Literature
Explore the differences between the autobiographic and memoir aspects of the book.
Autobiography accentuates personal data and spans an entire lifetime. Memoir is more
reflective and focuses on a moment in the author's life. Ask students to choose one word
from the narrative that resonated personally, write it in on a slip of paper, and place it in a
large envelope. Then pass the envelope around the room for each student to pull a word
out and write an essay using the new key word three times. Reading essays aloud,
students then analyze each paper for the key word and discuss why that word was
significant.
In another activity, students focus on the moment when Angelou does not speak. They
write in first person and to say everything Angelou might have said. Students can also
write a one-page autobiography of their own lives from infancy to present, titling their
papers, "I Know Why" and substituting a different symbol for "the caged bird."
GUIDING QUESTION: How do people overcome adversity?
Related questions
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How does Maya Angelou overcome adversity?
How do other characters overcome adversity?
Why kinds of adversity do people sometimes cause for themselves?
What kinds of adversity are the results of forces outside their control?
Students will practice systematic vocabulary development.
(vocabulary development 1.0)
Students will read and respond to a significant work of literature
(literary response 3.2, 3.6, and 3.12)
Students will write coherent and focused essays. (writing strategies 1.1)
Students will write responses to literature. (writing applications 2.2)
Students will revise and publish work following the conventions of grammar and
manuscript form. (written and oral language conventions 1.4 and 1.5)
Students might conduct mini-research on persons, events, and topics alluded to in the
autobiography. Assign topics at the beginning of the reading; students should be prepared
to present as their topics appear during the course of the reading.
RESEARCH TOPICS
1 Abacus
2. whipping boy
3 Ku Klux Klan
4 Segregation
8 Great Depression
9 Pig Latin
10 Touissant L'Overture
11 Horatio Algier
15 Beowolf, Oliver Twist
18 John Brown
19 Joe Louis
20 Saint Valentine, Roman martyr
23 Nat Turner, Gabriel Prosser, Fisk University Jesse Owens, Amazona, Louisiana Purchase
29 House un- American Activities Committee
30 Emiliiano Zapata, Panco Villa
33 Count Basie, Oedipus Complex
35 Rorschach, V-Day
1. Students respond to journal: “What does it mean to be beautiful, and how do you know
this?” Share.
2. how did young Maya Angelou feel about how she looked and how do her comments give
insight into her characterization.
3. Have students finish the sentence: “As a young girl, Maya Angelou felt that she was/was
not. . .”
4. support their claim least two quotations. Share.
5. Explain to students that authors reveal the personality of a character by
a. letting us hear the character speak,
b. describing how the character looks,
c. letting us listen to the character’s inner thoughts and feelings,
d. revealing what other people in the story think or say about the character,
e. showing us what the character does—how he or she acts,
f. telling us directly what the character’s personality is like: cruel, kind, sneaky, brave,
and so on.
6. Tell students that they will write descriptive paragraphs about Maya’s grandmother, one
of the characters, or someone they know very well.
Chapter 16-17
1. Discuss the importance of names. Have students share how they were named, meanings
of their names, and nicknames they are called.
2. Discuss chapter 16 as an example of themes reflecting the historical period. (Whites often
called African Americans out of their names: auntie; boy; gal, etc.
read the “Negro National Anthem”. Discuss the poem’s message. Have students work with
partners to identify the tone and to list words and phrases that create the tone.
Figurative Language: Definitions and Examples
Figurative language is used to create a special effect or feeling. It is characterized by
figures of speech—language that compares, exaggerates, or means something other than
what it first appears to mean.
A figure of speech is a literary device used to create a special effect or feeling by making
some type of interesting or creative comparison. The four most common are simile,
metaphor, personification, and hyperbole.
Simile—a comparison of two unlike things in which a word of comparison (“like” or
“as” is used.
· “Grandmother came with fruit and my uncles clumped around and around my bed, snorting
like wild horses.” Ch. 13
· “Just my breath, carrying my words out, might poison people and they’d curl up and die like
the black fat slugs that only pretended.” Ch. 13
· “I walked into the room where people were laughing, their voices hitting the walls like stones.
. .” Ch. 13
· “The giggles hung in the air like melting clouds that were waiting to rain on me.” Preface
Metaphor—a comparison of two unlike things in which no word of comparison
(“like” or “as”) is used.
· “If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the
rust on the razor that threatens the throat.” Preface
· “Instead they used their intelligence to pry open the door of rejection and not only became
wealthy but got revenge in the bargain.” Ch. 29
Personification—a special kind of metaphor in which human qualities or attributes
are given to an inanimate object.
· “I had trained myself so successfully through the years to display interest, or at least attention,
while my mind skipped free on other subjects. . . “Ch. 29
· “When he finished more triumphant stories rainbowed around the room riding the shoulders of
laughter.” Ch. 29
Hyperbole—an overstatement or exaggeration
· “They’ve got watermelons twice the size of a cow’s head and sweeter than syrup.” Ch. 24
· “And if you can count the watermelon’s seeds, before it’s cut open, you can win five zillion
dollars and a new car.” Ch 14
Imagery: Definitions and Examples
Imagery—the words or phrases a writer uses to create a certain picture in the
reader’s mind. Imagery is usually based on sensory details.
· “I tasted the sour on my tongue and felt it in the back of my mouth. Then before I reached the
door, the sting was burning down my legs and into my Sunday socks.” Preface
· “Her skin was a rich black that would have peeled like a plum if snagged.” · Ch. 15
· “The sweet scent of vanilla had met us as she opened the door.” Ch 15
· “ . . . but in a minute she was back in the room with a long, ropy peachswitch, the juice
smelling bitter at having been torn loose.” Ch. 15
Figurative Language Quiz
Part 1. Matching
Directions: Match each word on the left with its definition on the right.
1. _____simile a. an overstatement or exaggeration
2. _____metaphor b. the words or phrases a writer uses to create a certain picture
in the reader’s mind
3. _____hyperbole c. a comparison of two unlike things in which no word of
comparison (“like” or “as”) is used.
4. _____imagery d. a comparison of two unlike things in which a word of
comparison (“like” or “as”) is used.
Part II: Identification
Directions: Read each of the following quotations from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In
the space provided, write whether it is an example of a simile or metaphor, or hyperbole or
imagery.
5. _______________ “Mother was a blithe chick nuzzling around the large dark hen.
The sounds they made had a rich inner harmony. Momma’s
deep, slow voice lay under my mother’s rapid peeps and chirps.”
6. _______________ “The cold wind had frozen my feet and my spine, and Mr.
Taylor’s impersonation had chilled my blood.”
7. _______________ “For nearly a year, I sopped around the house, the store, the
school, and the church, like an old dirty biscuit, dirty and
indelible.”
8. _______________ “My class was wearing butter-yellow pique dresses . . .”
9. _______________ “His voice rose on tides of promise and fell on waves of warnings.”
10. _______________ My mother was “Like a pretty kite that floated just above my
head.”
11. _______________ “The trip to the kitchen and back could not have taken more than
two minutes, yet in that time I tramped through swampy cemeteries, climbed over dusty
gravestones and eluded litters of night-black cats.”
12. _______________ “When he pitched his already high voice to what he considered a
feminine level . . . it streaked across the room, zigzagging like lightening.
13. _______________ “The man in the living room was tall as the sky.”
14. _______________ “. . . he was lauded for his velvet-black skin.”
15. _______________ “If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being
aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat.”
Discuss the allusion to the Rorschach test in the text. Show students examples of Rorschach
images and explain. The following site has images used in the Rorschach test. Show students a
few images (from this site) and briefly explain to them that psychologists use them to assess
patients.
Rorschach test site: http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/rorschach.htm
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Discussion Questions
The purpose of these questions is to provide an overview of the autobiography, to allow a
return to the essential questions, and to lead to the “grand conversation.”
Grand Conversation
The group leader encourages members to join in a discussion of the text. The recorder records
topics and issues discussed. At the conclusion of the grand conversation, the group looks for any
patterns that appear in the recorded responses and reports them to the group. This strategy
encourages and shares responses, expansion, inquiry and exploration of the text. Ask: “What did
you think of the story?” Everyone's contributions are accepted. The discussion is freewheeling
and is not guided by the group leader. The leader's role is to facilitate and encourage comments
to rise to a higher level of thinking.
Suggested questions:
1. How do the experiences of Marguerite Johnson produce a Maya Angelou?
2. Identify characters who influenced Maya Angelou.
3. The memoir opens with a provocative refrain: "What you looking at me for? I didn't come to
stay ... "
What do you think this passage says about Ritie's sense of herself? How does
she feel about her place in the world? How does she keep her identity intact?
4. Upon seeing her mother for the first time after years of separation, Ritie describes her as "a
hurricane in its perfect power." What do you think about Ritie's relationship with her mother?
How does it compare to her relationship with her grandmother, "Momma.”
5. The author writes, "If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her
displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat." What do you make of the author's
portrayal of race? How do Ritie and her family cope with the racial tension that permeates their
lives?
6. Throughout the book, Ritie struggles with feelings that she is "bad" and "sinful," as her
thoughts echo the admonitions of her strict religious upbringing. What does she learn at the end
of the memoir about right and wrong?
7. What is the significance of the title?
8. What lessons can be learned about life, not just Black life in the South?
9. What are examples of adversity—for her and others—in Maya Angelou’s story and examples
of ways they coped with them.
10. Discuss point of view in the autobiography.
11. What are examples of themes in the novel?
Themes in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
The power of words
Romance vs. reality
Parenting
Faith
Overcoming adversity
Prejudice
The Great Depression
Influence of childhood
Community responsibility Family Ties
Self-empowerment
Religion
Race and appearance
Abandonment
Segregation Gender
Imprisonment
Resignation
Self-righteousness
Motherhood
Racism
Writing Prompt
None of us gets through life without a struggle, whether personal, political, psychological, or
otherwise. Some of our struggles are mere annoyances; others are seemingly insurmountable
challenges that have the power to vanquish us. How we survive these adversities depends on the
strategies we employ for coping with them.
Writing Instructions:
Write a literary response essay that is at least 500 words long and that answers the question:
“What can I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings teach us about overcoming adversity?”
Your paper needs to be divided into three parts: an introduction that includes an attentiongrabbing opening, the title of the work and the author’s name, some backgroundinformation
about the autobiography, and a thesis statement; body paragraphs which include topic
sentences and which support your thesis statement with evidence from the text and from your
own knowledge of the world around you (direct quotations from the text are required) ;and a
conclusion that draws the essay to a close.
Study Questions
1. What is the significance of the opening scene of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings?
2. What is the significance of Maya’s confrontation with Mrs. Cullinan?
3. What is the significance of the sermon delivered at the annual revival?
4. How does friendship with Louise change Maya?
5. How did Maya’s relationships with Big Bailey and Daddy Clidell differ? How does her
relationship with Big Bailey compare with her relationship with Vivian?
Suggested Essay Topics
1. What characters serve as positive role models for Maya? Specifically, how does Maya come to
her conclusions about the strength of black women?
2. Does Maya’s sense of displacement make her susceptible to Mr. Freeman’s sexual advances?
How does the rape and Mr. Freeman’s death influence her throughout the rest of the book?
3. Trace Maya’s relationship with Bailey. Does it change significantly over the course of the
book? Why or why not?
4. Is Angelou a reliable narrator? To what extent does her own memory seem to distort her
narrative? How would the significance of the work be different if it were fictional?