Our Narrative Memory
Principles
3:2:18:Allusion in Their Eyes
NOTE: Today is a computer lab day. Make sure you have signed up for the lab in advance.
TITLE OF LESSON
American Literature Unit 2 Lesson 18– Allusion in Their Eyes
How do folk traditions inform literature?
TIME ESTIMATE FOR THIS LESSON
One class period
ALIGNMENT WITH STANDARDS
California – Eng 11-12: R1.0-3, 2.0, 2.4, 3.0-6, W1.0-5, 1.7, 2.0, 2.4, W/O1.0-2, L/S1.0, 1.4-8, 2.0-1, 2.2-3
NETS for Students – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
MATERIALS
Computer lab with Internet access
Shove It Over – Song found at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/flwpahtml/flwpahome.html (see Activities step 4)
Mama Said Knock You Out – Song (All World Greatest Hits by LL Cool J from Def Jam Records, 1996) available at
most music stores
LESSON OBJECTIVES
• To discuss allusions to folk traditions in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• To examine Hurston’s research on folk traditions and rituals in Florida
• To practice integrating research writing with creative writing
• To practice writing annotations
• To learn how to cite music and internet sources
FOCUS AND MOTIVATE STUDENTS – WARM-UP ACTIVITY
1) Homework Check – Stamp/Initial homework assignments. Return corrected vocabulary lists.
2) Dialectical Journal – Tell students to bring out their journals and find a significant quote relating to Tea Cake’s
character. Tell students to present their quotes to the rest of the group, along with an explanation of what it
reveals about Tea Cake. Then have groups decide on the most revealing quote and present it to the class.
3) Daily Log – Copy Daily Log below.
4) Computer Protocol – Remind students of appropriate computer lab etiquette and the consequences for any
misbehavior.
Date
Journal
Lecture
Activity
Readings
Homework
Discussion
3 - Write a
Allusion in
1. Discussion
Chapters 14
1. Read Chapters 14 and 15 of
descriptive piece Their Eyes
2. Florida
and 15 of
Their Eyes Were Watching
alluding to a
Folklife
Their Eyes
God and write Dialectical
Florida Folk
Project
Were
Journal 8.
Tradition (one
3. Write Journal
Watching
2. Continue reading novels.
page)
3
God
3. Continue filling out notecards.
4. Study vocabulary to date.
ACTIVITIES – INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP
1.
Notetaking – Have students take out a sheet of paper and prepare to take notes. Have them title the notes, Allusion
in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Explain that the entire period will be lecture/discussion. They should take good
notes, as they will use their notes for their projects.
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2.
3:2:18:Allusion in Their Eyes
Big John – Tell students to bring out their copies of Their Eyes and turn to Chapter 6. Read the following passage,
about thirteen pages into the chapter, and have the students follow along:
“Dat’s whut makes up strong man lak Big John de Conquer. He was uh man wid salt in him. He could give uh
flavor to anything.”
“Yeah, but he was uh man dat wuz more’n man. ‘Tain’t no mo’ like him. He wouldn’t dig potatoes, and he
wouldn’t rake hay: He wouldn’t take a whipping, and he wouldn’t run away.”
“Oh yeah, somebody else could if dey tried hard enough. Me mahself, Ah got salt in me. IF Ah like man flesh, Ah
could eat some man every day, some of ‘em is so trashy they’d let me eat ‘em.”
“Lawd, Ah loves to talk about Big John. Less we tell lies on Ole John.”
Ask for a volunteer to explain who is being talked about in this passage. Although the name is slightly different,
someone should be able to identify that it is High John de Conquer. Ask for a few volunteers to remind the class of
the significance of High John as an African American folk hero. Then explain that this passage describes a ritual of
the community, sitting on the porch and having philosophical arguments (the role of nature versus caution) and
telling stories (“lies”) from oral tradition. Point out that these are folk traditions that Hurston researched as an
anthropologist, then brought into the novel.
3.
The Funerals – About two pages before the above passage, there is a description of the town’s burial of the mule.
Read the passage beginning “Out in the swamp they made great ceremony over the mule” and read through to the
end of the buzzard’s funeral, which concludes with “The yaller mule was gone from the town except for the porch
talk, and for the children visiting his bleaching bones now and then in the spirit of adventure.” Then tell the
students to turn to Chapter 9 and read along while you read the first page, describing Joe’s funeral. End with the
sentence, “After a while the people finished their celebration and Janie went on home.” There is a big difference
between the mule’s funeral and Joe’s funeral. Ask the students to discuss, in groups, how the mule’s funeral is
different from Joe’s funeral, and what Hurston’s purpose is in presenting the funerals in such different lights.
Suggest that they refer to their Dialectical Journal as they discuss the questions. Allow them five to seven minutes
to discuss and write down their answers. They should agree.
4.
Present – Call on each group in turn to present their answers. Then read the students the following analysis of the
funerals:
“ In Their Eyes, the mule image is associated both with oppressive white and male definitions of Black women,
which Janie struggles to shed, and with the creativity of blues singers and storytellers—and hence with Janie's
acquisition of voice…In Janie's relationship with Jody, the mule image embodies a double standard: Jody can
participate in the storytelling concerning the mule; Janie cannot. But, while Janie is not allowed to "talk the mule,"
laugh at the mule-talk, or attend the mule's funeral within the story itself, when she tells her life-story to Pheoby,
Janie not only talks the mule and "witnesses" the mule's funeral, she also creates a new mule story of a second
funeral presided over by the buzzards (96-97). Janie's "performance" of the buzzards' mule funeral utilizes blues
techniques including personification, hyperbole, and a repeated call-and-response structure to signify on Joe's mule
funeral and to expose the reality behind the appearance of Joe's life…In the second funeral, when the presiding
buzzard asks, "What killed this man?" and the chorus answers, "Bare bare fat," Janie alludes to and anticipates in
the telling of her story the circumstances of Joe's death. Thus, the buzzard story becomes a posthumous signifyin(g)
gesture on Jody.(5) Ultimately, then, by telling her own story, including her own variations on the mule's funeral,
Janie does participate in the mule-talk, just as Hurston, by telling Janie's story, participates in the male-controlled
and dominated tradition of written literature.”
(From African American Review, "The world in a jug and the stopper in (her) hand": 'Their Eyes' as blues
performance. Author/s: Maria V. Johnson article found at
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2838/n3_v32/21232161/p1/article.jhtml?term=%22Their+Eyes+Were+Watchin
g+God%22)
5.
Call and Response – Point out the author’s reference to “call and response” and tell students to try out this ritual
with the funeral scene. Take the part of the buzzard preacher, asking the students, “what killed this man?” Tell them
to take the part of the buzzard chorus, and read the whole exchange. Explain that this structure imitates the formula
in many African American music traditions. Play them another example of call and response from the Florida
Folklife Website. Go to the website: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/flwpahtml/flwpahome.html. Click on Search
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3:2:18:Allusion in Their Eyes
and enter “Hurston”. Then select item 15 (“Shove it Over”). Play the entire recording. Before playing it, explain to
students that this is an example of a railroad song that would be sung by a lineman and his crew. Zora Neale
Hurston is performing the song, and afterwards, she explains how it would be used in a railroad, demonstrating the
grunts and sounds the crew would respond to the calls, and how the line work would fit into the rhythm. After
playing it, point out that the call and response structure is used in contemporary blues music also, with the slide
guitar mimicking the sound of the singer’s voice calling out a line. It’s also used in other music forms.
6.
Samples – Tell students to turn on their computers, open their web browsers, and go to the following address:
http://www.leoslyrics.com/listlyrics.php?hid=Y150LFQIm78%3D (If the deep link does not work, they can access
the same page by going to www.leoslyrics.com and searching on the song title, Mama Said Knock You Out). This
song, Mama Said Knock You Out, offers a hip hop version of call and response. LL Cool J sings/calls out most of
the lyrics. Point out that, in this song, all of the lyrics in parentheses are being shouted by a back-up chorus of
singers. If possible, obtain a copy of the song (available on All World Greatest Hits by LL Cool J from Def Jam
Records, 1996) and play it for the students so that they can hear the structure. Remind students that music is a type
of source they may use in their research projects, and it is often filled with examples of different dialects. Tell
students to bring out their Citing Sources notes and copy down the proper method for citing a music source:
Recording Artist, “Name of Song.” Album Title. Record Label, Copyright Date. The recording artist’s last name
should be listed first, with a comma between last and first names.
7.
Allusion – So the rhythm used by the buzzards in the novel is an allusion to a form that many readers would know.
Have the students write down the following word and definition on their vocabulary lists:
ALLUSION:
An implied or indirect reference to something assumed to be known, such as an historical event or personage, a
well-known quotation from literature, or a famous work of art…
(From Bob’s Byway at http://www.poeticbyway.com/gl-a.html)
The reference to High John is also an allusion, since his significance and his character are not explained within the
text. It is assumed that the readers will understand the allusion and its importance to African American folk
tradition. With the mule’s funeral, the allusion to the dramatic call-and-response ceremony and usual burial
traditions make the reader attentive to the contrasting bluntness in the description of Joe’s funeral: “All things
concerning death and burial were said and done. Finish. End. Nevermore. Darkness. Deep Hole. Dissolution.
Eternity. Weeping and wailing outside.” Here, Hurston uses allusions to traditions in order to make a point about
Janie’s disconnection from Joe, her feeling that he prevented her from participating in the life of the community.
7.
Discuss – Ask the class if anyone was familiar with the allusions to either Call and Response or to High John the
Conqueror before they learned about them in class. Then ask the students if they feel that this information is
important to contemporary readers. Is it important to have this information in order to read the book and
understand/enjoy it? Is it important to have this information in order to be a part of the folk group Hurston
describes? Ask the students to think about what information would be known to people within their folk groups but
unknown to people outside the group. Think again about the benefits of belonging in the group. How do they
benefit from a knowledge of the traditions of the group? Are there traditions that their parents take part in that they
do not? Call on some students to share examples of traditions and special knowledge that their parents have or use.
The idea you are getting at is the idea that literature is a reflection of a common history. What does it say about our
society when many teens do not know that history, their history? And what are the implications for our future,
when whole groups of people lack knowledge of that history?
8.
Florida Folklife Project – Tell students to go to the following website:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/flwpahtml/flwpahome.html (Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections). Tell them
to click on Search and enter the search term “Hurston”. There should be 26 results for this term. Most of the results
are recordings made of Hurston and her research subjects, performing songs, stories, and games that represent
African American folk traditions in Florida. Tell the students that you want them to listen to at least three of the
performances (most are only a few minutes long). They need to find and listen to three different types of
performances (i.e. story, song, game or story, rhyme, game). When they listen to the performance, they should also
read the explanatory notes. On a clean sheet of paper, they need to write down the titles of the performances they
listen to and what type of performance they are, as well as an annotation. Explain that an annotation is a brief
descriptive and evaluative remark about a text. Tell the students to write the word annotation, along with this
definition, on their Vocabulary Lists. Their annotation for the performance should be no less than one complete
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Our Narrative Memory
Principles
3:2:18:Allusion in Their Eyes
sentence but no more than three complete sentences. It should provide enough information about the performance
that someone could recognize which performance it is without reading the title. The annotation must also say
something about what the listener likes or does not like about the performance. Explain that annotations are often a
part of creating a reference list. Tell the students to bring out their Citing Sources notes and copy down the correct
way to cite a website source, as they will need to annotate the songs they listen to:
Professional Web Site
Title of Site. Authors or Editors of Site (First names first). Date Created. Date Accessed. <URL>.
Personal Web Site
Author of site (last name first). Home page. Date accessed. < URL>.
Page on a Web Site
“Title of Page.” Name of Website. Authors or editors of site, first names first. Date Created. Date Accessed.
<URL>.
NOTE: The recordings will need to be downloaded to be listened to in the MP3 format, and the download takes a
minute or so.
9.
Journal 3 – After they listen to various performances, they should choose one they like. Then they should write a
one-page journal entry that includes an allusion to it. It can be a short descriptive piece about a community like the
one in Their Eyes. It should be a short descriptive piece about a setting or situation described in the notes for the
performance they liked. (For example, if they chose to use Shove It Over, they could write a descriptive piece about
a line crew working on a railroad.) It must include a reference to the performance that naturally fits into the
description. Remind the students to use the notes accompanying the performance to help them imagine the setting
for the journal entry. Allow them the rest of the period to finish this assignment. If there is not sufficient time in
class, they may finish it for homework.
10. Review Homework – Tell the students that this website represents another possible way to communicate research
about regional dialects, through text and sound. The journal is another way to communicate research, through a
creative writing piece (which is what Hurston does in her literature). Every time they see examples of language
research being presented, they should think about what they can use to help them with their own projects. Based on
the journals written today and the website visited today, students should write down two more ideas about how to
communicate their research for their final projects. Tomorrow they will discuss their ideas with their small groups,
as well as report on their research. Remind students to bring their ten completed notecards (which should include at
least two more source cards) on their proposed research topic. When they report tomorrow, they should be prepared
to state which sources have been most useful, as well as making suggestions of how to narrow the topic, if
applicable. The notecards should have headings on them, as discussed in Lesson 15. They should also bring the
notecards they completed in Lesson 15.
HOMEWORK
1) Read Chapters 14 and 15 of Their Eyes Were Watching God and write a page in the Dialectical Journal.
2) Continue reading Independent Reading novels.
3) Continue filling out notecards.
4) Study vocabulary to date.
GROUP ROLES
None
DOCUMENTATION FOR PORTFOLIO
Unit 1
Project 1: A True Story
Evaluation Essay 1
Incident Poem
Unit 2
Essay 1: Reflective Essay
Essay 2: Novel Evaluation
Essay 3: Reflections on Folk Group
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Principles
3:2:18:Allusion in Their Eyes
Essay 2
Essay 3: Satire
Final Project: Flash Dictionary Chapter
American Literature Unit 1 Final Exam
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