MURRY BERGTRAUM HIGH SCHOOL
Barbara A. Esmilla, Principal
Project Arts
Suzanne Ashley
WORKSHOP – November
2, 2004
Lesson on "Still I
Rise" by Maya Angelou
Purpose: How to extrapolate the Meaning in the poem
"Still I Rise"
Procedures:
- Read poem carefully, taking one-word meaning from the
paragraphs
- Brainstorming-
- List the word meaning and, next to
words, try to develop an icon or symbol for the word. Example:
strong=hammer
- Look for pictures (Internet) that
symbolize words (use museum files, photos, etc.)
- Collect all visuals-save
- Find a background and superimpose pictures (varying the
sizes) onto the background.
- Use color to represent ideas.
- Use words or numbers to help bring across ideas. * Be sure
that type-face of lettering works with ideas.
Brainstorming idea
Aim: How to cull images from literature?
Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
Point
to W# to view the ideas:
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.