200 word count- MLA Format-- 12pt Times Roman Font

Part 1: Take a look at the Literary Timeline in Lessons. Choose any work that we have read in this class and examine some of the historical events preceding its publication, according to the timeline. Discuss how one or more historical event that takes place no more than 20 years before the publication of the work might be seen as influencing the theme or overall message of the work.

Part 2: "Yet Do I Marvel" contains many classical references. Look up the meaning of one of them. Explain what that reference contributes to your understanding of the poem. How does it relate to the overall message?

Part 3: "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" also connects a people to a symbol that is timeless and 'of the earth'. This is not the first work we've seen that discusses rivers. Water is a symbol in many works. Discuss how it appears in Hughes's poem and in two other works we've read this term; what does water seem to represent in these works?

Lesson

The Harlem Renaissance

This week we will be looking at a small but powerful movement that spun out of the Modernist era. You may have heard of the infamous decade, often referred to as "The Jazz Age" or the "Roaring Twenties."

This era features Modernist fixtures like F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose novel, The Great Gatsby, captured the hard partying, flashy, glamorous, but morally shaky time between WWI and the Great Depression. Like its name suggests, the Roaring 20s was roughly from 1920-1929, before the depression came about.

The Harlem Renaissance, which was embedded in the Roaring 20s, was a flashpoint for Jazz Age African American musicians, writers, and poets to convene, inspire, and support each other. Some famous Jazz Age artists, novelists, and musicians include Duke Ellington, Zora Neale Hurston, and Louis Armstrong.