A Dream Deferred Lesson Plan

A Dream Deferred lesson plan
Introduction
Ask the students if they know of a civil rights struggle either going on now or
from the past. Examples could include: women's rights; apartheid in South
Africa; Tibet; homosexual couples. If the civil rights movement in the US is not
mentioned try and elicit it. Ask if any of these groups won their civil rights
instantly or had them postponed or deferred by those in charge. Why would
governments defer these rights?
Development
Tell the students they are going to read a poem by Langston Hughes. He was an
African American poet who was very prominent in the 1920s and 1930s in the
Harlem area of New York in the USA.
Ask the students if they know what life was like for most African Americans in
the US at that time. What rights did they not have? (All aspects of life were
segregated -‐ school, housing, public transport, sports. In the southern states
especially this was sometimes brutally enforced.)
The name of the poem is 'A Dream Deferred.' What do you think the 'dream' is?
What was Martin Luther King Junior's 'dream'? Why was this dream 'deferred'
for so long?
Put the students in pairs and give them copies of the 11 lines of the poem. Tell
them the first line of the poem and tell them to put the rest in order. After five
minutes read the poem together.
Grammar and punctuation
1. What verbs are used? (defer, dry up, fester, run, stink, crust, sugar over, sag,
explode)
2. What nouns are used? (raisin, sun, sore, meat, sweet, load, dream)
3. What adjectives are used? (rotten, syrupy, heavy)
4. How does this language contrast with the main verb, 'dream'?
5. Why does Hughes twice use a dash (-‐)? (Perhaps to indicate that
something will happen suddenly and unexpectedly). Compare dashes with
hyphens ('an award-‐winning author...')
Poetical devices
1. What is a simile? (a comparison of one thing with a different thing, usually
by using 'like' or 'as')
2. What similes does Hughes use in the poem?
3. What do the similes have in common? (1) Colour -‐ dark brown and red. 2)
Physical characteristics -‐ all either ugly, displeasing or dead.) Ask students
© Education Umbrella, 2014 1

to write three similes using 'like' to describe a beautiful person. For
example, 'His hair is like the mane of a lion'; 'Her eyes are like two
sparkling diamonds,' etc. Listen to some examples as a class. Then ask
students to write three similes using 'like' to describe a disgusting house.
For example, 'The living room looked like a ______,' 'The toilet smelt like a
_______,' etc.
4. Why does Hughes choose the colours red and brown? (They bring to mind
the lashing of African American slaves -‐ brown skin and red blood)
5. What is alliteration? (The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the
beginning of adjacent or closely connected words)
6. Find examples of alliteration in the poem. (A Dream Deferred; a
raisin in the sun; like a syrupy sweet;)
Main activity
Tell the students they are going to write a poem using the structure of 'A Dream
Deferred.' Ask them to think of a dream that has been 'deferred.' It could be
something past or present, something important to them or important to other
people, something global or something local, a serious topic or something more
lighthearted. Ask students to first list verbs, nouns and adjectives that they might
use in similes in order to create a coherent image and colour scheme and then
write the poem.
Example one
Dream deferred: England winning the World Cup
Verbs: lose, draw, miss, misplace, fail, cry, foul, tackle, whistle, boo, cling, chill,
ache, sting
Nouns: pitch, mud, grass, tears, sweat, saliva, studs, shin, penalty shootout,
concussion
Adjectives: muddy, wet, cold, slow
Example two
Dream deferred: Scottish independence
Verbs: drag, gust, howl, blow, freeze, crack, soak, blind, disorientate
Nouns: wind, storm, snow, rain, hail, mountains, hills, tundra
Adjectives: cold, wet, icy, chilly, freezing, frozen

© Education Umbrella, 2014 2

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A Dream Deferred lesson plan

Grammar and punctuation

© Education Umbrella, 2014 1

Dream deferred: England winning the World Cup

Dream deferred: Scottish independence

© Education Umbrella, 2014 2

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