I, Too

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.

The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken

BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Intergalactic, Planetary

"Intergalactic"

By Beastie Boys

Intergalactic Planetary Planetary Intergalactic

Another Dimension, Another Dimension

Well Now don't you tell me to smile

You stick around I'll make it worth your while

Got numbers beyond what you can dial

Maybe it's because I'm so versatile

Style profile I said

It always brings me back when I hear Ooh Child

From the Hudson River out to the Nile 

I run the marathon til the very last mile

If you battle me I will revile

People always say my style is wild

You've got gall you've got guile 

To step to me I'm a rapophile

If you want to battle your in denial

Coming from Uranus to check my style

Go ahead put my rhymes on trial

Cast you off into exile

Intergalactic planetary

Planetary intergalactic

Jazz and Awol that's our team

Step inside the party disrupt the whole scene

When it comes to beats well I'm a fiend

I like my sugar with coffee and cream

Well I got to keep it going keep it going full steam

Too sweet to be sour too nice to be mean

On the tough guy style I'm not too keen

To try to change the world I will plot and scheme

Mario C likes to keep it clean

Gonna shine like a sun beam

Keep on rapping cause that's my dream

Got an A from Moe Dee for sticking to themes

When it comes to envy y'all is green

Jealous of the rhyme and the rhyme routine

Another dimension new galaxy

Intergalactic planetary

Intergalactic planetary

Planetary intergalactic

From the family tree of old school hip hop

Kick off your shoes and relax your socks

The rhymes will spread just like a pox

Cause the music is live like an electric shock

I am known to do the Wop

Also known for the Flintstone Flop 

Tammy D getting biz on the crop

Beastie Boys known to let the beat... drop

When I wrote graffiti my name was Slop

If my rap's soup my beats is stock

Step from the tables as I start to chop

I'm a lumber jack DJ Adrock

If you try to knock me you'll get mocked

I'll stir fry you in my wok

Your knees'll start shaking and your fingers pop

Like a pinch on the neck of Mr. Spock 

Intergalactic planetary

Planetary intergalactic

Ghetto Gospel

“Ghetto Gospel” (excerpt)

By 2Pac

(The first stanza is the chorus, the second stanza is the verse)

Those who wish to follow me
I welcome with my hands
And the red sun sinks at last into the hills of gold
And peace to this young warrior without the sound of guns

If I could recollect before my hood days
I'd sit and reminisce, thinking of bliss of the good days
I stop and stare at the younger, my heart goes to 'em
They tested, it was stress that they under
And nowadays things changed
Everyone's ashamed to the youth cause the truth looks strange
And for me it's reversed, we left them a world that's cursed, and it hurts
'cause any day they'll push the button
and you all condemned like Malcolm X and Bobby Hutton, died for nothing
Don't them let me get teary, the world looks dreary
but when you wipe your eyes, see it clearly
there's no need for you to fear me
if you take your time to hear me, maybe you can learn to cheer me
it ain't about black or white, cause we're human
I hope we see the light before its ruined
my ghetto gospel

Today's Mission - Rhyming Couplets

Today, you are building up your toolbox to create an awesome, epic rap battle.

You need to write this in your Google Drive account

3 rhyming couplets on why you are so great
Be sure to use the six questions and paragraph from yesterday's homework

3 rhyming couplets on why your rhyming/rapping abilities are so great
Here, it is most effective to compare your rapping skills to your character's other accomplishments with a metaphor or simile.
Example: Icarus: "My words flow like my wings through the air / dropping down on you with crazy-mad flair"

3 rhyming couplets on why your opponent(s) are inferior
Be sure to use the six questions and paragraph from your partner's homework

1 rhyming couplet that contains an idiom.  (click here for a huuuuuge list of idioms) 

Fact Finding Mission - Epic Rap Battles

In order for you to write a good rap, you need to have convincing characters.  In order to have convincing characters, you need to show that you know a lot of detailed information about them.  Before you can begin writing, you need to be able to have a huge list of characterization facts.

a)  How can they be described physically?


b) Are there any other "homies" that usually have their back?


c) What are their (non-rap) accomplishments? (list at least 10)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.



d) What were their greatest challenges in their life?


e) How did they meet those challenges?


f) How did they make the world a "better" place (at least in their point of view).


After you have filled out this list, you can then begin to think about how your character equates their accomplishments with their rhyming or rapping abilities.

Flashcards for Monday's vocab quiz

Poetry terms you need to know

Hi kids, you are writing sonnets, "little songs," today.  They are 14-line love poems with a very specific pattern.  Here are some terms that you need to know:

Stanza - a group of lines of poetry (think of a paragraph of poetry)

Quatrain - a stanza of four lines

Couplet - a stanza of two lines that rhyme at the end.

End-Rhyme - when the last words of two or more lines of poetry rhyme with each other.

Meter - The arrangement of a line of poetry by the number of syllables and the rhythm of accented (or stressed) syllables.

Iamb - a pair of syllables in which the first syllable has a soft beat, (less emphasis) and the second syllable has a strong beat (more emphasis). (click here for more info)

Iambic Pentameter  - when a line has a five iambs in it for a total of 10 syllables.

Rhyme Scheme - a pattern of rhyming lines (end-rhyme) in a poem.

Haiku

Tonight you have to write a traditional Japanese haiku.

Haikus - traditional Japanese poetry involving strong imagery and heavy symbolism.  It is three lines, 5-7-5 syllables per line, and it involves nature and a season.  The season must be clearly identifiable.   

Examples:  Here are two of the most famous of traditional Japanese haikus.   (these are both translated from Japanese into English, so the syllables don't match the 5-7-5)  

The old pond

A frog jumps in -

The sound of water

No sky

no earth - but still

snowflakes fall.

So....as you can see, a traditional haiku really portrays one single "picture" - a frog jumping in a pond, snowflakes falling in a still sky.  However, it is a very VIVID picture...and we can tell that these pictures evoke or represent something, at least a strong feeling.  Haikus are all about saying many things with very few words.  You know how a picture is worth a thousand words...that's kind of what a haiku tries to do...lots of meaning in just three lines.

Terms you need to make and understand for an awesome haiku (yes, there will be a test on these terms, so copy them down into your notes....

Imagery- creating a strong picture with words, usually involving sensory details.

Symbolism:  Having a thing (object, season, or color) represent some bigger idea.
       Metaphor: two things compared using a form of "TO BE"
       Simile: using "like" or "as" to compare two things.

Oxymorons: when you place two "opposite" things close together to show their contrast.  To find some really good examples, click here.

Enjambment: when a line of poetry does not end in end-punctuation (periods, colons, or semicolons)

End-Stopped:  when a line of poetry does end in end-punctuation (periods, colons, or semicolons)