The Blues and Langston Hughes
Grades 3-5
This lesson is adapted from activities that appeared in Smithsonian in Your Classroom, published by the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies. It includes an audio component from Smithsonian Folkways. link to http://www.folkways.si.edu/explore_folkways/poetry.aspx
Learning Standards
These standards are achieved through guided work with the teacher.
Language Arts K–12 (from the National Council of Teachers of English)
Music K–12 (from the National Association for Music Education)
Objectives
Duration
One 45-minute class
Key Concepts
the blues, poem, song, rhyme, beat, bar (of music)
Materials and Reproducibles
Langston Hughes by Winold Reiss, 1925, National Portrait Gallery, gift of W. Tjark Reiss. link link PLEASE NOTE: CREDIT LINE INFORMATION FOR THIS PORTRAIT MUST BE INCLUDED IN THE FINAL REPRODUCIBLE.
Background Information (for the teacher)
The song structure of the blues seems to have originated in the Mississippi Delta in the late nineteenth century. The term the blues, as in “having the blues,” comes from a centuries-old term for a state of melancholy. Blues lyrics usually tell of some trouble, but often in a comical way.
The “blues stanza” became a standard lyric strophe in popular music. It is composed of three lines: the second line repeats the first; the third line rhymes. Here, for example, is a stanza from “Green River Blues” by the Delta musician Charley Patton:
Some people say the Green River blues ain’t bad.
Some people say the Green River blues ain’t bad.
Then it must-a not been the Green River blues I had.
Here is a seminal bit of blues-based rock and roll:
You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time.
You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time.
You ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine.
Blues music is usually set in twelve bars of music, in 4/4 time. While the lyrics of the blues are rarely in regular meter, the music often has a driving beat that is not unlike the heartbeat rhythm of iambic verse: da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM.
The first to recognize the potential of the blues as written poetry was Langston Hughes, born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1902. Hughes first heard the blues in Kansas City when he was eleven years old. As biographer Arnold Rampersad describes it: “The music seemed to cry, but the words somehow laughed.” Hughes moved to the East Coast in 1921 and heard the music again, in clubs on Lenox Avenue in Harlem and Seventh Street in Washington, D.C. “I tried to write poems like the songs they sang on Seventh Street,” he once said. Those songs “had the pulse beat of the people who keep on going.”
When writing in the blues form, Hughes broke the three lines of each stanza into six lines, as demonstrated in this stanza from the poem “Morning After”:
I said, Baby! Baby!
Please don’t snore so loud.
Baby! Please!
Please don’t snore so loud.
You jest a little bit o’ woman but you
Sound like a great big crowd.
The line breaks give a further sense of the music, indicating where a singer might pause or drag a word across a few beats.
Part One Defining the blues
Part Two Listening to the music
I said, Baby! Baby!
Please don’t snore so loud.
Baby! Please!
Please don’t snore so loud.
You jest a little bit o’ woman but you
Sound like a great big crowd.
Part Three Composing a blues poem
Sick at Home Blues
Mom won’t let me go downstairs and play.
Mom won’t let me go downstairs and play.
I try to sneak out, but she hears me anyway.
Part Four Performing the Blues
Part Five Concluding or extension activity
Assign a book report in verse, in which students read a biography of Langston Hughes and turn some detail of his life into a three-line blues poem. (For instance: the conflict between Langston’s love of literature and his father’s insistence that he study engineering.) Explain that the students will be assuming the character of Langston Hughes in the poem, just as Hughes always assumed a character in his own blues poetry. As an example of such characters, read this stanza from Hughes’s “Young Gal Blues”:
I’m goin’ to the po’ house
To see ma old Aunt Clew.
Goin’ to the po’ house
To see ma old Aunt Clew.
When I’m old an’ ugly
I’ll want to see somebody, too.
Part Six Concluding or extension activity
Distribute copies of the portrait Langston Hughes by Winhold Reiss (1925). link to poster In a class discussion, ask student to use their knowledge of Hughes’s life to interpret the imagery in the portrait. Much of the imagery is open to impressionistic interpretation; however; students will probably be able to identify the musical notation and the color blue as symbols of the music in Hughes’s work—the blues in particular.
Recommended Biographies
Hoena, B. A. Langston Hughes: Great American Writer. Mankato, Minn: Capstone Press, 2005.
Walker, Alice. Langston Hughes: American Poet. New York: Amistad, 2001.
Source: https://nafme.org/lesson-plans-for-black-history-month/
Grades 3-5
This lesson is adapted from activities that appeared in Smithsonian in Your Classroom, published by the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies. It includes an audio component from Smithsonian Folkways. link to http://www.folkways.si.edu/explore_folkways/poetry.aspx
Learning Standards
These standards are achieved through guided work with the teacher.
Language Arts K–12 (from the National Council of Teachers of English)
- Standard 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions, and genre
- Standard 7. Students gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources.
Music K–12 (from the National Association for Music Education)
- Content Standard 1. Students sing a varied repertoire of music, alone and with others.
- Content Standard 8. Students understand relationships between music and other arts.
- Content Standard 9. Students understand music in relation to history and culture.
Objectives
- To understand the basics of the blues, the root of much of America’s popular music
- To see the influence of the blues in the work of poet Langston Hughes, and thereby to understand that there is musicality in poetry
- To compose three-line rhyming blues poems
Duration
One 45-minute class
Key Concepts
the blues, poem, song, rhyme, beat, bar (of music)
Materials and Reproducibles
Langston Hughes by Winold Reiss, 1925, National Portrait Gallery, gift of W. Tjark Reiss. link link PLEASE NOTE: CREDIT LINE INFORMATION FOR THIS PORTRAIT MUST BE INCLUDED IN THE FINAL REPRODUCIBLE.
Background Information (for the teacher)
The song structure of the blues seems to have originated in the Mississippi Delta in the late nineteenth century. The term the blues, as in “having the blues,” comes from a centuries-old term for a state of melancholy. Blues lyrics usually tell of some trouble, but often in a comical way.
The “blues stanza” became a standard lyric strophe in popular music. It is composed of three lines: the second line repeats the first; the third line rhymes. Here, for example, is a stanza from “Green River Blues” by the Delta musician Charley Patton:
Some people say the Green River blues ain’t bad.
Some people say the Green River blues ain’t bad.
Then it must-a not been the Green River blues I had.
Here is a seminal bit of blues-based rock and roll:
You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time.
You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time.
You ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine.
Blues music is usually set in twelve bars of music, in 4/4 time. While the lyrics of the blues are rarely in regular meter, the music often has a driving beat that is not unlike the heartbeat rhythm of iambic verse: da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM.
The first to recognize the potential of the blues as written poetry was Langston Hughes, born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1902. Hughes first heard the blues in Kansas City when he was eleven years old. As biographer Arnold Rampersad describes it: “The music seemed to cry, but the words somehow laughed.” Hughes moved to the East Coast in 1921 and heard the music again, in clubs on Lenox Avenue in Harlem and Seventh Street in Washington, D.C. “I tried to write poems like the songs they sang on Seventh Street,” he once said. Those songs “had the pulse beat of the people who keep on going.”
When writing in the blues form, Hughes broke the three lines of each stanza into six lines, as demonstrated in this stanza from the poem “Morning After”:
I said, Baby! Baby!
Please don’t snore so loud.
Baby! Please!
Please don’t snore so loud.
You jest a little bit o’ woman but you
Sound like a great big crowd.
The line breaks give a further sense of the music, indicating where a singer might pause or drag a word across a few beats.
Part One Defining the blues
- Discuss what it means to “have the blues.” When the students arrive at definitions, make a list of some of the things that give them the blues. Point out that these can be funny or silly things. Make a second class list of other words that could describe the blues (sad, disappointed, etc.).
- Go to the Smithsonian Education page on the Smithsonian Folkways site link to http://www.folkways.si.edu/explore_folkways/poetry.aspx
Part Two Listening to the music
- Go to the Smithsonian Folkways site link to http://www.folkways.si.edu/explore_folkways/poetry.aspx and play a bit of “Good Morning Blues” by Lead Belly (on “Extended Audio”).
- Read the stanza from Hughes’s poem “Morning After”:
I said, Baby! Baby!
Please don’t snore so loud.
Baby! Please!
Please don’t snore so loud.
You jest a little bit o’ woman but you
Sound like a great big crowd.
- Ask the class if they notice similarities between the poem and the song. If they need prompting, call attention to what Hughes said about the verse structure of the blues. (The second line repeats the first. A third line makes a rhyme.)
Part Three Composing a blues poem
- Tell students that everyone will compose his or her own three-line blues. This will be done as a class, with the students helping each other to make the poems rhyme.
- Remind them that anyone who has a complaint can “have the blues.” To give an example, read this blues by a second-grader, which was submitted to the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies:
Sick at Home Blues
Mom won’t let me go downstairs and play.
Mom won’t let me go downstairs and play.
I try to sneak out, but she hears me anyway.
Part Four Performing the Blues
- Play “Good Morning Blues” again, calling attention to the beat (da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM). Ask students to clap along or rap on their desks until they get the hang of the beat.
- Lead a recital of some of the students’ poems, in which the class speaks the words while clapping or tapping out the beat. You might also try singing their poems to the tune of “Good Morning Blues” or one of the other blues on the Folkways page.
Part Five Concluding or extension activity
Assign a book report in verse, in which students read a biography of Langston Hughes and turn some detail of his life into a three-line blues poem. (For instance: the conflict between Langston’s love of literature and his father’s insistence that he study engineering.) Explain that the students will be assuming the character of Langston Hughes in the poem, just as Hughes always assumed a character in his own blues poetry. As an example of such characters, read this stanza from Hughes’s “Young Gal Blues”:
I’m goin’ to the po’ house
To see ma old Aunt Clew.
Goin’ to the po’ house
To see ma old Aunt Clew.
When I’m old an’ ugly
I’ll want to see somebody, too.
Part Six Concluding or extension activity
Distribute copies of the portrait Langston Hughes by Winhold Reiss (1925). link to poster In a class discussion, ask student to use their knowledge of Hughes’s life to interpret the imagery in the portrait. Much of the imagery is open to impressionistic interpretation; however; students will probably be able to identify the musical notation and the color blue as symbols of the music in Hughes’s work—the blues in particular.
Recommended Biographies
Hoena, B. A. Langston Hughes: Great American Writer. Mankato, Minn: Capstone Press, 2005.
Walker, Alice. Langston Hughes: American Poet. New York: Amistad, 2001.
Source: https://nafme.org/lesson-plans-for-black-history-month/