Assignment/Activity
Title- Harlem Renaissance Brochure Year— Freshman
Skill— Writing,
Research Portfolio
Category— Social Awareness
In English class,
students had the opportunity to explore the vast artistic ideas and
inspirations that sparked a movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. This
project required open-ended research and a final product of a brochure that
would essentially inform readers about what the Harlem Renaissance was, and how
it impacted art, music, writing, and political and social aspects of its time.
With this project, starting out with basic researching proved to be harder than
it looked. I wasn’t sure of which artists, musicians, writers, or politicians I
would be interested in, so I didn’t know where to start. I searched up poems
from the Harlem Renaissance period, and found one I was fascinated by, “I Shall
Return”, by Claude McKay. I felt that this poem represented strength,
nostalgia, and a journey in life.
After learning more about
McKay, I was led to other sites and narrowed
my research easily.
After
my basic research was complete, I really became interested in the Harlem
Renaissance, and wanted to learn more. I found out fascinating facts about Claude McKay, and other
poets. I then began taking the information I had gathered and forming it into
short, educational paragraphs that would fit into a brochure. My goal was to
make the paragraphs have appealing information, but be a quick read, and easy
to understand. This was hard, because there was so much information, but as I
look back on it, I think I succeeded in my goal. Breaking down my research to
find the most important ideas was a key part in my brochure. For my rough
draft, I had to learn how to make a brochure with a template, which was tricky.
The formatting was harder than I thought it would be, and my rough draft did
not turn out as well as I would have liked. After talking with peers, I
understood how to correctly edit my brochure, and I made improvements that
would help me with my final draft.
I
think it is important for me to include this brochure in my portfolio because I
am really proud of the way it turned out, and how much I learned in the
process. My final product looked very professional, and I got a good grade,
which revealed how hard I worked. I think that it reflects how diligently I
worked on the brochure, and how the information not only affected my academic
life, but my life at home, where I began reading more poems, and writing my
own. I learned so much about the
Harlem Renaissance, such as topics like the music style of jazz, social realist
iconography, famous novels, the Civil Rights movement, and the culture of
African Americans.
For
the complete Harlem Renaissance project, I also had to read a poem to the class
and write a reflection on the experience as a whole. I was nervous to read in
front of the class, but I chose the poem I was most comfortable with, Claude
McKay’s “I Shall Return”. I was inspired by this poem, and I enjoyed it so much
that I was confident in my oral reading. In my reflection, when I wrote about
my oral presentation, I recalled that I enjoyed how not only myself, but
everyone else in my class was so thoroughly invested in reading their poem, and
everyone made their reading come alive.
If
I had to do it again, I would want to explore more in depth the other poets of
the time period. I found Claude McKay’s work so interesting, that I did not
spend a great amount of time researching other poets. I think that McKay’s work
really spoke to me, but I feel that there may have been other poems that would
have an even greater impact on me. Overall, I enjoyed this project, and I
learned so much about poetry, writing, music, politics, and I had the chance to
be creative with the design of my brochure.
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