
contain short lines, typically lack titles, and are very unconventional.
First, examine the list of unfamiliar vocabulary and have students work in pairs with
either an online or paper dictionary to define the terms in context. Go through the two
poems line by line and have the pairs of students share out their definitions. Discuss
until all are comfortable with the surface meaning of the words.
Second, as a class, re-examine the entire word list from the two poems that was
created in the Launch Activity. Re-visit the question of what do the students think poetry
written out of this word list would be about. List possible themes for future reference.
Divide the class into two teams (Team H for Horton and Team D for Dickinson). Within
each team, break into equal groups by the number of stanzas in each poem (5 groups
for Team H and 3 groups for Team D). Assign each group the task of translating its
stanza into one, clear English sentence. Once the groups have completed their
translations, read through each poem in turn, stanza-by-stanza, by having a group
reader read the original stanza and a group spokesperson read the translation—while
all the students take notes on their copies of the two texts.
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 Imagine that you are an editor who is going to publish these two poems
together. What one word from the original “Word Sift” list would serve as a
good title for the two poems together? (round-robin response)
 Why did you choose that word? Refer to the texts. (spontaneous
discussion)
 What do you think Horton means when he writes that “My genius from a
boy, / Has fluttered like a bird within my heart”?
 Why does Horton describe his bird as “restless” in the last stanza?
 Why do you think Dickinson describes “Hope” as “the thing with feathers”?
 Why does Dickinson write that the “little Bird” has “kept so many warm”?
 How is Horton’s “genius” like Dickinson’s “Hope”? How is it different? Why
do you think it’s different if it is?
 How would you describe the “bird” that lives inside you? Is it more like
Horton’s “genius” or Dickinson’s “Hope”?
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Have students turn over their copies of the text and make two lists: one list of everything
they said, heard, and thought about Horton’s “genius” and another list of everything they
said, heard, and thought about Dickinson’s “Hope.”
How is George Moses Horton’s “genius” like and different from Emily Dickinson’s
“Hope”? After reading and discussing Horton’s “George Moses Horton, Myself” and
Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers,” write two paragraphs in which you
compare and contrast Horton’s “genius” with Dickinson’s “Hope.” Support your response
with evidence from the texts. (Informational or Explanatory/Compare)
(LDC Task#: 18
)
Have students compose two new lists: one of ways in which Horton’s “genius” and
Dickinson’s “Hope” are alike, and one of ways in which they are different. Remind
students to use the earlier lists they brainstormed during the Transition to Writing stage.
Now have students use the alike and different lists to compose two topic sentences—
one for the paragraph comparing the two ideas and one for the paragraph contrasting
the two ideas.
Challenge all to draft their comparison and contrast paragraphs by listing key points in
support of their topic sentences. Refer to the two poems in detail.
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Have participants work in pairs to read their first drafts aloud to each other with
emphasis on reader as creator and editor. Listener says back one point heard clearly
and asks one question for clarification. Switch roles. Give time for full revisions resulting
in a second draft.
Once the second draft is complete, have participants work in groups of three-four and
this time take turns reading each other’s second drafts slowly and silently, marking any
spelling or grammar errors they find. (Have dictionaries and grammar handbooks
available for reference.) Take this opportunity to clarify/reteach any specific grammar
strategies you have identified your students needing. Give time for full revisions
resulting in a third and final draft.
Share copies of the two poems with your student paragraphs with a willing high school
English teacher who is teaching American Literature. Request that the teacher distribute
your student papers to his or her students so that they can discuss the two poems along
with your students’ responses. Have the high school students write a response (with
warm and cool feedback) to each of your students.
Terry Roberts and Lynn Keith
National Paideia Center and Providence Spring Elementary
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“George Moses Horton, Myself”
By George Moses Horton
I feel myself in need
Of the inspiring strains of ancient lore,
My heart to lift, my empty mind to feed,
And all the world explore.
I know that I am old
And never can recover what is past,
But for the future may some light unfold
And soar from ages blast.
I feel resolved to try,
My wish to prove, my calling to pursue,
Or mount up from the earth into the sky,
To show what Heaven can do.
My genius from a boy,
Has fluttered like a bird within my heart;
But could not thus confined her powers employ,
Impatient to depart.
She like a restless bird,
Would spread her wing, her power to be unfurl’d,
And let her songs be loudly heard,
And dart from world to world.
(Source – Naked Genius, George Moses Horton, Raleigh NC: Wm. B. Smith & Co,
1865.)
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“Hope is the thing with feathers”
By Emily Dickinson
“Hope” is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops - at all And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard And sore must be the storm That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm I’ve heard it in the chillest land And on the strangest Sea Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
(Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition, edited by Ralph W. Franklin,
Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright 1998 by
the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the
President and Fellows of Harvard College.)
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