Starter Make a group list of words today

No dictionaries, words must be at least 4 letters, the 9

letter word counts for 2 points.

R E H HINTS FOR SOLVING

Look for common beginnings, such as UN- or
SUB-, and endings, such as -ER or -ISM.
Look for pairs of letters that go well together,
such as ST, PR or ND.

R I Y Write out the letters in a different order, in case

you spot something different.
Don't forget to look for words that begin with a
vowel.
When you find a word, try reading it backwards,
to see if it suggests another word.

A R D When you find a word, try to find all the

rearrangements of its letters that also form
words.
When you find a word, try substituting the
remaining letters into it.

Chocolate for group with

most words
Maya Angelou
Biography and place in literature
 Who is Maya Angelou?
Born in 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri
(compare with Langston Hughes,
born in 1902 - by this time Hughes
had already written ‘A Negro
Speaks of Rivers’)

Missouri is pretty much central

Mid-West America - was very
much slave country.
While Hughes was also born in Missouri, his path involved
significant travel in America as well as overseas before
returning to settle in New York. Angelou on the other hand
had a much less fortunate path of travel.
 Early life...
The first 17 years of her life her very rough. At age
three, her parents’ marriage ended. The father
sent the children to Arkansas - further South,
essentially further into Confederate territory, which
was traditionally linked to slavery.
Here they lived with their father’s mother - Annie
Henderson. There was some success here as
Annie was quite a savvy business woman.
 Early life...
However, four years later, the father returned and
sent the children back to their birth mother in St.
Louis, where they were born.
At age eight, while living with her mother,
Angelou was sexually abused and raped by her
mother’s boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. She confessed
this to her brother, who then told the rest of the
family.
 Early life...
Freeman was found guilty, but was only jailed for one
day. Four days after his release, he was found kicked to
death, probably by Angelou’s uncles.
Angelou, at this point, became mute. She stated “I
thought, my voice killed him; I killed that man, because I
told his name. And then I thought I would never speak
again, because my voice could kill anyone.”
She remained mute for nearly 5 years.
 Influence...
We would expect then that Angelou would have a
fascination with language. She see real violence in
power in words and language. It seems natural that
she would become a writer due to her significant
respect, even fear of, the power of words.
Having overcome her desperate fear of words, we
might expect Angelou to attempt to use language for
good - to inspire, to self-affirm, to regain the voice she
lost.
 Adult life
Throughout the 50’s Angelou devoted herself to the arts.
During this time she was both a dancer and singer,
receiving training on scholarship in dance.
This allowed her to get out of America. She toured
throughout Europe with the all black opera Porgy and
Bess. She became fascinated with the languages of other
countries and actively tried to learn the language of every
country she visited.
She is now proficient in a number of different languages.
 Adult life
It wasn’t until the late 50’s that Angelou moved to New York (consider,
Hughes had been living in New Jersey - New York City’s neighbour -
since the 1930’s).
She became involved in the civil rights movement and became close
friends with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X - both key figures in the
civil rights movement. Both were assassinated.
King was assassinated on Angelou’s birthday. Since that day she has not
celebrated her birthday, instead she sent flowers to King’s wife, until her
death in 2006.
This inspired her to write I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - this
autobiography of her first 17 years of life brought her international
recognition as a writer.
 Adult life
She ended up writing 5 autobiographies, covering the majority of
her early life.
Angelou would go on to become Oprah Winfrey’s close friend and
mentor, write the first screen play by a black writer to ever be
produced and recite her poem ‘On the Pulse of the Morning’ at the
inauguration of President Bill Clinton - the first poet since Robert
Frost spoke at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961.
This year she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by
Barack Obama - the highest civilian award offered by the US
Government for contributions to world peace and culture.
 Conclusions
We can quite happily assume that Angelou has had a significant impact
on the development and acceptance of African American culture in the
20th Century.
We can also safely assume that Angelou’s primary project has been
raising awareness about the ‘truth’ of being black in a white dominated
world.
We can also assume that Angelou’s voice will also tell the story of the
female side of being black in America during the early 20th Century.
Finally, we might be able to consider Angelou as a significant example of
African American writers trying to reclaim their voices - by which I mean
that they are reclaiming their right to represent themselves. The refusal to
be stereotyped and a desire to use literature and art to reaffirm their
identities as strong, proud, worthy, equal.
 Hughes and Angelou
Were acquaintances and potentially close friends. It is likely that they
new each other in New York. However, we should not assume that
they wrote together or produced projects together. Their ideas about
poetry may have been shared as they did tend to a similar approach to
the African American identity.
Angelou’s poetry follows Hughes in that she “explains and illuminates”
the condition, identity and culture of African Americans in the US, but
without attacking or alienating her white audience. Like Hughes, she is
about empowerment, not division or conflict. We should expect her
poetry to ‘re-vision’ the African American identity - to show it for what it
really is as a means of getting her African American reader to see
themselves differently and as a means of breaking the white
stereotype about African Americans.
 You may shoot me with your words,
You may write me down in history You may cut me with your eyes,
With your bitter, twisted lies, You may kill me with your hatefulness, 6
You may trod me in the very dirt 1 But still, like air, I'll rise.
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does my sassiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise
Why are you beset with gloom? That I dance like I've got diamonds
7
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells 2 At the meeting of my thighs?
Pumping in my living room.
Out of the huts of history's shame
Just like moons and like suns, I rise
With the certainty of tides, 3 Up from a past that's rooted in pain
Just like hopes springing high, I rise
Still I'll rise. I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Did you want to see me broken? Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
Bowed head and lowered eyes? I rise
Shoulders falling down like teardrops. 4 Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
Weakened by my soulful cries. I rise
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
Don't you take it awful hard
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard. 5 I rise
I rise
I rise.
 Final discussion
What similarities or differences do we see between
Angelou’s poem and ‘A Negro Speaks of Rivers’.
Consider:
- Style of imagery
- Use of language techniques
- Overall purpose
- Attitude towards the reader
- Narrative point of view
- Attitude towards the past/future