Choose any three (or more) for your discussion this week. Be sure to answer in complete sentences.
1. Why do you think Hughes names the poem Harlem? What are some of the images described there? What is his message about dreams that are not realized?
2. Discuss the conversation between Hughes and Whitman in the two poems. What point in Hughes making? What is he saying to Whitman (please include specific lines from the poem in your answer).
3. In Mother to Son, on what occasion do you think the speaker is saying the poem? What is the speakers message to her son? What does it mean, for life to be a crystal stair?
4. Hurston writes, there are no races and colors, we are all people who carry the same package. What does she mean by this?
5. How many different Zoras does Hurston mention in the essay? How is it possible for there to be so many? Do you feel that you have different identities?
Link to Langston Hughs Bio https://poets.org/poet/langston-hughes
Link to I Hear America Singing by Walt Whittman https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46480/i-hear-america-singing
Link to Mother to Son https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47559/mother-to-son
Link to Theme For English B by Langton Hughes https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47559/mother-to-son
Link to How It Feels to be Colored Me, by Zora Neale Hurston https://www.wheelersburg.net/Downloads/Hurston.pdf
Link to Harlem by Hughs https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46548/harlem