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Nightjohn


Negro Spirituals

YouTube Video

Swing Low Sweet Chariot--The Plantation Singers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljup8cIRzIk

The tunes and the beats, before 1865

The tunes and the beats of negro spirituals and Gospel songs are highly influenced by the music of their actual cultural environment. It means that their styles are continuously changing.

The very first negro spirituals were inspired by African music even if the tunes were not far from those of hymns. Some of them, which were called “shouts” were accompanied with typical dancing including hand clapping and foot tapping.

SHOUTS
After regular a worship service, congregations used to stay for a “ring shout”. It was a survival of primitive African dance. So, educated ministers and members placed a ban on it. The men and women arranged themselves in a ring. The music started, perhaps with a Spiritual, and the ring began to move, at first slowly, then with quickening pace. The same musical phrase was repeated over and over for hours. This produced an ecstatic state. Women screamed and fell. Men, exhausted, dropped out of the ring

Some African American religious singing at this time was referred as a “moan” (or a “groan”). Moaning (or groaning) does not imply pain. It is a kind of blissful rendition of a song, often mixed with humming and spontaneous melodic variation.

http://www.negrospirituals.com/






Author--Gary Paulsen

YouTube Video


Length--92 pages
Genre--Historical Fiction
Lexile--770 

YouTube Video



Activities
  1. Plot graph as read
  2. Journal entries--voice, perspective, empathy (Sarny, Nightjohn, Mammy, slave, master)
  3. What would you sacrifice? (real or fiction)
  4. Poem with emotions (book generated)
  5. Research--underground railroad, slave owner, slavery, Civil War, causes, origins of slavery, plantations, crops, middle passage
  6. Letter to Gary Paulsen:
                Gary Paulsen
                c/o Children's Publicity 
                1745 Broadway 
                New York, NY  10019

Lexicon:  
Hx Fiction
Plot
    Exposition (setting, characters, conflict)
        Sarny Nightjohn, Old Waller, Delie, Mammy
    rising action
    climax
    falling action
    resolution
Narrator--Sarny
protagonist 
point of view
perspective
colloquial/dialect--ain't, I be dumb, Call them dog droppings or horse crap; The dogs be mean 46, 
grammar 
voice
mood
contraction
schema
context (figure out the words pg 28 sassafras--don't have to know everything to understand "calabash gourd" pg 29)
see below
Vocabulary--breeders, quarters, corn-shuck pallets, addled 42, cower 53, gaggle 55, extremity 74, 


Discussion
What people are willing to sacrifice to be able to read/write
superstition--beliefs, anthropology, tradition, culture, diversity
symbol--"what does it mean? pg 38
simile/metaphor--"Made me think of thunder long ways off, moving in a summer sky (metaphorical)." pg 39
myth p 50
identity--culture, heritage, name--last name of master, derogatory labels--

YouTube Video


crackers 57 (WOP, N, redneck, WASP, chink, etc.)

YouTube Video


http://eq.uen.org/emedia/items/cbaaad47-6d5a-ce07-95b5-4f8c6507cfe3/1/

cartoon about the civil War
http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/freemovies/civilwar/


Subpages (1): Negro Spirituals
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