The Poetry Foundation, Maya Angelou, Furious Flower Poetry Center, and Target have developed a curriculum to help teachers introduce students to African American poetry.
Dream in Color
The title of the project is “Dream in Color,” and you might have seen posters advertising it at the Target department stores. The Target web site features an informative overview of the project. You can click on various icons representing items on Dr. Angelou’s writing desk to get a bit of biography of Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Paul Laurence Dunbar.
You can also listen to the poets read from their poetry, while the read along with them. There is an activities book with lesson plans for K-12, an interview with Maya Angelou, and you create you won poem with words from the famous poems featured on the site.
Poetry Foundation
This ambitious project offers lessons plans for teachers, discussion guides, a glossary of poetic terms, and activities that guide student in writing their poems. The guidelines provide exercises to entice students to explore African American as well as poetry in general. The Poetry Foundation web site offer the following links for schools: Elementary School (PDF), Middle School (PDF), High School (PDF).
This project is evidence that poetry matters to a lot people.
