Motivation:

The students listen to a song composed by K’naan entitled Wavin’ Flag. The students answer the following
question based to the song they listen to.

1. What is the song all about?

2. As a person,do you think you have a freedom to do whatever you want?
3. Can you share one experience that you can say you have a freedom? It can be an experience of having
free will of doing something that you really want.
4. What if you have no freedom to do this?What do you think will happen? How would you will?

Motive:
Before we proceed to our main dicussion,let us first discuss the life summary of the author Maya Angelou.
Listen carefully because you will not understand the poem if you did not know her story.

The teacher tell the story of Maya Angelou while showing pictures of her.

The story begins in 1931. Maya is a 3 year old who lives with her grandmother or what she call momma
together with her older brother after their parents broke up.Momma owns the only store in the African
American part of town.She teach Maya and Bailey how to read and count.

One Christmas Maya and Bailey receive gifts from their parents whom they assumed to be dead. A year
later their daddy Bailey takes Maya and Bailey from momma and bring them to their mother,Vivian.

Maya and Bailey move in to their mom Vivian,their mom Vivian has a boyfriend named
Mr.Freeman.Mr.Freeman begins molesting the 8 year old Maya.Threatening to kill Bailey if she tells
anyone.One day he rapes her and hides her stained underwear under the matress which her mom and
Bailey find the garment and realize what happen.

During Mr.Freeman’s trial ,Maya lies when asked weather he touch her before the rape.Later on
Mr.Freeman is found dead apparently having been beaten to death.Maya stops speaking to anyone
except Bailey after that.Then they are sent back to Momma.

Maya then meet Mrs.Bertha Flowers,who encourage her to speak again and give her books to read
aloud,and Maya begins talking again.

Maya goes to school and experience racism for being black in America. One day,Maya and momma go to
a white dentist but the dentist refuse to treat Maya and they have to take a bus to the closest black
dentist.

Maya then move to her daddy,Daddy Bailey which he has a girlfriend named Dolores. Dolores didn’t like
Maya leading Maya to runaway and spent nights in junkyard. Maya then lived with Mexican runaways for
a month and return to her Mom.

Maya find a job but then return to school.Maya read a novel “the well of loneliness” and misunderstand
what is lesbianism.She had sex with a boy and it results to pregnancy. After graduating high school ,Maya
tell her mom about it and she fully accept it.
This experiences of Maya Angelou lead her to write the poem that we are going to discuss today etitled
“Cage birds”.

The teacher will dicuss the poem while showing pictures per stanza for the students to visualize the poem.

I know why the caged bird sings by Maya Angelou

Maya wrote this poem because of two reasons. One is to deal with the death of her friends and to draw
attention to her own personal struggles for racism.This poem is a powerful expression of the voice of Black
Americans and their longing and struggle for freedom and equality

A free bird leaps

on the back of the wind
and float downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
In the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky

The poem beggins with striving image of a free bird leaping on the back of the wind that is flying with the
wind,the wind carries the free bird along which means circumstances are favorable for the free bird.And
floats downstream till the current ends,this means that the bird then glides smoothly along with the
current of the wind,the current takes them along.And dips his wing in the orange sun rays,this means
that the bird is able to fly unrestricted and enjoy the beauty of the sunset.The words downstream and
dips evoke images of the sunset over a river. And the free bird is able to enjoy everything.And he dares to
claim the sky.The free bird is bold enough to assert his right over everything.The sky means limitless
possibilities,limitless resources and the free bird claims he own all of it.

If we go back to the story of Maya earlier,the free bird represents the European and American colonizers
who felt free to take control and have privileges.

But a bird that stalks

down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The second stanza shows us the completely contrasting condition of the cage bird.

But the bird that stalks down his narrow cage,so while the free bird live in circumstances that are on his
favor and can claim the entire sky as his own,the cage bird lives in the cage which is narrow,confined or
restricted.All the cage bird can do is to move up and down in frustration in confined area.Can seldom see
through his bars of range, so the cage bird cannot even see,cannot even fathom,has no true idea of the
limitless possiblities that exist for the free bird. He can hardly seen anything through the bars rage all
around his cage. Now what are the bars or rage? The bars of rage are the racial discrimintaion and
subjunction imposed by the hatred of the white Americans. This bars of rage are also the sadness,the
frustration,the fear felt by the black American represented by the caged bird because they are trapped in
the cage,they cannot envision anything ,cannot plan,cannot hope,cannot dream.His wings are clipped and
his feet are tied so he open his throat to sing .All oppurtunies is denied to the cage bird even his wings
are clipped and his feet are tied. He can hardly move in his narrow cage,the only thing that he can do to
express himself is to sing.So he opens his throat to sing.But the question is what does he sing of?under
these trying circumstances what can he sing about? So lets find out in the next stanza.

The caged birds sings

With fearful trill
Of things unknown
But longed for still
And his tune is heard
On the distant hill
For he caged bird sings of freedom

So the caged bird sings for fearful thrill of things unknown but longed for still .The cage bird is terribly
fearful. What does he fear? He fears for the harassment,torture even death. Lets remember why Maya
wrote this poem its because of her personal experience, she fears of sexual harassment from her mom’s
boyfriend that raped her and she became mute and another reason is because of his friends Martin Luther
King and Malcomn X alongside who Maya fought for civil rights were both killed. But the bird still sings his
song although it is in voice full of fear. He sing about freedom and oppurtunity. He sing about the freedom
that denied to him, about the oppurtunities that he may not even know at this point but it does not stop
him from longing for them.The song that he sings can never be confined even if he himself is confined.The
tune of the song is carried to the distant hill that is to those who can help the cage bird. To those who can
be motivated to free the caged bird. Why? Because the cage bird sings of freedom.So the point in this
stanza is people cannot be kept in cage and oppressed for long. They will struggle against all odds and
express their voice. This voice will be heard in many places,far of places and the impact of this voice will
be too powerful to ignore.

The free bird things of another breeze

And the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

The free bird thinks of another breeze so meanwhile the free bird has the free will enoying the breeze
and the beauty of the sunset starts thinking of another breeze. Another breeze means of new or more
oppurtunities.And the trade winds soft through the sighing trees and the fat worms waiting on a dawn
bright lawn. So the free bird is able to explore and experience the trade winds blowing from long
distances gently through the sighinng trees. He is able to move to new places and experience new things.
He has the freedom to find his own food,he can go as far as he likes and he can enjoy the fat worms
waiting for him on a lawn . This means that for the white americans everthing is made easy and
convenient . All the resources of the world are laid open to him. He has no idea and he is totally oblivious
to the sufferring of the black man. He enjoys fat worms which means that choicest pickings of food of
whatever he likes and he names the sky his own,This means that the free bird asserts his claim on the
sky,he says that the sky is his and only his.Similary the white man says that only he has the right to the
resources that the world has to offer.He does not even conceive of sharing them with the black man.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and hia feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

Grave dreams-In contrast to the condition of the free bird,the caged bird dreams are dead. And he stands
in his cage on their grave. His dreams are dead and buried which is the worst thing that can happen to
anybody because if there are no dreams there is no hope and then life is nothing except torture.
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream ,so with his dreams is dead and his very existence negated,the
cage bird is no longer even sure of his identity that why he becomes nothing else but a shadow, he is not
even a real entity he is shadow but still he makes all the efford he can in order to scream loudly as he lives
a life is like a nightmare .His wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing. Even in
his worst condition, the bird opens his throat to sing because it is only his song that can liberate him .

The caged bird sings

with a fearful trill
Of things unkown but longed for still
And his tune is heard
On the distant hill
For the caged bird
Sings of freedom

The poet is repeating the 3rd stanza of the poem here agan. She does this to emphasize that no matter
how hopeles and frustrating the conditions become,the caged bird will still continue to sing its song of
freedom and this song will give expression to its suffering and its thirst for freedom. It will be heard far
and wide and the blacks will continue to struggle against all odds and in due course they will surely be
liberated.

EVALUATION
After discussing the poem,the teacher ask the students with the following question.
1. Who is the author of the poem?
2. In the summary of the author’s life,what are her struggles?
3. Does her stuggles portray the bird in the cage?
4. If the bird in the cage suffers,what does the free bird do?
5. What does the free bird symbolize?
6.