Lesson Plans
October 11--14
English 10
Purpose: students will work collaboratively, in small
groups, to create media presentations on either a
thematic, character, tone, comparison w/other piece/s
of literature or historical background for the Langston
Hughes short story “Cora Unashamed.”
Teacher
Students
Continue lesson in progress -- mini
research project -- on CORA
UNASHAMED. Students will work
on project two days this week.
Students will continue working on
media presentation for topic they
chose on CORA UNASHAMED. By
the end of this week students should
be ready to present during the first
Bell 3 will start project and finish in a week in 2nd quarter.
week and a half.
Students will spend some time
looking at scoring rubric for the
project.
Assignments and handouts are
attached to this lesson plan.
Scoring rubric is also attached.
1
different from watching the movie? What
are the advantages and disadvantages of
each medium?
RESEARCH TOPIC/ASSIGNMENTS FOR “Cora
Unashamed” After Viewing
1. In a class or small-group discussion,
compare and contrast the story and
the film. Discuss the similarities and
differences between characters,
tone, and setting. Why do you think
the filmmakers chose to change
certain things? What do you think of
their choices?
2.
Discuss the title of the story. What are some
of the things about which Cora is unashamed?
Why? Who else in the story is unashamed?
Who's ashamed? What do you think Langston
Hughes is trying to
say about shame?
3. When Josephine
is born at the
start of the film,
Cora's mother
says, "Ain't no
good come out
of white and
colored love."
How is this
statement supported and/or
challenged by what happens in the
film?
4. Examine the relationships in the film.
Discuss Cora's relationship with Joe, with
Jessie, with Mrs. Studevant, and with Mr.
Studevant. How is race a factor in each
one? Is it irrelevant in any way? Compare
and contrast the "couples" in the film
(Cora and Joe, Jessie and Willie, and Mr.
and Mrs. Studevant). How does race
and/or class affect each of these
relationships?
5. Discuss what happens to Willie and
his family. How is their situation
similar to Cora's? How do you think
the experience of immigrants to the
United States is similar to the
experience of African Americans?
How is it different?
6. Ask students to compare and contrast
literature and film using examples from
Cora Unashamed and other film
adaptations (either in an essay or
discussion). How is reading the story
7. Have students think about a
personal relationship or situation in
which race or class was or is a
factor. Ask them to write about the
relationship/situation and how it
was or is impacted by race or class.
How might the relationship or
situation have been different in
Cora's time?
8.
Assign small groups one or two other stories
in Langston Hughes's short story collection,
The Ways of White
Folks. After reading
the story, have
groups discuss how
black and white
worlds collide in each
narrative. How does
each group view the
other and why? How
do the relationships
in the story create
tension? Ask each
group to present a
summary of their story and discussion to the
rest of the class. To extend the activity,
students can also do research projects on how
black and white worlds mix today (one
suggested resource is the New York Times'
15-part series, "How Race Is Lived in
America.")
http://www.google.com/search?q=How+Race
+is+lived+in+America++NYT&sourceid=ie7&rl
s=com.microsoft:en-us:IESearchBox&ie=&oe=
9. Have students look at the Harlem
Renaissance
(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/master
piece/americancollection/cora/harle
m.html) section to identify other
artists from the era. Ask them to
choose a work by one of these
artists (e.g., a song, painting, poem,
novel, or short story). In an essay,
have them compare and contrast the
work with "Cora Unashamed." Have
them address the differences and
similarities between the works'
subjects, themes, characters, and
style. How were these works
2
important to their era? How are they
still important today?
10. Have the class read Professor Phyllis
Palmer's article, Race, Sex, and
Housework in the 1930s. How do
students think Cora and Mrs. Studevant
are different from domestics and their
employers today? Consider having
students debate the role of domestic help
in our culture using examples from Cora,
Palmer's article, and personal
experiences.
11.
Using the Langston Hughes
timeline and other resources, have
students research the life of the
author. Have students read his poem
"I, Too" and/or other poetry, fiction, and
nonfiction by the author. For a collection
of the author's poetry (including "I,
Too"), see Vintage Classics' Selected
Poems of Langston Hughes. Discuss how
the author's life and times are reflected
in his writing. What makes his work
uniquely African American? What makes
it uniquely American?
I, Too
by Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed -I too, am America
Cora Unashamed: Race, Sex and Housework
in the 1930s
by Phyllis Palmer
Professor of American Studies and Women's Studies,
The George Washington University
At first glance, Cora Unashamed, the premiere film of
Masterpiece Theatre's American Collection, has a
familiar look. African American maid Cora Jenkins (Regina
Taylor) works for a demanding white family, headed by
socialite Mrs. Art Studevant (Cherry Jones). In addition to
handling all the domestic chores, Cora is in charge of, and
develops a loving relationship with, the youngest Studevant
child, Jessie (Ellen Muth). Cora's race and sex disqualify her
from social equality with her employers, but tragedy reveals
her to be their moral superior.
But there's a twist to this tale. Langston Hughes's short story
of the same name, "Cora Unashamed," is told from the black
perspective, a novel approach to storytelling at the time of its
publication in 1934. Hughes made use of stock characters
familiar to black and white audiences, but transformed them.
Hughes's short story collection, The Ways of White Folks, in
which "Cora Unashamed" first appeared, was revelatory for its
presentation of reality as experienced by black protagonists.
During the 1930s, through the wildly popular, still relatively
new, medium of film, Hollywood entertained audiences with
set images of black Americans. While white characters could
inhabit many walks of life, blacks were generally cast as
servants, entertainers, or comic foils. The movies certainly
didn't invent these images; they merely picked up where
literature left off, drawing on the same stereotypes that
authors and performers had used for decades.
It seemed Hughes, on first read, was no different. He filled his
story with details that would reassure white readers of its
accuracy and truth. Here was Cora, a black maid for a socially
superior white family, the Studevants. Their moral superiority
was guaranteed as well: Cora had given birth to a child out of
wedlock. Furthermore, in accord with the popular expectations
of the period, Cora's devotion to her employers' white child
appeared to be boundless. But Hughes was not interested in
telling a story that white authors had been telling for years.
Instead, he subverted the presumed relationship of white
(flawless) protagonists and their black (flawed) foils. Seen
from the servant's perspective, all this information takes on a
different meaning and transforms the typical popular image of
superior whites being served by inferior blacks. While Cora
Jenkins is a servant -- and the lowliest social creature on the
white scale at that, the domestic, or maid -- she is neither
childlike nor unthinking, as black servants were so often
depicted in film and literature of the time. Cora's point of view,
candid and courageous, reveals more about the truths of life
in the Studevant household than her white, middle-class
employers would wish to acknowledge, even to themselves.
Melton, Iowa, the setting of the story, is "one of those
miserable in-between little places, not large enough to be a
town, nor small enough to be a village -- that is, a village in
the rural, charming sense of the word." The Jenkins family -Cora's parents, siblings, and Cora herself -- are socially and
economically isolated, the only black family in town. The role
that Cora plays later in the story, in the Studevant home, is
not unlike the one she plays in her own, except that "she ate
better" with the Studevants. The eldest of eight children, Cora
was essentially a maid for her family: "She always had a little
brother, or a little sister in her arms," Hughes explains. An
ailing mother and alcoholic father do not provide much
stability for the family, and in the eighth grade, Cora quits
school to work for the well-to-do white Studevants. Once
again, in keeping with prevalent popular-culture images, Cora
is quiet and obedient -- "humble," Hughes calls her. Cora's
humility, however, doesn't derive from some native
subservience, but from the calculations of self-preservation.
3
To complain to her employers, who treat her badly but not too
badly, would be to risk having to work for "poorer white folks
who would treat her worse," or to be out of work entirely.
And to be out of work entirely is not an option for Cora, for
she supports her family. Opportunity comes to Cora, as it did
to many non-white women at the time, in the form of the
"maid of all work" job. According to popular magazines and
household manuals of the '30s, middle-class white
householders relied on the maid of all work to handle not only
the physically hardest tasks (except window-cleaning, usually
left to men), but often to work 18-hour days, with no breaks.
Cora's workday mirrors real-life schedules reported by
domestic workers to the U.S. Women's Bureau. One worker
outlined her Saturday:
Got up at 5:15, fixed furnace, got breakfast,
made beds, polished nickel in bathroom and
kitchen, polished tub and other fixtures; took floor
brush, scrubbed and polished tile floor in
bathroom, scrubbed and polished floor in kitchen,
washed windows, wiped woodwork, scrubbed and
polished steps to basement and washed
banisters. Swept all walks and front porch,
washed silk stocking, went to grocery, helped
make peanut bread; trimmed dried beef, washed
vegetables, put things away, scrubbed eggs, cut
up vegetables to put in soup, fixed supper, made
salad and desert. Washed dishes.
To Cora the litany of demands is a never-ending refrain:
"Cora, come here... Cora, put... Cora... Cora... Cora! Cora!"
There seems no limit to Mrs. Studevant's demands on Cora's
time.
Once again, Hughes's Cora shares much with "real" women of
her social standing, or lack thereof. Especially for women of
color, who were limited by racial discrimination and who
constituted the majority of domestic workers as early as 1920,
domestic employment ranked as a major occupation. By the
'20s, many white women had obtained more "respectable"
jobs in retail sales, offices, or factories. By contrast, the 1930
Census revealed that domestic work was a primary occupation
for African American, Mexican American, Japanese American,
and Native American women.
Working conditions and wages were often disputed. But under
Franklin Roosevelt, Depression and New Deal policies brought
about enormous improvements for American workers as the
government responded to labor union demands for shorter
hours and better wages. By 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act
set a federal floor for minimum wages and a ceiling for hours
for all workers in businesses that fell under Congress's
regulatory purview of interstate commerce. Throughout the
debates leading to the legislation, domestic workers sought
inclusion as workers comparable to anyone in a factory, store,
or business. Congress, however, continued to exclude them
from hour and wage coverage. Only in the aftermath of Civil
Rights and during the Women's Movement in the 1970s did
domestic workers gain hours and wages and Social Security
coverage. Hughes never veers into such overtly political
territory, though, and Cora doesn't benefit from such
regulations.
Ironically, Mrs. Studevant's prominence depends very much on
Cora's efficient housework and child care. Hughes imbues Mrs.
Studevant with all the qualities an upstanding lady needed.
She is "the civic and social leader of Melton, president of the
Woman's Club three years straight, and one of the pillars of
the church." The white middle-class housewife's status derived
from her presumed moral virtue and her valuable community
and charity work -- not to mention her clean home. Cora is not
merely an extension of the wife's work, as domestic work was
often categorized; she is actually the source of cleanliness
and, for Jessie, comfort in the Studevant home.
Hughes describes this white, middle-class reliance on women
domestics accurately. A Fortune magazine survey late in the
1930s reported that "70% of the rich, 42% of the upper
middle class, and 14% of the lower middle class" hired
domestic workers. In addition, my own research into mid1930s family spending shows that the wife's educational level
correlated with the hiring of domestic servants. Women with
more education and greater possibilities of paid or volunteer
employment regularly hired less well-educated women, and
usually those with options limited by racial discrimination, to
take over housework. Because middle-class educated women
gained reputation outside the home only if they also kept their
homes immaculate and their children well dressed and well
fed, their achievements depended directly on the availability
and competence of unheralded domestic workers.
Rearing children was considered part of running the home.
"Like all the unpleasant things in the house," Hughes explains,
"Jessie was left to Cora." Jessie does not fit into the idealized
world that Mrs. Studevant, with Cora's behind-the-scenes
help, so carefully cultivates. In developing the relationship
between Cora and Jessie, Hughes undercuts the popular ideal,
epitomized in Shirley Temple movies, that white, well-dressed,
mannerly children were so beautiful and superior that any
servant would prefer these "angels" to her own children.
Instead, Cora fills the gap left by her own daughter's early
death with love for Jessie, who has been emotionally
abandoned by her parents and siblings. Cora needs someone
to love, and Jessie needs someone to love her. Their
relationship is grounded in the similarity of their characters
and circumstances, not in Cora's putting a higher value on a
white child than a black one.
And it is love. Cora bathes and clothes the little white baby -and perhaps more importantly, keeps her in the kitchen out of
her mother's sight. Having given birth to her own daughter at
the same time, Cora nurses Jessie, too, on Mrs. Studevant's
instructions, even though when the unmarried Cora's
pregnancy had begun to show, Mrs. Studevant banished her
from the Studevants' "proper" home. A callous mother, Mrs.
Studevant despairs of "dull little Jessie," who hasn't the wit
and talent to follow her mother's social lead. Concerned above
all with her social position, Mrs. Studevant leaves Jessie to
Cora's care and teaching, where Jessie thrives.
Cora knows that only the social aspects of intimate
relationships are bound by race. Her relationship with Jessie is
indicative of this: "In her heart," Hughes writes, "she had
adopted [Jessie]." In her heart, perhaps, but Cora was, of
course, forbidden to make any decisions regarding the girl's
welfare. Similarly, not sex, but marriage, adheres to racial
barriers. The father of Cora's only child, Josephine, is white.
"[Cora] had never known a colored lover," Hughes wrote.
"There weren't any around. That was not her fault." She
knows that even after pregnancy, marriage is not an option.
"[S]he hadn't expected to marry Joe, or keep him. He was of
that other world... But the child was hers -- a living bridge
between two worlds."
4
While Cora may view Josephine as a bridge between black and
white, the child's very existence marked Cora as "immoral."
Popular-culture movie models, for instance, encouraged
women to be sexy but not "loose." Girls learned to attract men
coyly, to allow a bit of "petting," but always to keep them at
an elegantly gloved arm's length. Katharine Hepburn, Myrna
Loy, and Ginger Rogers were stars who, on the big screen,
dressed in fashionably revealing clothes, yet never had sexual
relations, or even serious kisses, except with their husbands -and sometimes not even with them. In her simple honesty,
Cora has had sex with a man who shows her affection and
kindness, she accepts her pregnancy, and she devotes love to
her baby. Much as Cora enters into a relationship that can
never reach the "proper" conclusion of marriage, Jessie
chooses a boyfriend -- and a future -- socially suspect because
of his dark, Greek complexion.
According to Hughes's biographer, Arnold Rampersad,
Sherwood Anderson remarked in a review of The Ways of
White Folks: "My hat is off to you in relation to your own race,'
but not in relation to the whites, who were caricatures."
Anderson may have had a point that Hughes was not
particularly interested in presenting a white point of view;
after all, that viewpoint dominated the media of the era.
Despite the fact that the behavior Hughes depicts is accurate
and backed up by research, it's true that Mrs. Studevant is
largely a caricature. But the same could be said for Cora's
father (not portrayed in the dramatization), who "passed the
evenings telling long, comical stories to the white riff-raff of
the town, and drinking licker." Even as he indulged some
popular stereotypes, Hughes was rewriting an unbalanced
cultural picture. He created a heroine unashamed of her work
and of her sexuality. In doing so, he provided a liberating
vision of womanhood for all women.
Phyllis Palmer, a Professor of American Studies and Women's
Studies at The George Washington University, is the author of
Domesticity and Dirt: Housewives and Domestic Servants in
the United States, 1920-1945 (1990) and other articles and
essays about domestic workers and housework.
The Well-Appointed House
A gem of a house may be no size at all, but its
lines are honest, and its painting and window
curtains in good taste. As for its upkeep, its path
or sidewalk is beautifully neat, steps scrubbed,
brasses polished, and its bell answered promptly
by a trim maid with a low voice and quiet
courteous manner; all of which contributes to the
impression of "quality" even though it in nothing
suggests the luxury of a palace whose opened
bronze door reveals a row of powdered footmen.
children whose whole lives are influenced by her
example, especially where busy parents give only
a small portion of time to their children.
From Etiquette, by Emily Post, 1922
Madam and Her Madam
by Langston Hughes
from The Selected Poems of Langston Hughes
I worked for a woman,
She wasn't mean-But she had a twelve-room
House to clean.
Had to get breakfast,
Dinner, and Supper, too-Then take care of her children
When I got through.
Wash, iron, and scrub,
Walk the dog around-It was too much,
Nearly broke me down.
I said, Madam,
Can it be
You trying to make a
Pack-horse out of me?
She opened her mouth.
She cried, Oh, no!
You know, Alberta,
I love you so!
I said, Madam,
That may be true-But I'll be dogged
If I love you!
The Nurse...It is unnecessary to add that one can
not be too particular in asking for a nurse's
reference and in never failing to get a personal
one from the lady she is leaving. Not only is it
necessary to have a sweet--tempered, competent
and clean person, but her moral character is of
utmost importance, since she is to be the
constant and inseparable companion of the
5
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
Let America Be America Again
by Langston Hughes
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay-Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again-The land that never has been yet-And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath-America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain-All, all the stretch of these great green states-And make America again!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home-For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
6
7