Grade 11 ► Unit 5
Harlem Renaissance and Modernism
DESCRIPTION OF UNIT: This six-week unit, the fifth of six, addresses early twentiethcentury American literature, including writers of the Lost Generation and the Harlem
Renaissance.
OVERVIEW
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This unit traces the emergence of American modernism, including literature from World War I,
and tracks the literature of “disillusionment” that followed the war. Students explore Robert
Frost’s vision of nature as modernist rather than transcendentalist in its perspective. They
identify the alienation of the modern man and the tensions that are embedded in the modernist
works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. The works of Countee Cullen, Langston
Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston illustrate the breadth of the Harlem Renaissance literary
movement. Informational and critical texts enrich the students’ analysis of the literary works.
FOCUS STANDARDS
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These Focus Standards have been selected for the unit from the Common Core State
Standards.
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RL.11-12.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text
says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the
text leaves matters uncertain.
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RL.11-12.6: Analyze a case in which grasping a point of view requires distinguishing what
is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or
understatement).
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RI.11-12.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text
says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the
text leaves matters uncertain.
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W.11-12.4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization,
and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for
writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above.)
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SL.11-12.5: Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and
interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and
evidence and to add interest.
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L.11-12.6: Acquire and use accurately general academic and domain-specific words and
phrases, sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career
readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when
considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression.
Common Core State Standards, ELA
SUGGESTED OBJECTIVES
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Define and explain the origins of the Harlem Renaissance.
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Explore the relationship between historical events and literature as they emerge in the works of
Harlem Renaissance poets and authors.
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Define and explain the Lost Generation, noting experimental aspects of some works.
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Note the relationship between themes in early twentieth-century American literature and
nineteenth-century American thought.
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Identify modernist ideas (using the informational texts).
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Analyze the relationship between modernist style and content.
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Examine evidence of the alienation of “modern man.”
SUGGESTED WORKS
(ASD1) indicates available text to all ASD1 American Literature Teachers
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Common Core Suggested Texts: (E) indicates a CCSS exemplar text; (EA) indicates a text from a writer with other
works identified as exemplars; (OOP) indicates a text that is no longer sold nor published.
O
LITERARY TEX TS
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Drama
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The Piano Lesson (August Wilson)
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Novels
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A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway) (E)
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As I Lay Dying (William Faulkner) (E)
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Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck) (ASD1) (EA)
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The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) (ASD1) (E)
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Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston) (ASD1) (E)
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Winesburg, Ohio (Sherwood Anderson) (selections)
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The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) (ASD1)
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Wise Blood, Flannery O’Connor
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Poets
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“Harlem,” “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “The Weary Blues,” and “I, Too” (Langston Hughes) (ASD1)
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“Mother to Son” (Langston Hughes) (EA)
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“My City” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (James Weldon Johnson) (ASD1)
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“If We Must Die” and “White Houses” (Claude McKay) (ASD1)
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“Any Human to Another” and “For a Poet” (Countee Cullen) (ASD1)
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“Storm Ending” and “November Cotton Flower” (Jean Toomer) (ASD1)
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“A Black Man Talks of Reaping” and “God Give to Men” (Arna Bontemps) (ASD1)
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“Acquainted with the Night,” “Out, Out-,” and “Nothing Gold Can Stay” (Robert Frost) (ASD1)
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“Birches” (Robert Frost) (EA)
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“Chicago” (Carl Sandburg) (ASD1)
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“Grass” (Carl Sandburg) (ASD1) (EA)
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“A High-Toned Old Christian Woman” (Wallace Stevens)
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“Conscientious Objector” (Edna St. Vincent Millay) (EA)
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“Domination of Black” (Wallace Stevens)
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“In the Dordogne” (John Peale Bishop)
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“Poetry” (Marianne Moore) (E) (ASD1)
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“Recuerdo” (Edna St. Vincent Millay) (ASD1)
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“Richard Cory” (E.A. Robinson) (EA) (ASD1)
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“Miniver Cheevy” (E.A. Robinson) (ASD1)
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“Lucinda Matlock” (Edgar Lee Masters) (ASD1)
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“Tableau” (Countee Cullen) (EA)
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“The Death of the Hired Man” (Robert Frost) (EA) (ASD1)
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“The House on the Hill” (E.A. Robinson)
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“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (T.S. Eliot) (E) (ASD1)
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“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (Langston Hughes) (EA)
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The Pisan Cantos (Ezra Pound) (selections)
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“In a Station of the Metro” (Ezra Pound) (ASD1)
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“Helen” (Helen Doolittle) (ASD1)
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“Spring and All” and “This is Just to Say” (William Carlos Williams) (ASD1)
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“The Road Not Taken” (Robert Frost) (E) (This is a CCSS exemplar text for grades 6-8.)
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“The Silent Slain” (Archibald MacLeish)
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“Yet Do I Marvel” (Countee Cullen) (E) (This is a CCSS exemplar text for grades 9-10.)
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“anyone lived in a pretty how town” (e.e. cummings) (ASD1)
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Short Stories
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“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” (Ernest Hemingway) (EA)
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“A Rose for Emily” (William Faulkner) (EA) (ASD1)
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“Hills Like White Elephants” (Ernest Hemingway) (EA)
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“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (Ernest Hemingway) (EA)
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“In Another Country” (Ernest Hemingway) (ASD1)
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“Winter Dreams” (F Scott Fitzgerald) (ASD1)
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“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” (Katherine Anne Porter) (ASD1)
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“A Worn Path” (Eudora Welty) (ASD1)
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“The Life You Save May be Your Own (Flannery O’Connor) (ASD1)
INFORMATIONA L TEXTS
Essays
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“How it Feels to be Colored Me” (Zora Neale Hurston) (ASD1)
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“A Farewell to Arms: The Impact of Irony and the Irrational” (Fred H. Marcus)
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“If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” (James Baldwin)
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“The Great Gatsby and the Twenties” (Ronald Berman)
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"Towards a Definition of American Modernism" (Daniel Joseph Singal, American Quarterly 39, Spring 1987, 7-26)
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“One Writer’s Beginnings” (Eudora Welty) (ASD1)
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“The Duty of Writers” (E. E. White) (ASD1)
Literary Criticism
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"Lee Surrenders to Grant, April 9th, 1865" (Horace Porter) (E)
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“Thoughts on the African American Novel” (Morrison, Toni) (ASD1)
Nonfiction
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"Lee Surrenders to Grant, April 9th, 1865" (Horace Porter) (E)
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“A New Kind of War” (Ernest Hemingway) (ASD1)
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“A Book of Great Short Stories” (Dorothy Parker) (ASD1)
Speeches
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"Hope Despair and Memory" (Elie Wiesel) (E)
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"State of the Union Address" (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) (E)
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Black Elk Speaks (Black Elk, as told through John G. Neihardt) (selections)
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“The Solitude of Self” (February 20, 1892) (Elizabeth Cady Stanton)
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“The Spirit of Liberty” speech at “I Am an American Day” (Learned Hand, 1944) (EA)
ART, MUSIC AN D MEDIA
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Art
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Alfred Stieglitz, From the Back Window, 291 (1915)
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Arthur Dove, Goat (1934)
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Charles Demuth, My Egypt (1927)
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Charles Sheeler, Criss-Crossed Conveyors, River Rouge Plant, Ford Motor Company (1927)
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Georgia O’Keeffe, Ram’s Head, Blue Morning Glory (1938)
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Imogen Cunningham, Calla (1929)
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Jacob Lawrence, War Series: The Letter (1946)
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Marsden Hartley, Mount Katahdin, Maine (1939-1940)
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Stuart Davis, Owh! In San Pao (1951)
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Art found in Literature Textbook (ASD1)
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Music
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Bruce Springsteen, “Glory Days,” “The Streets of Philadelphia,” and “The River”
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Brooks and Dunn, “Only in America”
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The Zombies, “A Rose for Emily”
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Lauryn Hill, “Still I Rise”
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Pearl Jam, “Who You Are”
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Jimi Hendrix, “Castles Made of Sand”
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Arrested Development, “Revolution”
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Woody Guthrie, “Tom Joad Part 1” and “Tom Joad Part 2”
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John Mellencamp, “Pink Houses”
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Media
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Zora Neale Hurston, Jump at the Sun (2008)
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“Persuasion in 1920s Ads” (2008)
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The Great Gatsby (1974) or (2013)
SAMPLE ACTIVITIES AND ASSESSMENTS
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
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Teacher’s Toolkit
Media Smart DVD
Web English Teacher
TERMINOLOGY
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Harlem Renaissance
Modernism
Imagery
Tone
Irony
Form in poetry
Meaning in poetry
Analogy
Flashback
Foreshadowing