James Baldwin

| Activity 1 | Activity 2 | Activity 3 |Activity 4 |

For James Baldwin project, you will be working in groups of 4-5 to explore the author and his writing, and your final product for the project will be a group website that demonstrates your understanding of Baldwin's works. Through this project, you will -

• do research to discover what fascinates you the most about the author and his works, i.e. his search for self-identity, his childhood struggles, etc.
• select one literary work to read written by James Baldwin based on your personal  interests, create one piece of writing as your response,  and explore further any issue or topic described in his work.
• create an artwork based on anything that interested you about James Baldwin, his work or his era, or the combination of all.

Activity 1

When you hear an author's name, what would you like to find out about him/her, which may help you understand his/her works?

Here are the questions students generated:

What did s/he write?  What his/her works are about?
 What inspired him/ her to write?
 What era did s/he live in?
 Where did s/he grow up?
 What is his/her best writing?
 What topics and issues does the author write about?
 What background did the author come from?
 What was his/her real life like? (Ups and downs? Most significant events ?)
 What were his/her real life experiences?

Combining these questions, we'll have the following chart:

Please select a topic of your interests to do research on and those who have selected the same/similar topics will be put  in a group. As a group, you'll present a report on the topic you have researched about. Here is how-

• Here is an example of how to do online research. 
  - If you will  research about James Baldwin and 1930 Harlem .Use the search engine www.google.com and type James Baldwin  and Harlem as key words to put in the search box. 

For Your Information: How to Cite from the World Wide Web?

• How to Cite from the World Wide Web ?
  For more information, click on the Frequent Asked Questions page.
• Cite from books, articles, etc. Please go to this page.
• Make sure you have References or Works Cited as part of your finished work if you have used any information from the World Wide Web.

HW. Finish your research and bring in your individual report (Type it if you can) on the topic with the references to share in your small group tomorrow.

Activity 2

• Post the report  in our Internet classroom Nicenet.org using the following information: (If your report is handwritten, you don't need to poet your report now. Read from your notebook).

Class Name: James Baldwin

Your Class Key: N6Z753J7Z

• Read each other's report and discuss how you can combine the information and create one final report for the group.
• Publish your group final report in the Document section in our Internet Classroom for the entire class to share.

Reading the Selected Literature

 Each group selects one of the following works by Baldwin to study and present:

"The Rockpiles"
"The Fire Next Time"
"Sonny's Blues"
After reading, present your understanding of the work in your group website. Your presentation needs to demonstrate

• Your comprehension or interpretation of the literature you have read
• Your inquiry for issues originated from the reading according to your personal and group interests.

While Reading-

• What I think are the key ideas of the story/essay? 
• If I have one minute to read aloud parts of the work to share with other readers, what information would I highlight?
• What are the things described in his works I agree or disagree?
• What do I like the most about the work? What don't I understand about the work?
• What topics or issues would I  like to explore further inspired by the story/essay?

B. Read aloud your selection of the story/essay in your group .

C. Share your journal with your group members to discuss the story/essay.

D. List the questions and issues you'd like to explore further as a group and present your research on the questions as part of the final presentation in your website.

After-Reading-

Discuss with your group members how you want to present your group reading of James Baldwin's story/essay. Bear in mind that viewers who visit your website may not know anything about the author and the story you are presenting. How can you make you website an interesting introduction to and comprehensive & artistic illustration of James Baldwin and his works?

Discuss in class:

1. When presenting a literary work, you need to be aware the audience-your peers, teachers, parents, friends, younger kids, etc. For younger kids and your peers, how would you like to present the work? For teachers? Parents?

For Younger kids/peers: Visual, Glossary, Summary, Your Interpretation of the story, Personal responses, favorite quotations, Resources Links, etc.

For teachers: analytical essay, comparative essay, research report on Harlem in 1930s, your creative writing inspired by the work on the same subject or theme, your discovery of other literary works related to the story, artistic illustrations etc.

For Parents: Your reflections on doing such a project

Here are the ideas students suggested:

1. About the author
2. 1930 Harlem
3. Summary
4. Your personal response to his work (journals)
5. Interpretation of the story, such as Point of View Writing
6. Analytical essays
7. Art work or or illustration of his work
8. Literary connections ( other literary works related to Baldwin's works)
9. Resource links to websites that provide information about James Baldwin and criticism on his works
10. My favorite quotations.

Activity 3

How to illustrate themes or important details in literature( Based on reading James Baldwin's "The Rockpiles", The Fire Next Time, and "Sonny's Blues"   )?

a. search for self identity 

b. social injustice or important ideas

c. The Title

Illustration of a literary work can be literal or symbolic.

1. Brainstorming: Getting the visual.
   a. What do you see in the literature-literal (Who, What, Where, When, Why)?
   b. What do you see symbolically( colors, symbols, lettering, etc)?

If you choose to illustrate the story/essay literally,  you may like to focus on

• the most important details in the story/essay
• main idea of the literature
• your interpretation of the literature

If you choose to illustrate the story/essay symbolically, you may like to focus on

• the title
• themes

What other elements  in an artwork are symbolic?

• format  (How do you position the images or symbols and what meanings you want to convey through such a position?).
• sizes (Larger, the more important)
• colors
• contrast (brightness vs darkness)
• Borders
• Design
• Type Design

Here is an example of the cover page of your James Baldwin website. Do the layout on a paper before you design it online.

Activity 4

Show and Tell : Students present their  final products- websites.

(How to cite references for the sources you have used to create your digital artwork?

• At the bottom of the page where your artwork is posted, list all the website addresses where you found the the images.
• If there is an author's name, list the author's name before the URLs of the images.)