'America' by Claude McKay

This is an English lesson on the poem ‘America’ by the Jamaican born poet Claude Mckay. In it he explores his feelings about becoming an American citizen and lamenting how badly black people were treated by the establishment. It discusses the themes of prejudice and freedom which can be linked to other poems taught within a unit (see my poem on Frederick Douglass in my shop).

The lesson begins by asking students to make judgements based on a group of images and consider the lifestyle of black Americans within the 1920s when Claude had moved there. There is then a slide which introduces them to some facts about the social context and another which offers facts about McKay’s life.

There is then a slide reminding students of how sonnets are constructed and asks them to identify the clues that suggest that this poem is one and why that would be appropriate considering the content.

Students are then introduced to the ‘WPSLOMP’ method of analysing poetry which they can then apply in pairs before colour coding quotes which are examples of personification and imagery well as some more challenging features. The ideas they pull together for this can then be explored as a class and the slides can be annotated by the teacher on the board and there are also some quotes colour coded as the answers.

The lesson ends with a chance for students to write independent essay paragraphs with an adaptable success criteria but this can be adapted for your course. Here I have used SQUID (Statement, Quote, Infer, Device/Develop which is similar to PEA). There is then an opportunity to self or peer assess according to the key skills.

As with all my lessons, there are ‘Talk for Writing’ activities and Challenge tasks for more able students.

Attached is:

-A powerpoint with the lesson clearly outlined
-The poem with a word bank on it
-Link to online videos (see ‘Notes’ under slides).
-An extension task: write a poem about your country (here the UK) using this poem as inspiration.

All images are from Openclipart.org or Wiki Commons.