Unit/Lesson Plan
Title: Folklore in Zora Neale Hurston’s THEIR EYES WERE W ATCHING GOD
Curricular Areas: American Literature; US Social Studies; Anthropology; Folklore
Grade Level: 11 th grade
Unit Length: Lesson One: (3) 1 ½ hour class periods; Lesson Two: (2) 1 ½ hour
class periods; Lesson Three: (3) 1 ½ hour class periods; Extending
the lesson: (2) 1 ½ hour class periods
Goals
The students will:
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Gain appreciation of oral narratives
Increase knowledge of folklore, folk groups, tradition, and oral narrative
Make cultural and literary element connections between traditional U.S. folk tales and
standard English
Increase understanding of African-American history and its effects on United States
culture.
Understand as both listeners and tellers the importance of voice, pacing, and other
features of performance in oral narrative
Compare Zora Neale Hurston's work as a collector of folk narrative with her betterknown status as a novelist
Identify traditional American folk elements in THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
Analyze and understand the role of traditional folkways and folk speech in the overall
literary impact of the novel
Objectives:
The students will:
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Transcribe an orally given narrative into eye dialect with 85% accuracy.
Complete worksheet “Folklore in THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD” with 85%
accuracy.
Students correctly use folklore terminology with 85% accuracy.
Creation of creative project which meets at least 85% of the given rubric.
Students create a mini-drama utilizing at least 85 % of the given rubric; including
grammatical structures.
Completion of worksheet “Their Eyes Were Watching God and the Folktale” with 85%
accuracy.
Students will create their own personal folktale utilizing at least 85% of the given rubric;
including grammatical structures.
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Teaching/Learning Activities for Unit
LESSON ONE: FOLKLORE AND TRADITIONAL LIFE IN THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
Classroom Discussion:
 Discuss handout, “Folklore: Some Useful Terminology “with students.
 Ask students to define culture, tradition, narrative, orality and performance using the
write, pair, and share cooperative learning method.
 Discuss the terms culture, tradition, narrative, orality and performance as a class.
Small Group Work:
 Have students identify their own membership in folk groups.
 Ask each small group to identify as specifically as possible a folk group to which all the
members belong.
 Ask groups to list as many of the traditions that unite that folk group as they can, and
then have them categorize their shared lore by genre—is it folk speech, folk narrative,
folk belief, folk costume, calendar customs, etc.
Small Group Work:
 Review Their Eyes Were Watching God
o Looking for as many distinct folk groups as they can find; and
o Looking for the traditions that bind those folk groups together.
 To which genres of folklore do those traditional practices belong?
Homework:
 Students will consider parts of the novel they've already read from a different critical
perspective utilizing the small group work they have participated in:
o Students will demonstrate understanding knowledge by creating a creative
project.
o Students will present their findings in a creative way—a handout of some kind, a
multimedia display, or writing/performing a folksong.
LESSON TWO: FOLK SONG AND FOLK NARRATIVE: ORALITY , PERFORMANCE, AND
TRANSCRIPTION (THIS IS THE LESSON THAT I HAVE CHOSEN TO WORK THROUGH IN -DEPTH
FOR THE SECOND PART OF THIS ASSIGNMENT )
Classroom Discussion:
Teacher will model transcription techniques for students with first half of the oral narrative, “Let
the Deal Go Down.”
Students will work with the teacher to transcribe the second half of the oral narrative.
Small Group Work:
 Students will listen to their chosen track multiple times
o Initially, students will just pay attention to the words and the music
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
o Students will then focus on more performative features—tone, pacing, and
dynamics
Students should listen while taking notes using a pen and notebook.
o The important portion of this assignment is to get students focused on the
relationship between oral performance and written text.
Small Group Work:
 Groups will transcribe their choice from among Hurston's songs using the audio
recordings on the WPA site.
o Students should try their best to faithfully recreate its performative dimension on
the printed page, just as Hurston does in many of her works.
o Students have by now doubtless noticed that Their Eyes Were Watching God is
written in eye dialect; now is a great time to actually have them read the words
not as they would sound translated into so-called standard English, but as the
spelling and arrangement of those words literally suggest.
o Students may have already transcribed their chosen songs into "standard" English,
but they should also attempt to transcribe them into appropriate eye dialect—
either have them revise a "standard" English transcription or, if time is short,
transcribe directly into eye dialect.
 Once students have finished their transcriptions, have them trade transcriptions with other
students or transcribing groups, and try to read one another's transcriptions aloud. Asking
the following questions:
o Which transcriptions are most phonetically accurate?
o Which are closest to "standard" written English?
o Where did groups of students make different choices in transcribing the same oral
text?
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Ultimately, students should see that transcription approaches and eye dialect are
judgment calls on the part of folklorists and authors, who must balance readability with
local color/accuracy.
Having students read the eye dialect transcription of a song they hasn't heard and then
playing the song to see how close the two pronunciations and readings is a great way of
getting students to think about the relationship between oral and written language and
literature.
Classroom Discussion:
 The teacher will share with students some of Hurston's own transcriptions:
o Hurston’s seminal collection of black Southern folklore, the anthology Mules and
Men.
 Remind students that Hurston's patrons and audience were largely
composed of white Northern scholars and writers—
 Students will be asked the following questions:
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o Did Hurston water down (or, conversely, exaggerated) any features of dialect for
her audience's sake?
 If so, did she make the right choice?
o Are the same factors at work in Their Eyes Were Watching God?
o Who, in students' opinions, was the target audience for the novel?
LESSON THREE : HURSTON AND S TORYTELLING
Classroom Discussion:
 Students will convert one of Hurston's already-transcribed texts into a live performance.
 An outstanding choice is the etiological folktale "Why Women Always Take
Advantage of Men" which not only contains some excellent examples of pacing,
dialect, and tone, but comments on gender relations in a manner very germane to
Their Eyes.
Small Group Work:
 Students will work and act out "Why Women Always Take Advantage of Men" like a
play, creating different voices, postures, and gestures for each of the characters in the
story (God, the Devil, Man, and Woman).
o Student audience members will ask the storyteller or actors about the decisions
he/they made when performing the story.
 Which characters, scenes, and lines were most effective from the
audience's point of view?
 How did the performance choices made contribute to the theme or
message of the folktale?
Classroom Discussion:
 Students will work off their completed worksheets from Lesson One and return to the
discussion to the text of Their Eyes Were Watching God:
o Which scenes and characters in the novel do students feel are most like those
found in the folktales they've looked at?
Small Group Work:
 Students will complete the second part of the worksheet, labeled "Their Eyes Were
Watching God and the Folktale."
 Students will explore to what extent do the most folktale-like parts of the novel overlap
with those portions that most vividly and accurately reflect folklife and culture as
identified by students on the first part of the worksheet.
 Remind students that good storytelling relates details of plot, character, and
setting in both vivid and familiar terms; this principle holds for novelists as well
as spinners of oral tales.
EXTENSION: CREATING PERSONAL SHORT S TORIES USING: EYE DIALECT AND FAMILY
FOLKLORE NARRATIVES
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Individual Practice:
 Students will create their own short stories were they draw on their own folk traditions
and folk group affiliations to create believable characters, social relationships, conflicts,
and dialogue.
o Refer them to Chapters Five and Six of Their Eyes Were Watching God, which
contain some of Hurston's liveliest evocations of folk life, for use as models.
 Challenge students to create short stories in which eye dialect, traditional
narratives such as jokes or family stories, and other aspects of oral
tradition figure prominently.
Classroom Discussion:
 Discuss how their stories are similar to or different from Hurston's narrative in Their Eyes
Were Watching God.
 Asking the following questions:
o How easy or hard was it to portray their own folk life in writing?
o How well do they think they did?
o How important is it to get the details right?
o Where else in their reading have they seen authors incorporate aspects of
traditional life into their fiction?
Assessment Plan for Unit
Lesson One:
 Completed Worksheet, “Folklore in THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD”
 Classroom discussion: Folklore Terminology
 Small Group Work: Student understands what constitutes membership within folk groups
 Homework: Creative project
Lesson Two:
 Classroom Discussion: Discerning if students understand the concepts of transcribing
while I model the behavior
 Small Groups: Students transcribe an assigned piece of music
 Small Groups: Students transcribe an assigned piece of music into an “eye dialect”
 Classroom Discussion: Who is the target audience for the novel?
Lesson Three:
 Small Groups: Students transcribe one of Hurston’s transcriptions into a live
performance.
 Small Groups: Students will write and perform “Why Women Always Take Advantage
of Men”
 Classroom Discussion: I will assess understanding based on classroom discussion.
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
Small Group” Have groups complete the worksheet, “Their Eyes Were Watching God
and the Folktale."
Lesson Extension:
 Individual Practice: Students write their own personal folktale synthesizing the elements
they have learned over the unit.
 Classroom Discussion: Students will read their stories aloud and audience will
compare/contrast to Their Eyes Were Watching God through a series of questions.
Materials Needed for Unit
LESSON ONE: FOLKLORE AND TRADITIONAL LIFE IN THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
Handout— Folklore: Some Useful Terminology
Computer with Internet Capabilities
Handout—Websites: “Resources for Research: Lesson One” This will act as a listing of
preapproved websites for students to visit. The handout will include: “ETHNIC AND CULTURAL
GROUPS RECORDED BY THE WPA IN FLORIDA” and Zora Neale Hurston Biographical Resources
Paper
Pen
Hearing Impaired Student’s personal assistive learning device
Rubric for Creative Project
LESSON TWO: FOLK SONG AND FOLK NARRATIVE: ORALITY , PERFORMANCE, AND
TRANSCRIPTION
Audio Files: Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections
Audio File: “LET THE DEAL GO DOWN ”
Computer for each group with internet capabilities and sound/speakers
Handout: “Resources for Research: Lesson Two”
MULES AND MEN by Zora Neale Hurston
Paper
Pen
Hearing Impaired Student’s personal assistive learning device
LESSON THREE : HURSTON AND S TORYTELLING
Handout: “Resources for Research: Lesson Three”
“WHY WOMEN A LWAYS TAKE A DVANTAGE OF MEN” by Zora Neale Hurston
“HOW NEGROES GOT T HEIR FREEDOM” by Zora Neale Hurston
“WHY THEY A LWAYS U SE RAWHIDE ON A MULE ” by Zora Neale Hurston
“HOW A LOVING COUPLE WAS PARTED” by Zora Neale Hurston
Completed Worksheet—“Folklore in THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD” from Lesson One
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Paper
Pen
Hearing Impaired Student’s personal assistive learning device
Drama Rubric
EXTENSION: CREATING PERSONAL SHORT S TORIES USING: EYE DIALECT AND FAMILY
FOLKLORE NARRATIVES
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD by Zora Neale Hurston
Paper
Pen
Hearing Impaired Student’s personal assistive learning device
Rubric for Personal Folktale
Resources for Unit
Source for Original Unit Plan: http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=407
Book: THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD by Zora Neale Hurston
Handouts—
“Resources for Research: Lesson One;”
“Resources for Research: Lesson Two;”
“Resources for Research: Lesson Three;”
“Resources for Research: Extension”
Grading Rubrics for: Creative project; Drama; Personal Folktale
Folklore: Some Useful Terminology
(PDF Available at http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson_images/lesson407/folkloreterms.pdf)
“THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD and the Folktale”
(PDF Available at http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson_images/lesson407/folkloreworksheet.pdf)
Internet Research Links—
Zora Neale Hurston Biographical Resources
(http://www.ipl.org/div/litcrit/bin/litcrit.out.pl?au=hur-71)
Page of Resources on THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
(http://www.ipl.org/div/litcrit/bin/litcrit.out.pl?ti=the-6)
“A WELL UNTAPPED: BLACK FOLKTALES OF THE OLD SOUTH ”
(http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/featured_articles/19990522friday.html)
“THE WORLD IN A J UG AND A S TOPPER IN HER HAND: THEIR EYES AS BLUES PERFORMANCE ”
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2838/is_n3_32/ai_21232161/)
“LEGENDS AND LORE: UNDERSTANDING AND CREATING FOLK TALES IN THE LANGUAGE ARTS
CLASSROOM” (http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/)
“WIRED FOR BOOKS: COMMUNITY RECONSIDERED”
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Unit/Lesson Plan
(http://wiredforbooks.org/zora.htm)
“ETHNIC AND CULTURAL GROUPS RECORDED BY THE WPA IN FLORIDA ”
(http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/florida/ffgroups.html)
An anthology by Zora Neale Hurston MULES AND MEN
(http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Grand-Jean/Hurston/Chapters/index.html)
“WHY WOMEN ALWAYS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF MEN” by Zora Neale Hurston
(http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Grand-Jean/Hurston/Chapter2.html#women)
“HOW NEGROES GOT THEIR FREEDOM ” by Zora Neale Hurston
(http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Grand-Jean/Hurston/Chapter5.html#5)
“WHY THEY ALWAYS USE RAWHIDE ON A MULE” by Zora Neale Hurston
(http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Grand-Jean/Hurston/Chapter7.html#7)
“HOW A LOVING COUPLE WAS PARTED ” by Zora Neale Hurston
(http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Grand-Jean/Hurston/Chapter10.html#6)
“AMERICAN M ASTERS: ZORA NEALE HURSTON”
(http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/zora-neale-hurston/jump-at-the-sun/93/)
Audio Files:
Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections
(http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/florida/)
“LET THE DEAL GO DOWN”
(http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Grand-Jean/Hurston/LOC/music/deal.html)
Lesson Plan: Two
Folk Song and Folk Narrative: Orality, Performance, and Transcription
Lesson Length: (2) 90 minute class periods
Objectives
The objectives for Lesson Two include the following:
 The ability to transcribe oral narratives into written ones with 85% accuracy
 Note-taking with 85% accuracy
 Understanding the relationship between the spoken and written word with 85% accuracy
 Understanding the concept of “eye dialect” with 85% accuracy
 Ability to compare/contrast “eye dialect” to “standard English” with 85% accuracy
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TEKS for Lesson Plan
English III
1. Reading/Vocabulary Development: A, B, C, E
2. Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Theme and Genre: A, B, C
5. Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Fiction: A, B, C
13. Writing/Writing Process: A, C, D, E
14. Writing/Literary Texts: A, C
23. Research/Organizing and Presenting Ideas: A
24. Listening and Speaking/Listening: A, B
25. Listening and Speaking/Speaking
26. Listening and Speaking/Teamwork.
United States History Studies since Reconstruction
5. History: A
20. Culture: A, B, C
21. Culture: A, C, D
Anticipatory Focus
Students will begin this unit by reading Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, THEIR EYES WERE
WATCHING GOD. Additionally, they will then complete lesson one which will provide students
with the necessary scaffolding tools for lesson two.
Setting Expectations
1. The teacher discusses the goals of the lesson
a. to understand the difference between oral and written narratives
b. to learn how to transcribe oral narratives through note-taking skills
c. to become fluent in “eye language”
2. The teacher outlines the responsibilities of the students during the lesson:
a. to listen to their assigned audio files in a quiet, responsible manner
b. to work together with the others on your team
c. to speak respectfully and work together to help everyone solve the problems
d. work together to listen to all the materials and finish all the assignments in the
time allotted
3. The teacher outlines the consequences of unacceptable behavior.
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Unit/Lesson Plan
Modeling
The teacher will model how to transcribe oral narrative into a written narrative with the first half
of the song, “Let the Deal Go Down.” The teacher will demonstrate to the entire class how to
listen to smaller portions of the song and write down what is heard. The class will then work
together to transcribe the last part of the song to allow them experience.
Once the basic transcription of the song has been completed, the teacher will demonstrate a
deeper understanding of the text by applying the following terms: tone, pacing, and dynamics.
Checking for Understanding
The instructor will check for understanding through:
1) Student’s will trade transcriptions with other small groups and read each group’s
transcriptions aloud
2) Student’s will apply specific questions to determine the quality of the transcription
3) Students will evaluate Hurston’s own transcriptions and what they imply the novel’s
target audience really is
Extension
Students may extend the lesson by engaging in "ethnographic spying," interviewing or listening
to their friends with tape recorder and/or notebook in hand to record credible and accurate details
of folk speech. Then the students can determine if their own folk groups have a specific “eye
language” or “group speak.”
Technology Integrated into Lesson Plan
Students within their small groups will utilize computers with both internet capabilities and
audio functions to listen to oral narratives.
Provisions for Students with Special Needs within Lesson Plan
In my classroom, I have one student who is not deaf but does have difficulty hearing. For this
student, I would request a personal assistive learning device which can help amplify sound for
this student. This will make their participation within the lesson more mainstream.
www.comtek.com
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