Activity 1: Pre-reading
Personal identities are central to the plot and character development in Looking for Alibrandi. The following activities will support student reading and analysis.
As preparation for reading the text lead students to explore the notion of individuals having multiple identities. Discuss how these may depend on context, time, place, and social and familial connections.
Ask students to reflect back on who they were and what was important to them when they were aged about five, which could be:
- a person/people or group
- a place
- an activity.
Students nominate a symbol or something of value to them at age five and consider what these meant to them in each of the following cases:
- amongst closest friends (e.g. at playgroup, in the cubby, playing games with cousins)
- at home with immediate and/or extended family (e.g. on the river, camping, sleepover at the grandparents’ house)
- within a special interest club or group (e.g. mini league footy, at the oval, cooking, first pair of ballet shoes)
- individually (e.g. me, in the living room, cutting , pasting and drawing, Hi5 DVD).
Share Step 2 symbols in groups with a focus on similarities and differences amongst individuals and what accounts for these. This might include such things as where you grew up, family heritage, religion and so on.
Students return to individual contemplation and repeat Step 2 for themselves according to their current age and identities.
- amongst closest friends (eg: in the bedroom, sleepovers, heading out for the day, mobile phone)
- at home with immediate and/or extended family (eg: Grandparents, church at Easter, feasting, dyeing Easter eggs)
- within a special interest club or group (eg: surf life saving club, preparing for a school dance, southern beaches, tennis club)
- individually (eg: shopping with friends, going to the gym, listening to music).
Return to small groups to share what has changed over the years.
Group discussion exploring how identities change over time in relation to friendships, family and culture and why this is so. Students to focus on similarities and differences within their class and how this adds to the complexity and richness of the environment.
Reading the text in print and eBook formats
In this unit, there is an acknowledgement of alternate pedagogies for those teachers and students who are using the ebook of Looking for Alibrandi. Though it is acknowledged that this may a rarity at this time in Australian schools, the rate of decline in print book sales and the increase in sales of eBooks indicates that change is inevitable. Already many school have adopted the use of tablets in middle years classrooms, including Year 9.
The following functions and features of eBooks may be particularly useful for this literary study or others. However, the activities designed for this unit can be also adjusted for those using print copies of Looking for Alibrandi.
For tips and advice for using eBook functions watch this video and see below.
While the authors used a text-only version of the eBook, it may be beneficial for all or some students to upgrade to the ‘text to speak’ function available via Kindle books. This is particularly important for those students who are challenged by the reading of extended print texts.
Students can use the highlighting function within the eBook to select key passages. They can be asked to use different colours for different categories. For example, students might use orange for perspectives on multiculturalism, and yellow for inter-generational tensions/harmony and so on. There is a function in the eBook that will collate all these notes in sequence, according to colour. Finally, students can choose to copy compiled notes to send via email, text to phone, or even to Facebook or Twitter.
In addition to notes, student might add notes to sentences or passages highlighted. These notes can be compiled, used and sent as per the highlighting function above.
Unlike hard copies where one is forced to scan for character or place names, or words or concepts, the search function will immediately collate any references with pages numbers for the key word (eg Michael, wog, St Martha’s, sex).
The authors of this unit are avid print readers but found the eBook readability a bonus – it was quicker to read, could be read in any light, and easy to bookmark and highlight on the go on an iPad or mobile phone. Text size and brightness are adjustable, and whenever the eBook is reopened, the reader is taken immediately to the last page read.
This allows readers to mark key pages, indicate shifts in narrative structure or simply identify a spot they need to return to later to reread. Alternatively, teachers might direct students to bookmark certain pages prior to reading to signal that this is a page demanding special consideration.
If X-ray is available, locate it within the home menu and then tap it to see all passages from the book that mention the idea, character, or topic you’re interested in. This is displayed as a timeline so that the intensity of reference of the idea, character or topic appears across the book. Please note that it is not yet available for all books but if it is available, it will appear in bold.
Other reader responses
Readers will notice that some lines and passages within eBooks are underlined with dots. These lines indicate that the dialogue or passage has been highlighted by many other readers, and provides the number of readers who have highlighted that section at any time since that text was purchased from that company.
As stated, many schools already have class sets of Looking for Alibrandi, so there is no imperative to swap over to an eBook version. However, if it is not already happening in all schools, teachers may begin to consider the cost and pedagogical advantages in using eBooks when extending reading lists for students.
Outline of key elements of the text (notes for teachers)
- The story of a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl on scholarship to a wealthy Catholic school.
- Family dynamics, friendships and identity all have an impact on how Josie, the central character, sees herself and how she navigates relationships.
- Ultimately this is the story of the emancipation of a girl as she reaches beyond childhood.
- Josie; Kristina, her mother; Michael, her father; Katia, her grandmother; her small group of female school friends; and two male friends, John and Jacob.
Some key themes
- Family secrets
- Inter-generational relationships
- Developing a sense of purpose and agency for self.
Activity 2: Narrative development
Students draw chapter timelines or line graphs representing the highs and lows of Josie’s relationships with her father, her grandmother and mother. Follow-up with how these relationships shift and change:
- How do these ups and downs represent the development of the narrative within the novel?
- What can the reader conclude about the value or strength of these relationships, as well as the pressures upon them?
- How might these relationships continue beyond the end of the novel’s narrative?
Activity 3: Adolescent lives in the 90s and now
As students work their way through the text, they highlight issues/language/dilemmas that might have been important twenty years ago, but are no longer so significant in most adolescent lives now. At the same time, students highlight what remains as important to young people. Finally, students address the following with reference to the novel:
- Reconsider the narrative development of a chapter if mobile phones or Facebook were part of the lives of characters.
- How is this text similar to, and different from, contemporary representations of adolescent life in Australia today?
The Writer’s Craft and Close Reading
Activity 4: Character development
Students work in groups and carry out eBook searches for a designated character (ensuring that all key characters are covered across groups). Students find adjectives and then the verbs, adverbs and physical features to build a word list profile of the character. Each group reports in class, or electronically, so that every student has a word list for every character. It is possible to send/save references for characters according to search criteria. Students then analyse characters in discussion and/or written activity.
Students search for all references to Sr Gregory and Sr Louise. They consider how these women are represented, with a focus on stereotyping. Students rewrite one passage or exchange of dialogue so that either of these characters is represented as a more liberal, empathetic teacher. Students may choose to base the new characters on those they have seen in films or from their own experiences of school.
(ACELA1561) (ACELY1739) (ACELT1633) (ACELY1742) (EN5-1A) (EN5-2A) (EN5-8D)
Activity 5: Close reading of chapter 19
- What aspects of Josie’s culture are made apparent here?
- How does the author contextualise the Italian experience in Australia during WWII?
- What are the tensions between Josie’s view of her future and Nona’s, and which language and images most effectively capture this?
- What clues are there in the text that Marcus Sanford might re-emerge later in the text as a character of significance?
Activity 6: Opening scene of the film of Looking for Alibrandi (5 minutes, 15 seconds)
Notice that the film opens with Chapter 19. Alert students to this fact before they consider the following questions in groups or as a whole class after viewing the scene:
- In what ways is the film a visual replica of the print text (Chapter 19) and what has been added or deleted?
- How is Josie constructed in the visual text, and how is this consistent with, or different from, the print text? How can you explain the differences?
- How effectively is Josie’s family’s culture communicated here? Consider music, location, dialogue, costumes, props.
- How has the film maker highlighted the tensions Josie feels between the culture of her family and the culture of her school friends?
- Originally Looking for Alibrandi had the working title The Emancipation of Alibrandi. What is it that Josie wants to be freed from and how does she imagine attaining that freedom?
Note: If teachers wish to deal with the issue of John’s suicide, it may be useful to consider it as a foil to the choices made by Josie, rather than as a focus within the text. As with all sensitive issues, teachers are advised to exercise caution and care in regard to their context and their students.
(ACELA1560) (ACELT1633) (ACELT1635) (ACELY1739) (ACELY1742) (ACELY1744) (EN5-1A) (EN5-2A) (EN5-7D) (EN5-8D)
Activity 7: Intertextuality and point of view
- Students work in groups to select other key scenes from the novel and explain how these are similar to or different from equivalent scenes in the movie.
- It may happen that students select a scene that has been excluded from the screen play. If this is the case they need to explain why they believe that decision was made and how the film may suffer or be improved by the exclusion of the scene.
- Direct students to a scene in the book, providing explicit teaching on point of view, and lead students into discussion on why the author may have chosen first person? How might the novel be interpreted differently if from the perspective of an omnipotent narrator (a narrator rather like god-figure who can be in all places at all times)? Or in first person according to Jacob or Nonna?
Students report back on their analysis for any or all of the above. This may happen electronically or in class depending on the needs of students and availability of time.
(ACELA1553) (ACELT1633) (ACELT1636) (ACELT1772) (ACELY1739) (ACELY1742) (ACELY1744) (ACELY1745) (EN5-1A) (EN5-2A) (EN5-4B) (EN5-6C) (EN5-8D)
THE FOLLOWING TWO ACTIVITIES USE TWO OF THE GENERAL CAPABILITIES AS THEIR STARTING POINT
Activity 8: Personal and social capability
Find an example within the novel of an occasion when Josie or another character took a personal stand. For example, in Chapter 2, when Jacob made his speech at the annual ‘Have a say day’ rally, or at the end of Chapter 29 when Josie discusses a possible name change. Consider how the author establishes the significance of the stand in reference to the use of images, sentence structure, language choice and narrative development.
Evaluate the behaviour of the focus character in Step 1 above, and the success or otherwise of the stand they take. What significance does this have for the individual and those around them?
Students share with a group, or the whole class, an example of a moment when they, or a public figure, took a stand on an issue. For example, in 2013 Adam Goodes took a stand on the issue of racism in the Australian Football League (AFL). In what way does a ‘stand’ signify self-conviction and maturity? How might taking a stand be misinformed, misunderstood or likely to backfire?(ACELA1552) (ACELA1557) (ACELA1561) (ACELT1636) (ACELY1742) (ACELY1744) (ACELY1745) (EN5-1A) (EN5-2A) (EN5-3B) (EN5-4B)
Activity 9: Intercultural understanding
In the novel, Josie begins to accept and value aspects of her cultural heritage. Students locate and share three pieces of dialogue from Josie as evidence of this. How does the dialogue represent alternate cultural perspectives or background?
Based on the analysis in Step 1 above, students articulate one example of someone in their community who openly celebrated or acknowledged their own cultural heritage. For example:
- a friend introduces the student to their appreciation of Bollywood movies
- a neighbour invites the student’s family over for dancing and partying on St. Patrick’s Day
- a classmate shares his/her experience of living in a refugee camp before settling in Australia
- a friend invites the student to his/her local indigenous dance troupe performance.
Based on a discussion of examples from Step 2, students discuss the challenges and benefits of a multicultural Australia, citing supporting evidence from Looking for Alibrandi.
(ACELA1552) (ACELA1557) (ACELA1561) (ACELT1635) (ACELT1636) (ACELY1742) (ACELY1744) (ACELY1745) (EN5-1A) (EN5-2A) (EN5-3B) (EN5-4B) (EN5-7D)
INTERTEXTUALITY: LOOKING FOR ALIBRANDI AND REDFERN NOW (ABC SERIES)
Australian literature features many texts focusing on multiculturalism and Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures. (See the Reading Australia 200 list (PDF, 215KB).
For the purposes of a Year 9 study, ‘Stand Up’ (Episode 4 from the ABC series, Redfern Now), has been selected as an accessible and pertinent text to match with Looking for Alibrandi. With this pairing of texts, students will examine similarities and differences within textual modes (print and TV) and issues of culture and heritage (Italian Australians and Indigenous Australians), and adolescence (male and female).
The choice of ‘Stand Up’ from Redfern Now enables close engagement with the cross-curriculum priority, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures. Activity 10 (below) resonates with an earlier activity where students examined the opening scene of the film, Looking for Alibrandi. As they did with that scene, students will examine how the opening scene of ‘Stand Up’ establishes the setting, the character and emergent themes.
Activity 10: Establishing character
Students view the opening scene of ‘Stand Up’. (Skip credits for this particular viewing and begin at one minute and five seconds and play that scene up until the end of the first assembly scene at five minutes and forty-two seconds).
As individuals or groups, students determine how much they have learned about each of the following in that opening scene:
- the central character Joel by way of visual cues in his bedroom, music, his mood preparing for school and his behaviour during the assembly
- Joel’s family and their relationships through visual cues and dialogue
- Joel’s school via visual cues and music
- first impressions of the principal and the teacher who speaks with Joel about the national anthem.
What aspects of the plot do you think have been foreshadowed in this opening scene?
Students share responses and provide evidence to support their opinions.
Students then watch the entire episode (fifty-five minutes) including the opening and closing credits. Before they do, alert them to the fact that this text examines multiculturalism from an alternative perspective. Students should look for connections, similarities and differences between the two texts in preparation for further comparative work on ‘Stand Up’ and Looking for Alibrandi.(ACELA1560) (ACELT1633) (ACELT1772) (ACELY1742) (ACELY1744) (ACELY1745) (EN5-1A) (EN5-2A) (EN5-6C) (EN5-8D)
RICH ASSESSMENT TASK 1 (RECEPTIVE)
Australian texts, universal themes
Students locate, within the novel, distinctly Australian language/images/contexts that might mean very little to an adolescent unfamiliar with Australia. Students make a list of these.
Students make note of key themes, character traits and contexts that they believe would feel familiar or relevant even to those who have never been to Australia or understand its language, history or culture. That is, students identify what is universal in this text, with direct reference to lines or passages from Looking for Alibrandi, or images or scenes from ‘Stand Up’.
Students use notes and discussion from Steps 1 and 2 (above) and describe how the two texts, Looking for Alibrandi and ‘Stand Up’ are distinctly Australian. Task: Students highlight what aspects of the texts are more universal in theme, language and imagery (300 words total).
Using their reading of the novel, students discuss how Marchetta represents her views on multiculturalism in Australia.
How is the author’s perspective in Looking for Alibrandi similar to, or different from, the perspective of the creators of ‘Stand Up’?
(ACELY1745) (ACELA1551) (ACELA1561) (ACELT1633) (ACELT1635) (ACELY1739) (ACELY1742) (ACELY1744) (ACELY1745) (EN5-1A) (EN5-2A) (EN5-5C) (EN5-7D) (EN5-8D)
Download the rich assessment task 1 rubric (PDF, 121KB)
RICH ASSESSMENT TASK 2 (PRODUCTIVE)
An infographic: Looking for Alibrandi
In this task, students are challenged to represent their understanding of Looking for Alibrandi by creating an infographic.
Infographics are visual representations of information, knowledge or data using symbols, images, charts and simple short text or captions. This allows complex information to be communicated quickly and easily. The design of an infographic is a creative and challenging process that draws on many elements of visual design, and demands a solid grasp of the key data, themes and connections between ideas within the text and beyond.
Piktochart is recommended as one of several free apps/software available on-line, though educators can sign up for a reasonable fee to access a greater number of templates. It includes a simple step-by-step tutorial so that novices can quickly master the art of constructing an infographic.
As an illustration of the potential of this task (and text type) consider some of the excellent examples by following this link: infographics produced in response to literature. These demonstrate the high level demands made in the conceptual work of conveying interpretation and understanding of literature, and also suggest that accurate, intelligent infographics produced by students can become every effective classroom/school/library resources.
Note: Teachers who are unfamiliar with infographics should take the time to experiment with the creation of an infographic. If not feasible, they are advised to skip this task. Not only will the description below seem confusing, but it is also very difficult to support or assess students without understanding first-hand the challenges and ease with which an infographic can be created.
Students construct an infographic demonstrating their understanding of Looking for Alibrandi, in relation to both the text and its context. Student infographics must include each of the following elements (in addition to some choices they will make below).
- Reference details: name of book, publication date, publisher, access to text (print, eBook, audio-book)
- Contextual details: where the book is set and in what time period
- Author bio: some facts about Melina Marchetta
- An aspect of narrative development: for example, students could create a timeline to represent how the motivation of the protagonist changes over time
- Characterisation: eg a chart comparing character traits including a key quote for each character
- A graphic representing at least three key themes
Optional elements (choose two of the following)
- Character frequency: students search for various character names using the eBook search or X-ray functions to gather data on character appearances in the text. Students convert the data into graphics. Students comment on what the graphic conveys about the characters
- A personal element of interest: eg students search for reviews on Goodreads and represent the numbers of people who like/don’t like Looking for Alibrandi. And/or students show how things have changed in Australia since 1992 (eg via technologies or new waves of immigration)
- A representation of Marchetta’s other literary works
- A graphic indication of her key literary awards
- Information about the movie version: eg actors, budget, profit, awards, release date etc
Download the rich assessment task 2 rubric (PDF, 114KB)


Societal collapse is the fall of a complex human society. Such a disintegration may be relatively abrupt, as in the case of Maya civilization, or gradual, as in the case of the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Causes of collapseEdit
Common factors that may contribute to societal collapse are economical, environmental, social and cultural, and disruptions in one domain sometimes cascade into others. In some cases a natural disaster (e.g. tsunami, earthquake, massive fire or climate change) may precipitate a collapse. Other factors such as a Malthusian catastrophe, overpopulation or resource depletion might be the proximate cause of collapse. Significant inequity may combine with lack of loyalty to established political institutions and result in an oppressed lower class rising up and seizing power from a smaller wealthy elite in a revolution. The diversity of forms that societies evolve corresponds to diversity in their failures. Jared Diamond suggests that societies have also collapsed through deforestation, loss of soil fertility, restrictions of trade and/or rising endemic violence.
The decline of the Roman Empire is one of the events traditionally marking the end of Classical Antiquity and the beginning of the European Middle Ages. Throughout the 5th century, the Empire's territories in western Europe and northwestern Africa, including Italy, fell to various invading or indigenous peoples in what is sometimes called the Barbarian invasions, although the eastern half still survived with borders essentially intact for another two centuries (until the Arab expansion). This view of the collapse of the Roman Empire is challenged, however, by modern historians who see Rome as merely transforming from the Western Empire into barbarian kingdoms as the Western Emperors delegated themselves out of existence, and the East transforming into the Byzantine Empire, which only fell in 1453 AD.
North Africa's populous and flourishing civilization collapsed after exhausting its resources in internal fighting and suffering devastation from the invasion of the Bedouin tribes of Banu Sulaym and Banu Hilal. Ibn Khaldun noted that the lands ravaged by Banu Hilal invaders had become completely arid desert.
In the brutal pillaging that followed Mongol invasions, the invaders decimated the populations of China, Russia, the Middle East, and Islamic Central Asia. Later Mongol leaders, such as Timur, destroyed many cities, slaughtered thousands of people and did irreparable damage to the ancient irrigation systems of Mesopotamia. These invasions transformed a settled society to a nomadic one.
In addition to the disruption from direct human action by invaders, encounters between European explorers and populations in the rest of the world often introduced local epidemics of extraordinary virulence. Smallpox ravaged Mexico in the 1520s, killing 150,000 in Tenochtitlán alone, including the emperor, and Peru in the 1530s, aiding the European conquerors. Some believe that the death of up to 95% of the Native American population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases although new research suggests tuberculosis from seals and sea lions played a significant part. Goods or people infected with the smallpox virus were included in the ship inventories of the Australian first settlement, and a smallpox epidemic spread across the continent 3 years after European settlement.
In our time all Greece was visited by a dearth of children and generally a decay of population, owing to which the cities were denuded of inhabitants, and a failure of productiveness resulted, though there were no long-continued wars or serious pestilences among us…. For this evil grew upon us rapidly, and without attracting attention, by our men becoming perverted to a passion for show and money and the pleasures of an idle life, and accordingly either not marrying at all, or, if they did marry, refusing to rear the children that were born, or at most one or two out of a great number, for the sake of leaving them well off or bringing them up in extravagant luxury.
How otherwise shall families continue? How can the commonwealth be preserved if we neither marry nor produce children? Surely you are not expecting some to spring up from the earth to succeed to your goods and to public affairs, as myths describe. It is neither pleasing to Heaven nor creditable that our race should cease and the name of Romans meet extinguishment in us, and the city be given up to foreigners,—Greek or even barbarians. We liberate slaves chiefly for the purpose of making out of them as many citizens as possible; we give our allies a share in the government that our numbers may increase: yet you, Romans of the original stock, including Quintii, Valerii, Iulli, are eager that your families and names at once shall perish with you.
Changes occurring with collapseEdit
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There are three main types of collapse:
Reversion/Simplification: A society's adaptive capacity may be reduced by either a rapid change in population or societal complexity, destabilizing its institutions and causing massive shifts in population and other social dynamics. In cases of collapse, civilizations tend to revert to less complex, less centralized socio-political forms using simpler technology. These are characteristics of a Dark Age. Examples of such societal collapse are: the Hittite Empire, the Mycenaean civilization, the Western Roman Empire, the Mauryan and Gupta Empires in India, the Mayas, the Angkor in Cambodia, the Han and Tang dynasties in China and the Mali Empire.
Incorporation/Absorption: Alternately, a society may be gradually incorporated into a more dynamic, more complex inter-regional social structure. This happened in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Levantine cultures, the Mughal and Delhi Sultanates in India, Song China, the Aztec culture in Mesoamerica, the Inca culture in South America, and the modern civilizations of China, Japan, and India, as well as many modern states in the Middle East and Africa.
Obliteration: Vast numbers of people in the society die, or the birth rate plunges to a level that causes a dramatic depopulation.
Other changes that may accompany a collapse:
- Destratification: Complex societies stratified on the basis of class, gender, race or some other salient factor become much more homogeneous or horizontally structured. In many cases past social stratification slowly becomes irrelevant following collapse and societies become more egalitarian.
- Despecialization: One of the most characteristic features of complex civilizations (and in many cases the yardstick to measure complexity) is a high level of job specialization. The most complex societies are characterized by artisans and tradespeople who specialize intensely in a given task. Indeed, the rulers of many past societies were hyper-specialized priests or priestesses who were completely supported by the work of the lower classes. During societal collapse, the social institutions supporting such specialization are removed and people tend to become more generalized in their work and daily habits.
- Decentralization: As power becomes decentralized, people tend to be more self-regimented and have many more personal freedoms. In many instances of collapse, there is a slackening of social rules and etiquette. Geographically speaking, communities become more parochial or isolated. For example, following the collapse of the Maya civilization, many Maya returned to their traditional hamlets, moving away from the large cities that had dominated the political landscape.
- Destructuralization: Institutions, processes, and artifacts are all manifest in the archaeological record in abundance in large civilizations. After collapse, evidence of epiphenomena, institutions, and types of artifacts change dramatically as people are forced to adopt more self-sufficient lifestyles.
- Depopulation: Societal collapse is almost always associated with a population decline. In extreme cases, the collapse in population is so severe that the society disappears entirely, such as happened with the Greenland Vikings, or a number of Polynesian islands. In less extreme cases, populations are reduced until a demographic balance is re-established between human societies and the depleted natural environment. A classic example is the city of Rome, which had a population of about 1.5 million at the peak of the Roman Empire during the reign of Trajan in the early 2nd century AD, but in the Early Middle Ages the population had declined to only around 15,000 inhabitants by the 9th century.
Several key features of human societal collapse can be related to population dynamics. For example, the native population of Cusco, Peru at the time of the Spanish conquest was stressed by an imbalance in the sex ratio between men and women.
The complete breakdown of economic, cultural and social institutions with ecological relationships is perhaps the most common feature of collapse. In his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond proposes five interconnected causes of collapse that may reinforce each other: non-sustainable exploitation of resources, climate changes, diminishing support from friendly societies, hostile neighbors, and inappropriate attitudes for change.
Joseph Tainter theorizes that collapsed societies essentially exhausted their own designs, and were unable to adapt to natural diminishing returns for what they knew as their method of survival. It matches closely Arnold J. Toynbee's idea that "they find problems they can't solve".
Modern social critics commonly interpret things like sedentary social behavior as symptomatic of societal decay, and link what appears to be laziness with the depletion of important non-renewable resources. However, many primitive cultures also have high degrees of leisure, so if that is a cause in one place it may not be in another—leisure or apparent laziness is then not a sufficient cause.
What produces modern sedentary life, unlike nomadic hunter-gatherers, is extraordinary modern economic productivity. Tainter argues that exceptional productivity is actually more the sign of hidden weakness, both because of a society's dependence on it, and its potential to undermine its own basis for success by not being self limiting as demonstrated in Western culture's ideal of perpetual growth.
As a population grows and technology makes it easier to exploit depleting resources, the environment's diminishing returns are hidden from view. Societal complexity is then potentially threatened if it develops beyond what is actually sustainable, and a disorderly reorganization were to follow. The scissors model of Malthusian collapse, where the population grows without limit and resources do not, is the idea of great opposing environmental forces cutting into each other.
For the modern world economy, for example, the growing conflict between food and fuel, depending on many of the same finite and diminishing resources, is visible in recent major commodity price shocks. It is one of the key relationships researchers, since the early studies of the Club of Rome, have been most concerned with.
Population pressure and mineral resource exhaustionEdit
Romanian American economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, a progenitor in economics and the paradigm founder of ecological economics, has argued that the carrying capacity of Earth—that is, Earth's capacity to sustain human populations and consumption levels—is bound to decrease sometime in the future as Earth's finite stock of mineral resources is presently being extracted and put to use; and consequently, that the world economy as a whole is heading towards an inevitable future collapse, leading to the demise of human civilisation itself.
Georgescu-Roegen is basing his pessimistic prediction on the two following considerations:
- According to his ecological view of 'entropy pessimism', matter and energy is neither created nor destroyed in man's economy, only transformed from states available for human purposes (valuable natural resources) to states unavailable for human purposes (valueless waste and pollution). In effect, all of man's technologies and activities are only speeding up the general march against a future planetary 'heat death' of degraded energy, exhausted natural resources and a deteriorated environment—a state of maximum entropy on Earth.
- According to his social theory of 'bioeconomics', humanity's economic struggle to work and earn a livelihood is largely a continuation and extension of the biological struggle to sustain life and survive. This struggle manifests itself as a permanent social conflict that can be eliminated neither by man's decision to do so nor by the social evolution of mankind. Consequently, we are biologically unable to restrain ourselves collectively on a permanent and voluntary basis for the benefit of unknown future generations; the pressure of population on Earth's resources will nothing but increase.
Taken together, the Industrial Revolution in Britain in the second half of the 18th century has unintentionally thrust man's economy into a long, never-to-return overshoot-and-collapse trajectory with regard to the Earth's mineral stock. The world economy will continue growing until its inevitable and final collapse in the future. From that point on, Georgescu-Roegen conjectures, ever deepening scarcities will aggravate social conflict throughout the globe and ultimately spell the end of mankind itself.
Georgescu-Roegen was the paradigm founder of ecological economics and is also considered the main intellectual figure influencing the degrowth movement. Consequently, much work in these fields is devoted to discussing the existential impossibility of allocating earth's finite stock of mineral resources evenly among an unknown number of present and future generations. This number of generations is likely to remain unknown to us, as there is no way—or only little way—of knowing in advance if or when mankind will ultimately face extinction. In effect, any conceivable intertemporal allocation of the finite stock will inevitably end up with universal economic decline at some future point.:253–256:165:168–171:150–153:106–109:546–549:142–145
Theories of energy return on energy investedEdit
A related economic model is proposed by Thomas Homer-Dixon and by Charles Hall in relation to our declining productivity of energy extraction, or energy return on energy invested (EROEI). This measures the amount of surplus energy a society gets from using energy to obtain energy.
There would be no surplus if EROEI approaches 1:1. What Hall showed is that the real cutoff is well above that, estimated to be 3:1 to sustain the essential overhead energy costs of a modern society. Part of the mental equation is that the EROEI of our generally preferred energy source, petroleum, has fallen in the past century from 100:1 to the range of 10:1 with clear evidence that the natural depletion curves all are downward decay curves. An EROEI of more than ~3, then, is what appears necessary to provide the energy for societally important tasks, such as maintaining government, legal and financial institutions, a transportation infrastructure, manufacturing, building construction and maintenance and the life styles of the rich and poor that a society depends on.
The EROEI figure also affects the number of people needed for sustainable food production. In the pre-modern world, it was often the case that 80% of the population was employed in agriculture to feed a population of 100%, with a low energy budget. In modern times, the use of cheap fossil fuels with an exceedingly high EROEI enabled 100% of the population to be fed with only 4% of the population employed in agriculture. Diminishing EROEI making fuel more expensive relative to other things may require food to be produced using less energy, and so increases the number of people employed in food production again.
Energy scenarios of Bryn DavidsonEdit
|Rapid depletion (early peak oil)||Slow depletion (late peak oil)|
|Proactive response (government, society, technology and markets)||Lean economy (energy descent)||"Techno-markets" (sustainable development)|
|Reactive response (government, society, technology and markets)||Collapse (such as Easter Island and the Soviet Union)||Burnout (business as usual and climate chaos)|
Models of societal responseEdit
- The Dinosaur, a large-scale society in which resources are being depleted at an exponential rate and yet nothing is done to rectify the problem because the ruling elite are unwilling or unable to adapt to those resources' reduced availability: In this type of society, rulers tend to oppose any solutions that diverge from their present course of action. They will favor intensification and commit an increasing number of resources to their present plans, projects, and social institutions.
- The Runaway Train, a society whose continuing function depends on constant growth (cf. Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis): This type of society, based almost exclusively on acquisition (e.g., pillage or exploitation), cannot be sustained indefinitely. The Assyrian, Roman and Mongol Empires, for example, both fractured and collapsed when no new conquests could be achieved.
- Tainter argues that capitalism can be seen as an example of the Runaway Train model, in that generally accepted accounting practices require publicly traded companies, along with many privately held ones, to exhibit growth as measured at some fixed interval (often three months). Moreover, the ethos of consumerism on the demand side and the practice of planned obsolescence on the supply side encourage the purchase of an ever-increasing number of goods and services even when resource extraction and food production are unsustainable if continued at current levels.
- The House of Cards, a society that has grown to be so large and include so many complex social institutions that it is inherently unstable and prone to collapse. This type of society has been seen with particular frequency among Eastern bloc and other communist nations, in which all social organizations are arms of the government or ruling party, such that the government must either stifle association wholesale (encouraging dissent and subversion) or exercise less authority than it asserts (undermining its legitimacy in the public eye).
- By contrast, as Alexis de Tocqueville observed, when voluntary and private associations are allowed to flourish and gain legitimacy at an institutional level, they complement and often even supplant governmental functions: They provide a "safety valve" for dissent, assist with resource allocation, provide for social experimentation without the need for governmental coercion, and enable the public to maintain confidence in society as a whole, even during periods of governmental weakness.
Tainter argues that these models, though superficially useful, cannot severally or jointly account for all instances of societal collapse. Often they are seen as interconnected occurrences that reinforce each other.
For example, the failure of Easter Island's leaders to remedy rapid ecological deterioration cannot be understood without reference to the other models above. The islanders, who erected large statues called moai as a form of religious reverence to their ancestors, used felled trees as rollers to transport them. Because the islanders firmly believed that their displays of reverence would lead to increased future prosperity, they had a deeply entrenched incentive to intensify moai production. Because Easter Island's geographic isolation made its resources hard to replenish and made the balance of its overall ecosystem very delicate ("House of Cards"), deforestation led to soil erosion and insufficient resources to build boats for fishing or tools for hunting. Competition for dwindling resources resulted in warfare and many casualties (an additional "Runaway Train" iteration). Together these events led to the collapse of the civilization, but no single factor above provides an adequate account.
Mainstream interpretations of the history of Easter Island also include the slave raiders who abducted a large proportion of the population and epidemics that killed most of the survivors. Again, no single point explains the collapse; only a complex and integrated view can do so.
Tainter's position is that social complexity is a recent and comparatively anomalous occurrence requiring constant support. He asserts that collapse is best understood by grasping four axioms. In his own words (p. 194):
- human societies are problem-solving organizations;
- sociopolitical systems require energy for their maintenance;
- increased complexity carries with it increased costs per capita; and
- investment in sociopolitical complexity as a problem-solving response reaches a point of declining marginal returns.
With these facts in mind, collapse can simply be understood as a loss of the energy needed to maintain social complexity. Collapse is thus the sudden loss of social complexity, stratification, internal and external communication and exchange, and productivity.
Toynbee’s theory of decayEdit
The British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, in his 12-volume magnum opus A Study of History (1961), theorized that all civilizations pass through several distinct stages: genesis, growth, time of troubles, universal state, and disintegration. (Carroll Quigley would expand on and refine this theory in his "The Evolution of Civilizations".)
Toynbee argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or attacks from outside. Rather, societies that develop great expertise in problem solving become incapable of solving new problems by overdeveloping their structures for solving old ones.
The fixation on the old methods of the "Creative Minority" leads it to eventually cease to be creative and degenerates into merely a "dominant minority" (that forces the majority to obey without meriting obedience), failing to recognize new ways of thinking. He argues that creative minorities deteriorate due to a worship of their "former self", by which they become prideful, and fail to adequately address the next challenge they face.
He argues that the ultimate sign a civilization has broken down is when the dominant minority forms a Universal State, which stifles political creativity. He states:
First the Dominant Minority attempts to hold by force - against all right and reason - a position of inherited privilege which it has ceased to merit; and then the Proletariat repays injustice with resentment, fear with hate, and violence with violence when it executes its acts of secession. Yet the whole movement ends in positive acts of creation - and this on the part of all the actors in the tragedy of disintegration. The Dominant Minority creates a universal state, the Internal Proletariat a universal church, and the External Proletariat a bevy of barbarian war-bands.
He argues that, as civilizations decay, they form an "Internal Proletariat" and an "External Proletariat." The Internal proletariat is held in subjugation by the dominant minority inside the civilization, and grows bitter; the external proletariat exists outside the civilization in poverty and chaos, and grows envious. He argues that as civilizations decay, there is a "schism in the body social", whereby abandon and self-control together replace creativity, and truancy and martyrdom together replace discipleship by the creative minority.
He argues that in this environment, people resort to archaism (idealization of the past), futurism (idealization of the future), detachment (removal of oneself from the realities of a decaying world), and transcendence (meeting the challenges of the decaying civilization with new insight, as a Prophet). He argues that those who transcend during a period of social decay give birth to a new Church with new and stronger spiritual insights, around which a subsequent civilization may begin to form after the old has died.
Toynbee's use of the word 'church' refers to the collective spiritual bond of a common worship, or the same unity found in some kind of social order.
The great irony expressed by these and others like them is that civilizations that seem ideally designed to creatively solve problems, find themselves doing so self-destructively.
Researchers, as yet, have very little ability to identify internal structures of large distributed systems like human societies, which is an important scientific problem. Genuine structural collapse seems, in many cases, the only plausible explanation supporting the idea that such structures exist. However, until they can be concretely identified, scientific inquiry appears limited to the construction of scientific narratives, using systems thinking for careful storytelling about systemic organization and change.
History includes many examples of the appearance and disappearance of human societies with no obvious explanation. The abrupt dissolution of the Soviet Union in the course of a few months, without any external attack, according to Johan Galtung was due to growing structural contradictions brought on by geopolitical overreach, which could not be resolved within the existing socio-political systems.
Although a societal collapse is generally an endpoint for the administration of a culture's social and economic life, societal collapse can also be seen as simply a change of administration within the same culture. Russian culture would seem to have outlived both the society of Imperial Russia and the society of the Soviet Union, for example. Frequently the societal collapse phenomenon is also a process of decentralization of authority after a 'classic' period of centralized social order, perhaps replaced by competing centers as the central authority weakens. Societal failure may also result in a degree of empowerment for the lower levels of a former climax society, who escape from the burden of onerous taxes and control by exploitative elites. For example, the black plague contributed to breaking the hold of European feudal society on its underclass in the 15th century.
Examples of civilizations and societies that have collapsedEdit
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By reversion or simplificationEdit
- Akkadian Empire
- Hittite Empire
- Mycenaean Greece
- The Neo-Assyrian Empire
- Indus Valley Civilization
- Angkor civilization of the Khmer Empire
- Han and Tang Dynasty of China
- Anasazi (disputed)
- Western Roman Empire
- Maya, Classic Maya collapse
- Munhumutapa Empire
- Maurya Empire
- Gupta Empire
- Sumer by the Akkadian Empire
- Ancient Egypt by the Libyans, Nubians, Assyria, Babylonia, Persian rule, Greece, Ptolemaic Dynasty, and the Roman Empire
- Babylonia by the Hittites
- Etruscans by the Roman Republic
- Ancient Levant
- Classical Greece by the Roman Empire
- Khazar Khaganate by the Eastern Slavs of the Kievan Rus'
- Dacians by the Roman Empire
- Eastern Roman Empire (Medieval Greek) of the Byzantines by the Arabs and Ottoman Empire
- Extinction of Khitan, Jurchen, Tangut and Nanzhao cultures by Mongol Empire
- Champa civilization
- Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, ending with the Meiji Restoration
- Aztecs by the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire
- Incas by the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire
By extinction or evacuationEdit
Malthusian and environmental collapse themes
Cultural and institutional collapse themes:
- Pasha-Robinson, Lucy (7 January 2017). "'Society could end in less than a decade,' predicts academic". The Independent. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
- Diamond, Jared "Collapse: Why some societies succeed and others fail"
- The Great Mosque of Tlemcen, MuslimHeritage.com
- Populations Crises and Population Cycles Archived 2013-05-27 at the Wayback Machine, Claire Russell and W.M.S. Russell
- Ibn Battuta's Trip: Part Three - Persia and Iraq (1326 - 1327) Archived 2008-04-23 at the Wayback Machine
- Smallpox: Eradicating the Scourge
- The Story Of... Smallpox – and other Deadly Eurasian Germs
- Bos, Kirsten I.; Harkins, Kelly M.; Herbig, Alexander; Coscolla, Mireia; Weber, Nico; Comas, Iñaki; Forrest, Stephen A.; Bryant, Josephine M.; Harris, Simon R. (2014-10-23). "Pre-Columbian mycobacterial genomes reveal seals as a source of New World human tuberculosis". Nature. 514 (7523): 494–497. doi:10.1038/nature13591. ISSN 0028-0836. PMC 4550673. PMID 25141181.
- "Polybius, Histories, book 37, Depopulation of Greece". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 2016-02-18.
- Polybius (2012). The Histories of Polybius: Translated from the Text of F. Hultsch. Cambridge University Press. p. 510. ISBN 978-1-1080-5079-1. Retrieved November 2, 2013.
- "Projekt Gutenberg". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 2016-02-18.
- Dio, Cassius (2004). Dio's Rome. 4. Kessinger Publishing. p. 86. ISBN 978-1-4191-1611-7. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
- "Ancient Rome: Administration of Rome and Italy". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved January 17, 2015.
- Population crises and cycles in history Archived 2011-04-05 at the Wayback Machine, A review of the book Population Crises and Population cycles by Claire Russell and W M S Russell.
- Dynamics of Indigenous Demographic Fluctuations: Lessons from Sixteenth-Century Cusco, Peru R. Alan Covey, Geoff Childs, Rebecca Kippen Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 52, No. 3 (June 2011), pp. 335-360: The University of Chicago Press
- Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Penguin Books, 2005 and 2011 (ISBN 9780241958681).
- Jared Diamond on why societies collapse TED talk, Feb 2003
- Tainter, Joseph A. (1990). The Collapse of Complex Societies (1st paperback ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-38673-9.
- Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas (1971). The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (Full book accessible at Scribd). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674257801.
- Rifkin, Jeremy (1980). Entropy: A New World View (PDF). New York: The Viking Press. ISBN 978-0670297177. Archived from the original (PDF contains only the title and contents pages of the book) on 2016-10-18.
- Boulding, Kenneth E. (1981). Evolutionary Economics. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications. ISBN 978-0803916487.
- Martínez-Alier, Juan (1987). Ecological Economics: Energy, Environment and Society. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 978-0631171461.
- Gowdy, John M.; Mesner, Susan (1998). "The Evolution of Georgescu-Roegen's Bioeconomics" (PDF). Review of Social Economy. 56 (2): 136–156. doi:10.1080/00346769800000016.
- Schmitz, John E.J. (2007). The Second Law of Life: Energy, Technology, and the Future of Earth As We Know It (Author's science blog, based on his textbook). Norwich: William Andrew Publishing. ISBN 978-0815515371.
- Kerschner, Christian (2010). "Economic de-growth vs. steady-state economy" (PDF). Journal of Cleaner Production. 18 (6): 544–551. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2009.10.019.
Perez-Carmona, Alexander (2013). "Growth: A Discussion of the Margins of Economic and Ecological Thought". In Meuleman, Louis, ed. (ed.). Transgovernance. Advancing Sustainability Governance (Article accessible at SlideShare)
|url=(help). Heidelberg: Springer. pp. 83–161. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-28009-2_3. ISBN 9783642280085.CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list (link)
- Daly, Herman E. (2015). "Economics for a Full World". Great Transition Initiative. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
- Homer-Dixon, Thomas (2007), "The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization" (Knopf, Canada)
- Hall, Charles 2009 "What is the Minimum EROI that a Sustainable Society Must Have" ENERGIES
- Rob Hopkins, The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008 (ISBN 978-1603583923). See part 1, chapter 2, figure 9.
- Tainter, Joseph (1990), The Collapse of Complex Societies (Cambridge University Press) pp. 59-60.
- The Evolution of Civilizations
- T.F. Allen, J.A. Tainter et al. 2001 Dragnet Ecology: The Privilege of Science in a Postmodern World. BioScience
- Clayton (1994) p. 217
- Diamond, Jared M. (2005). Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Viking Books. ISBN 978-0-14-303655-5.
- Ehrlich, Paul R.; Ehrlich, Anne H. (9 January 2013). "Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 280 (1754): 20122845. doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.2845. PMC 3574335. PMID 23303549. Comment by Prof. Michael Kelly, disagreeing with the paper by Ehrlich and Ehrlich; and response by the authors
- Grandin, Greg, "The Death Cult of Trumpism: In his appeals to a racist and nationalist chauvinism, Trump leverages tribal resentment against an emerging manifest common destiny", The Nation, 29 Jan./5 Feb. 2018, pp. 20–22. "[T]he ongoing effects of the ruinous 2003 war in Iraq and the 2007–8 financial meltdown are... two indicators that the promise of endless growth can no longer help organize people's aspirations... We are entering the second 'lost decade' of what Larry Summers calls 'secular stagnation,' and soon we'll be in the third decade of a war that Senator Lindsey Graham... says will never end. [T]here is a realization that the world is fragile and that we are trapped in an economic system that is well past sustainable or justifiable.... In a nation like the United States, founded on a mythical belief in a kind of species immunity—less an American exceptionalism than exemptionism, an insistence that the nation was exempt from nature, society, history, even death—the realization that it can't go on forever is traumatic." (p. 21.)
- Homer-Dixon, Thomas. (2006). The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization. Washington DC: Island Press.
- Huesemann, Michael H., and Joyce A. Huesemann (2011). Technofix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment, Chapter 6, “Sustainability or Collapse”, New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada, ISBN 0865717044, 464 pp.
- Meadows, Donella H. (1972). ‘’’Limits to Growth’’, Signet.
- Meadows et al. (2004), "Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update”.
- Motesharrei, Safa; Rivas, Jorge; Kalnay, Eugenia (2014). "Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modeling inequality and use of resources in the collapse or sustainability of societies". Ecological Economics. 101: 90–102. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.02.014.
- Tainter, Joseph A. (1990). The Collapse of Complex Societies (1st paperback ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-38673-9.
- Toynbee, Arnold J. (1934–1961). A Study of History, Volumes I-XII. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Wright, Ronald. (2004). A Short History of Progress. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 0-7867-1547-2.
- Weiss, Volkmar. (2012). Die Intelligenz und ihre Feinde: Aufstieg und Niedergang der Industriegesellschaft (Intelligence and its Enemies: The Rise and Decline of Industrial Society). Graz: Ares 2012. ISBN 978-3-902732-01-9.
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Colorado Standards 7th Grade ELA Activities
Printable Seventh Grade English Language Arts Worksheets and Study Guides.
American Symbols & HolidaysMemorial Day Write the word Kindergarten English Language Arts Simple Sentences Kindergarten English Language Arts Word Study Kindergarten English Language Arts Write the word Kindergarten English Language Arts Capital Letters Kindergarten English Language Arts Same & Different Sounds Kindergarten English Language Arts Capitalization Worksheets: 4Study Guides: 1Kinds of Sentences Worksheets: 4Study Guides: 1Letter Writing Worksheets: 4Study Guides: 1Nouns Worksheets: 4Study Guides: 1Pronouns Worksheets: 4Study Guides: 1Study Skills Worksheets: 3Study Guides: 1Subject and Verb Agreement Worksheets: 4Study Guides: 1Verbs Worksheets: 3Study Guides: 1VerbsWorksheets: 3
CO.7.1. Oral Expression and Listening
7.1.1. Formal presentations require preparation and effective delivery. Students can:
7.1.1.a. Present claims and findings, emphasizing salient points in a focused, coherent manner with pertinent descriptions, facts, details, and examples; use appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation. (CCSS: SL.7.4)
7.1.1.c. Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate. (CCSS: SL.7.6)
7.1.1.d. Prepare for audience and purpose by ensuring proper length of presentation, suitable mode of dress, appropriate topic, and engaging content.
7.1.2. Small and large group discussions rely on active listening and the effective contributions of all participants. Students can:
7.1.2.a. Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 7 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly. (CCSS: SL.7.1)
7.1.2.a.i. Come to discussions prepared, having read or researched material under study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence on the topic, text, or issue to probe and reflect on ideas under discussion. (CCSS: SL.7.1a)
7.1.2.a.ii. Follow rules for collegial discussions, track progress toward specific goals and deadlines, and define individual roles as needed. (CCSS: SL.7.1b)
7.1.2.a.iii. Pose questions that elicit elaboration and respond to others’ questions and comments with relevant observations and ideas that bring the discussion back on topic as needed. (CCSS: SL.7.1c)
7.1.2.a.iv. Acknowledge new information expressed by others and, when warranted, modify their own views. (CCSS: SL.7.1d)
7.1.2.b. Analyze the main ideas and supporting details presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and explain how the ideas clarify a topic, text, or issue under study. (CCSS: SL.7.2)
CO.7.2. Reading for All Purposes
7.2.1. Literary elements, characteristics, and ideas are interrelated and guide the comprehension of literary and fictional texts. Students can:
7.2.1.a. Use Key Ideas and Details to:
7.2.1.a.i. Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. (CCSS: RL.7.1)
7.2.1.a.ii. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text. (CCSS: RL.7.2)
7.2.1.a.iii. Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot). (CCSS: RL.7.3)
7.2.1.a.iv. Recognize the influence of setting on other narrative elements.
7.2.1.b. Use Craft and Structure to:
7.2.1.b.i. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of rhymes and other repetitions of sounds (e.g., alliteration) on a specific verse or stanza of a poem or section of a story or drama. (CCSS: RL.7.4)
7.2.1.b.ii. Analyze how a drama’s or poem’s form or structure (e.g., soliloquy, sonnet) contributes to its meaning. (CCSS: RL.7.5)
7.2.1.b.iii. Analyze how an author develops and contrasts the points of view of different characters or narrators in a text. (CCSS: RL.7.6)
7.2.1.c. Use Integration of Knowledge and Ideas to:
7.2.1.c.ii. Compare and contrast a fictional portrayal of a time, place, or character and a historical account of the same period as a means of understanding how authors of fiction use or alter history. (CCSS: RL.7.9)
7.2.1.d. Use Range of Reading and Complexity of Text to:
7.2.1.d.i. By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 6–8 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. (CCSS: RL.7.10)
7.2.2. Informational and persuasive texts are summarized and evaluated. Students can:
7.2.2.a. Use Key Ideas and Details to:
7.2.2.a.i. Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. (CCSS: RI.7.1)
7.2.2.a.ii. Determine two or more central ideas in a text and analyze their development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text. (CCSS: RI.7.2)
7.2.2.a.iii. Analyze the interactions between individuals, events, and ideas in a text (e.g., how ideas influence individuals or events, or how individuals influence ideas or events). (CCSS: RI.7.3)
7.2.2.b. Use Craft and Structure to:
7.2.2.b.i. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the impact of a specific word choice on meaning and tone. (CCSS: RI.7.4)
7.2.2.b.ii. Analyze the structure an author uses to organize a text, including how the major sections contribute to the whole and to the development of the ideas. (CCSS: RI.7.5)
7.2.2.b.iii. Interpret a variety of graphical representations and connect them to information in the text.
7.2.2.b.iv. Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how the author distinguishes his or her position from that of others. (CCSS: RI.7.6)
7.2.2.c. Use Integration of Knowledge and Ideas to:
7.2.2.c.ii. Trace and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient to support the claims. (CCSS: RI.7.8)
7.2.2.c.iii. Analyze how two or more authors writing about the same topic shape their presentations of key information by emphasizing different evidence or advancing different interpretations of facts. (CCSS: RI.7.9)
7.2.2.c.iv. Organize and synthesize information from multiple sources, determining the relevance of information.
7.2.3. Purpose, tone, and meaning in word choices influence literary, persuasive, and informational texts. Students can:
7.2.3.a. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 7 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies. (CCSS: L.7.4)
7.2.3.a.i. Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence or paragraph; a word’s position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase. (CCSS: L.7.4a)
7.2.3.a.ii. Use the tone of a passage to determine an approximate meaning of a word.
7.2.3.a.iii. Use common, grade-appropriate Greek or Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., belligerent, bellicose, rebel). (CCSS: L.7.4b)
7.2.3.a.iv. Consult general and specialized reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning or its part of speech. (CCSS: L.7.4c)
7.2.3.a.v. Verify the preliminary determination of the meaning of a word or phrase (e.g., by checking the inferred meaning in context or in a dictionary). (CCSS: L.7.4d)
7.2.3.a.vi. Differentiate between primary and secondary meanings of words.
7.2.3.b. Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. (CCCS: L.7.5)
7.2.3.b.i. Interpret figures of speech (e.g., literary, biblical, and mythological allusions) in context. (CCCS: L.7.5a)
7.2.3.b.iii. Use the relationship between particular words (e.g., synonym/antonym, analogy) to better understand each of the words. (CCCS: L.7.5b)
7.2.3.b.iv. Distinguish among the connotations (associations) of words with similar denotations (definitions) (e.g., refined, respectful, polite, diplomatic, condescending). (CCCS: L.7.5c)
7.2.3.c. Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases; gather vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression. (CCSS: L.7.6)
CO.7.3. Writing and Composition
7.3.1. Composing literary and narrative texts that incorporate a range of stylistic devices demonstrates knowledge of genre features. Students can:
7.3.1.a. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences. (CCSS: W.7.3)
7.3.1.a.ii. Write using poetic techniques (alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhyme scheme, repetition); figurative language (simile, metaphor, personification); and graphic elements (capital letters, line length, word position) typical of the chosen genre.
7.3.1.a.iv. Establish a central idea, define a clear focus for each section of the text (paragraphs, verses), and use transitional words and phrases to link ideas and sections.
7.3.1.a.v. Decide on the content and placement of descriptive and sensory details within the text to address the targeted audience and purpose.
7.3.1.a.viii. Use a variety of transition words, phrases, and clauses to convey sequence and signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another. (CCSS: W.7.3c)
7.3.2. Organization is used when composing informational and persuasive texts. Students can:
7.3.2.a. Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence. (CCSS: W.7.1)
7.3.2.a.i. Develop texts that explain a process; define a problem and offer a solution; or support an opinion.
7.3.2.a.iii. Reach an authentic audience with a piece of informational or persuasive writing.
7.3.2.a.iv. Explain and imitate emotional appeals used by writers who are trying to persuade an audience.
7.3.2.a.ix. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented. (CCSS: W.7.1e)
7.3.2.a.v. Introduce claim(s), acknowledge alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically. (CCSS: W.7.1a)
7.3.2.a.vi. Support claim(s) with logical reasoning and relevant evidence, using accurate, credible sources and demonstrating an understanding of the topic or text. (CCSS: W.7.1b)
7.3.2.a.vii. Use words, phrases, and clauses to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among claim(s), reasons, and evidence. (CCSS: W.7.1c)
7.3.2.a.viii. Establish and maintain a formal style. (CCSS: W.7.1d)
7.3.2.b. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content. (CCSS: W.7.2)
7.3.2.b.iii. Use appropriate transitions to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among ideas and concepts. (CCSS: W.7.2c)
7.3.2.b.vi. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the information or explanation presented. (CCSS: W.7.2f)
7.3.3. Editing writing for proper grammar, usage, mechanics, and clarity improves written work. Students can:
7.3.3.a. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing. (CCSS: L.7.2)
7.3.3.a.ii. Spell correctly. (CCSS: L.7.2b)
7.3.3.b. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. (CCSS: L.7.1)
7.3.3.b.i. Explain the function of phrases and clauses in general and their function in specific sentences. (CCSS: L.7.1a)
7.3.3.b.ii. Choose among simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences to signal differing relationships among ideas. (CCSS: L.7.1b)
7.3.3.b.iii. Place phrases and clauses within a sentence, recognizing and correcting misplaced and dangling modifiers. (CCSS: L.7.1c)
7.3.3.c. Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening. (CCSS: L.7.3)
7.3.3.d. Choose language that expresses ideas precisely and concisely, recognizing and eliminating wordiness and redundancy. (CCSS: L.7.3a)Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (CCSS: W.7.4)
7.3.3.e. With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on how well purpose and audience have been addressed. (CCSS.W.7.5)
7.3.3.e.i. Use punctuation correctly (commas and parentheses to offset parenthetical elements; colons to introduce a list; and hyphens).
7.3.3.e.ii. Write and punctuate compound and complex sentences correctly.
7.3.3.e.iii. Vary sentences using prepositional phrases, ensuring that subjects and verbs agree in the presence of intervening phrases.
7.3.3.e.v. Write with consistent verb tense across paragraphs.
7.3.3.e.vi. Use adjectives and adverbs correctly in sentences to describe verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs.
7.3.3.e.viii. Improve word choice by using a variety of references, such as a thesaurus.
CO.7.4. Research and Reasoning
7.4.1. Answering a research question logically begins with obtaining and analyzing information from a variety of sources. Students can:
7.4.1.b. Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation. (CCSS: W.7.8)
7.4.1.b.iii. Collect, interpret, and analyze relevant information; identify direct quotes for use in the report and information to summarize or paraphrase that will support the thesis or research question.
7.4.1.c. Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research. (CCSS: W.7.9)
7.4.1.c.i. Apply grade 7 Reading standards to literature (e.g., “Compare and contrast a fictional portrayal of a time, place, or character and a historical account of the same period as a means of understanding how authors of fiction use or alter history”). (CCSS: W.7.9a)
7.4.1.c.ii. Apply grade 7 Reading standards to literary nonfiction (e.g. “Trace and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient to support the claims”). (CCSS: W.7.9b)
7.4.2. Logical information requires documented sources. Students can:
7.4.2.a. Synthesize information from multiple sources using logical organization, effective supporting evidence, and variety in sentence structure.
7.4.2.c. Prepare presentation of research findings (written, oral, or a visual product) for clarity of content and effect, and grammatically correct use of language, spelling, and mechanics.
7.4.3. Reasoned material is evaluated for its quality using both its logic and its use of a medium. Students can:
7.4.3.a. Identify low-credibility stories by noticing vested interests or passion associated with content.
7.4.3.b. Obtain useful information from standard news stories.
7.4.3.d. Consider alternative perspectives of media presentations.
NewPath Learning resources are fully aligned to US Education Standards. Select a standard below to view correlations to your selected resource:


Gwendolyn E. Brooks
By Yussuf J. Simmonds
BLACK WOMEN POETS
PHILLIS WHEATLEY was born a free spirit in Gambia, West Africa around 1753, but was captured and brought to America as a slave when she was about seven years old. (At that time, written birth records were not kept in Gambia, and as a result, the timing of her birth is a close approximation). She was bought by the Wheatley family of Boston, Massachusetts, who taught her to read and write – a rare phenomenon for Blacks at that time. Having an education introduced her to the world of poetry and she became the first Black woman to have her work published as a poet in America. She learned to read at an early age and was considered a (Black) child prodigy, an even rarer phenomenon.
By 1768, her work was being gradually noticed when as she focused on themes from the viewpoint of those in the early colonies. Wheatley praised King George III for repealing the Stamp Act in “To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty.” Many of her poems then focused on famous personalities, religious, classical and abstract themes, and they were receiving widespread acclaim.
After her doctor suggested that a sea voyage might improve her health, she visited London in 1771. While there, Wheatley experienced unexpected warm greetings in contrast to the racial atmosphere that she had been accustomed to in America. As an educated Black woman, she was a rare specimen because she was viewed first and foremost by her race, and her other qualities were subordinated. (Wheatley had to defend her literary ability in court since white Americans found it difficult to believe that an ex-slave woman could write poetry. Her detractors included the governor and the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. When she proved beyond doubt that she was the author of the literary works in question, the detractors signed a testimonial document which was attached to the preface of her next book of poems.
Two years later before she returned to America, 39 of her poems were published in London; they included themes dealing with religion, race and morality. The Countess of Huntingdon and the Earl of Dartmouth assisted her with the publication. One that stood out was “On Being Brought from Africa to America.” Because of her work, her popularity soared and it brought her writing skills to the attention of those who were in power including General George Washington. Eventually she earned her freedom, however for safety and security, she chose to stay with the Wheatley family. In addition to poems, she also wrote plays that reflected her surroundings and was a strong supporter of the independence movement. As the movement gained momentum, her writings focused in that direction.
Being a free Black woman, she was allowed to marry and she married a free Black man, John Peters. They had two children who died shortly after birth and when she became pregnant again, her husband deserted her. As a single parent, Wheatley struggled to support herself and had extreme difficulty in getting her poems published. There was not a great demand for poetry and a lesser demand for the poetry of a Black poet. That she was free did not matter.
After her last baby died several hours after its birth, Wheatley’s life spiraled downward. Alone and with no support, she moved to a boarding house where she died at the age of 31from lingering complications of her recent childbirth.
Though she seldom referred to herself or her circumstances in her poems, one of the exceptions is “ON BEING BROUGHT FROM AFRICA TO AMERICA”:
Wheatley’s work has helped today’s genre of African American literature; she is recognized as the first African American woman to publish a book and the first to make a living from her writing. The University of Massachusetts in Boston has named a building in her honor and in 2002, she was named in the list of 100 Greatest African Americans.
GWENDOLYN E. BROOKS was born on June 7, 1917, in Topeka, Kansas, the city whose name is attached to the greatest landmark Supreme Court decision, “Brown v Topeka Board of Education,” and she became the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father, a janitor who gave up his dream of becoming a doctor due to the financial constraints of attending medical school. Early in Brooks’ life, the family moved to Chicago where she lived almost all of her natural life that she considered herself “a Chicagoan.” Her school experience charted the course of her life. In her formative years, she went from a predominantly White school to an all-Black school, ending up in an integrated school. In 1936, she graduated from Wilson Junior College. This racial intermingling of school taught young Brooks lifelong lessons that she weaved into her life and ultimately into her poetry and writings.
When she was 13 years, her first poem, “Eventide,” was published in “American Childhood Magazine and that started her on her life’s literary journey. By 17, she had already published nearly 100 poems in her poetry column in the “Chicago Defender,” and she became familiar with contemporary poetry including the works of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot and E. E. Cummings. Brooks came to know the Renaissance poets, James Weldon Johnson (“Lift Every Voice and Sing” – the Negro Spiritual/Black National Anthem) and Langston Hughes.
In the mid-forties, she published her first book of poems, “A Street in Bronzeville” and from then she continued putting out literary work of superb academic quality for the next five and a half decades. Brooks lived a very simple and unpretentious, almost Spartan, lifestyle. Her outward appearance did not exude brilliance or portray her extraordinary, literary skills. Even when she won the Pulitzer Prize for her second selection of poems, her life did not change in any remarkable way except that she became more immersed in her work. So enlivening were her works that some has said that her writings appear to jump out the books and “struck my hands like to a thunderbolt. These poems seem to possess muscle and sinew that weren’t afraid to take the language and revamp it, twist it and energize it, so that it shimmied and dashed and lingered.”
Brooks was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her work in 1950 – the first Black woman to be so honored for her poetry – and became an acclaimed poet and one of the most prolific and gifted writers of the 20th century. Brooks has helped to inspire a generation of writers, artists and musicians with her gifted words and the influence of her poetry extends far beyond her written words. There is poetry in today’s Rap and Hip-hop; yesterday’s Rhythm & Blues, Soul and Rock ‘n Roll music; and it will be in whatever future artists produce in music.
President Kennedy invited her to read at a Library of Congress poetry festival in 1962 and after publishing “Selected Poems” in 1963, Brooks secured a teaching job, a poetry workshop, at Columbia College in Chicago. The Second Writers’ Conference at Fisk University in 1967 was a turning point in her career. There she became involved in the Black Arts movement as one of the most visible articulators of the Black Aesthetic. At this juncture, some critics sensed an angry tone in her work, parallel to the Black wave of protest across the country. An awareness of social issues appeared to dominate her “new” style of writing and it became more noticeable and forceful as time progressed.
Though Brooks began to be described publicly as an angry poet, she was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968. Then she successfully ventured into prose with remembrances and reflections “Report from Part One” and “The World of Gwendolyn Brooks.” This versatility was continued with numerous recordings and interviews primarily about her life and creative work. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, she has received a number of awards, fellowships, and honorary degrees (Doctor of Humane Letters), besides grants and foundation awards from the likes of the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
She did not like the term ‘African American.’ In an interview in 1994, Brooks stated that she preferred the word/term B-L-A-C-K instead of African American when referring to Black people; and she also believed that ‘Black’ should be capitalized when referring to Black people. She said, “The Black spirit fought so painfully to get ‘colored’ and ‘negro’ capitalized and ‘Black’ capitalized. Newspapers and magazines, in referring to Black people as Blacks still refuse to honor the notion of respectable and respected identity, and insist on spelling Blacks with a little ‘b’.”
Finally, though Brooks had studied some of the great poets and writers, and was influenced by some of the best, she was not a mirror image of any one of her contemporary. She was in a class by herself; she set her own standard, and marched to a different and unique drumbeat.Â Â
Brooks married Henry Blakely in 1938 and they had two children: Henry Jr. (1940) and Nora (1951). She died on December 3, 2000, after a short bout with cancer. The city of Chicago and the State of Illinois have named several schools in her honor including Gwendolyn Brooks Elementary School, Aurora; Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy, Chicago, Illinois; Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School, Harvey; Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School, Oak Park; Gwendolyn Brooks Illinois State Library, Springfield. In 2002, she was named one of the 100 Greatest African Americans.
MAYA ANGELOU ranks today as one of the great poets and since her work is still in process, she may yet be the greatest poet that ever lived. Her resume can only illustrate a peep at the magnitude of her being and her accomplishments; she is an author, poetess, historian, stage and screen producer/director/writer, playwright, songstress and songwriter, professor, performer, editor, civil rights advocate and Tony award nominee. This is a partial view of Angelou, and she is continuously working and accomplishing.
She was born “Marguerite Johnson” in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4, 1928. (She was celebrating her 40th birthday on the day that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. This historical event played a significant role in her life’s path thereafter especially since she had known Dr. King and had worked with him at Southern Christian Leadership Conference). Her parents were divorced when she was about three years old and along with brother Bailey, she was sent to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. After about four years there, she and her brother moved again to Chicago to live with their mother.
Traumatized by an assault at an early age and in 1936, she was sent back to her grandmother’s in Arkansas, along with Bailey. For years she remained in her own silent world speaking only to her brother. Then in 1940, she and her brother moved to San Francisco to live with their mother. It is important to note Johnson/Angelou’s numerous moves because it is from that backdrop, that she has risen – and continues to rise – to unprecedented heights in her accomplishments. Her social life and upbringing was tumultuous; her schooling seemed to have taken a back seat and she dropped out of school to work as a conductor on the San Francisco cable car. Despite setbacks, she graduated from Mission High School in 1945.
Gradually, her life began to stabilize, as she matured into adulthood and its responsibilities. She gave birth to a son, Guy and a few years later, she married Tosh Angelou. Her career as a multi-dynamo of talent began in San Francisco as she did one of her memorable performances at the Purple Onion nightclub. It was around that time she took the name “Maya Angelou” which was a hybrid of “Maya” (the name her brother called her), and “Angelou” (her married name).
Her literary involvements and artistic creations have touched many masterpieces: she has toured with Everyman’s Opera of ‘Porgy and Bess’; she was a member of Harlem Writers Guild; she directed and performed in ‘Cabaret for Freedom; and appeared in the play ‘The Blacks.’ But she is best known for her academic and literary body of work; most famously for her autobiographical novel ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.’ It was nominated for the National Book Award.
She has walked with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. In 1960, she married South African freedom fighter Vusumi Make and the next year, she moved to Africa. When she returned to the U.S. in 1974, President Gerald Ford appointed her to the Bicentennial Commission and a few years later, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the Commission for International Woman of the Year. The highlight of her genius as a writer and poet came when she delivered a poem entitled, ‘On the Pulse of the Morning,’ at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration at his request.
Angelou appeared in ‘Roots’ and spoke at the ‘Million Man March,’ a testament to her longevity and her staying power. Her collection of books and other literary and academic achievements put her in that rarefied stratosphere with the likes of Baldwin (whom she knew), Ellison, Wright, Fanon and Rogers just to name a few. Her close acquaintances are and have been the “who’s who” of Black women in America: Oprah Winfrey, Betty Shabazz, Coretta Scott King, Johnnetta Cole and Cicely Tyson.
She has the ability to take something that’s great and make it excellent. She reportedly stated that the title of her masterpiece, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,’ was taken from another masterpiece by the 18th century Black poet, Lawrence Dunbar, entitled ‘Sympathy.’ It is therefore most appropriate to excerpt a part of her famous work:
…….It beats bars and would be free,
It’s not a carol of joy or glee.
But a prayer that it sends from its heart’s deep core;
But a plea that upward to heaven it flings
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.
NIKKI GIOVANNI once stated that marriage was inhospitable to women and would never play a role in her life and she had reportedly rearranged her life priorities to be able to provide her only son with the kind of motherhood in which she believed, saying, “I have a child; my responsibilities have changed.”
Life began for Giovanni on June 7, 1943, in Knoxville, Tennessee to Yolande Cornelia, Sr. and Jones Giovanni. Though she grew up in Lincoln Heights, Ohio, Giovanni returned to Fisk University where she earned a Bachelor’s degree with honors in 1967. During her undergraduate years, Giovanni became involved in the Civil Rights Movement as well as the Black Arts Movement. She was equally focused on issues surrounding race as well as art, and began to emerge as a revolutionary artist – poetry being her medium. She was influential in organizing the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on campus and edited a student literary journal. Afterwards she then enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania and then Columbia University.
About the same time, she published her first book of poems, “Black Feeling Black Talk” and within a year, Giovanni published a second book, thus launching her career as a writer. Other books of poetry followed in rapid succession including “Black Judgment” (1968) and “Re:Creation” (1970). She became a “literary giant” early in her career gaining a world-renowned status as a poet and was dubbed the “Princess of Black Poetry.” Her motives were quite clear: it was important for her work to reflect the need to raise the awareness of the rights of Black people. Giovanni wrote that if the Black Revolution passes you bye, it’s damn sure the White reaction to it won’t. She began teaching at Rutgers University in 1969 the same year her son, Thomas, was born.
The themes of some of her most notable poems can take a reader through periods of Giovanni’s contentiousness and her peaceful inner-being as a person all in the same reading with titles such as “Ego Tripping,” “Poem for Aretha,” (most likely about the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin), and “Woman Poem.” Literary observers have noted that they tell a story of events and experiences revolving around her life. “Poetry,” Giovanni has written, “is but a reflection of the moment,” and she expresses the world that she sees around her by making single moments historic and personal inflections paramount to all.
In addition to being a poet and a writer, throughout her career, she has also been a literary commentator, a social activist and an educator always insisting on presenting the truth – through words and deeds as she sees it – and has consistently maintained a position of prominence as a strong voice of and for the Black community. Giovanni was equally versatile in style and substance; she had the ability to write about social injustice and racial prejudice, while at same time writing books of poetry for children.
Since 1987, Giovanni has been teaching Writing and Literature at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia and is a Distinguished Professor of English. She has had some serious health issues that seemed to be hereditary having also befallen her mother and her sister. She was forced to give up smoking after she was diagnosed with cancer and had a lung removed. Not taking a defeatist attitude about health in general and cancer in particular, Giovanni reported made an inner truce with her cancer stating that she would like to live with it – in remission, of course – for the next 30 years, and has written, “Breaking the Silence: Inspirational Stories of Black Cancer Survivors.”
Through the decades, Giovanni’s writing has continued to inspire entertainers, artists and activists. She has memorialized the late Tupac Shakur in her book “Love Poems” and has stated she would “rather be with the thugs than the people who are complaining about them.” Giovanni also continue to speak out against hate-filled violence such as the 1998 murders of James Byrd, Jr. (the dragging victim in Texas) and Matthew Shepard (the gay victim of a beating in Wyoming).
She ended the 20th century with “Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni” (1996) and “Blues for all the Changes” (1999). In 2004, her album “The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection” was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album and in 2008 her “Sounds that Shatter the Staleness in Lives” was developed as part of the Soundscapes Chamber Music Series.
Giovanni was present at the Virginia Tech campus when the shooting rampage occurred in 2007 and while speaking at a commemoration of the tragedy, she chanted a poem: “…We know we did nothing to deserve it. But neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS. Neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by a rogue army. Neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory. Neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water…We are Virginia Tech…We will prevail.”
Despite the trauma, she has decided to stay at Virginia Tech, but she has also divided her time with her alma mater in Tennessee as a visiting professor where she teaches a writers’ workshop, and is contemplating a series of outreach classes to the community on Writing and Poetry. She was commissioned by National Public Radio to create an inaugural poem for President Barack Obama.
SONIA SANCHEZ is one of the poets who is generally associated with the Black Arts Movement more so than any of her contemporaries. She was born Wilsonia Benita Driver on September 9, 1934 in Birmingham, Alabama, and has traveled not only through the world of poetry and children’s books but has also been on television, music and plays, having authored numerous books of poetry, books for children and plays during her professional career.
Sanchez grew up in Harlem and studied creative writing at Hunter College, New York where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science in 1955 and continued her post-graduate work at New York University. She formed a writers’ workshop in Greenwich Village which was attended by other notables including Amiri Baraka, Haki Madhubuti and Larry Neal in addition to also forming the Broadside Quartet with some of those who had attended her workshop. She married a Puerto Rican named Albert Sanchez, hence her surname, but it did not last very long. They were divorced and she re-married. That too lasted for about two years.
In the early 60s as an activist, she supported the integrationist movement with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) but was soon frustrated by its lack of meaningful progress. She had heard Malcolm X speak and was influenced by his oratory which she thought was direct and truthful, and it moved her to write blunt, passionate and honest poetry about the Black experience in America. Sanchez latched on to the Nation of Islam’s belief that Blacks would never be truly accepted by Whites in America and it reflected in her writings. She began to focus on her heritage from a separatist point of view.
When she began to write plays, there was a distinct militant flavor in her writings. Her first, “the Bronx Is Next” (1968) and “Sista Son/ja” (1969) are peppered with militant themes. The first dramatized a plot to burn down a Harlem neighborhood and the second, highlighted “ghetto” despair. These were followed by plays focusing on Black male/female relationships, political representations and Malcolm X.
In 1965, Sanchez began teaching at what is now San Francisco State University where she was instrumental in developing its Black Studies program. She was the first to create and teach a course based on Black Women and Literature in the United States. Her travels outside of America in 1970s broadened her horizon and it fueled an anger, which was seething since the confrontations of the 1960s. She visited China, Australia, the Caribbean, including Cuba, and that along with her brief membership in the Nation of Islam crystallized her views on the world outside that she had gained from others.
Before moving to Philadelphia in 1977 where she became the first Presidential Fellow at Temple University, Sanchez had already held teaching positions at the University of Pittsburgh, Rutgers University, Manhattan Community College and Amherst College, and had lectured at several hundred others including Howard University, Morehouse University and Spelman College. She had always identified with the plight of her community and was deeply affected by the bombing of the MOVE headquarters in 1985 and eulogized them in “Elegy: For MOVE and Philadelphia.”
She remained at Temple University as the Laura Carnell chair, Professor of English until her retirement in 1999 and then became its poet-in-residence. During the 1990s, Sanchez appeared on the Bill Cosby Show. She supports the National Black United Front and has edited two anthologies on Black literature, “We Be Word Sorcerers: 25 Stories by Black Americans” and “360Â¡ of Blackness Coming at You.” Known for her innovative melding of musical formats – like the blues – and traditional poetic formats like haiku and tanka, Sanchez also tends to use incorrect spelling to get her point across.
She has been awarded the Community Service Award from the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, the Lucretia Mott Award, the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Humanities, and the Peace and Freedom Award from the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
The body of her work includes:
We a Baddddd People (1970)
Love Poems (1973)
A Blues Book for a Blue Black Magic Woman (1974)
Continuous Fire: A Collection of Poetry
Shake Down Memory: A Collection of Political Essays and Speeches
It’s a New Day: Poems for Young Brothas and Sistuhs (1971)
Homegirls and Handgrenades (1985)
Under a Soprano Sky (1987)
I’ve Been a Woman: New and Selected Poems (1995)
Wounded in the House of a Friend (1995)
Does Your House have Lions (1998)
Like the Singing Coming Off of Drums (1999)
Shake Loose My Skin (2000)
Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam (2001)
Black Cats and Uneasy Landings
I’m Black When I’m Singing, I’m Blue When I Ain’t (1982)
Uh Huh, But How Do It Free Us? (1975)
Malcolm Man/Don’t Live Here No More (1979)
It’s a New Day