Angelou, Maya. (1997). I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York: Bantam Books, 290 pp.

Grade Range: 10-12

Genre: Nonfiction

Summary and Critique

Regarded by many to be the greatest work of one of America's greatest living authors, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the tragic yet heart-warming story of Maya Angelou's life from birth to young adulthood. Angelou lacked a stable home environment, shuffling between her grandparents, her mother, and her father, with her best friend and brother, Bailey. A bright and capable child, eight-year-old Angelou is physically and emotionally devastated when her mother's boyfriend raped her. She shuts herself off to the world, speaking only to Bailey for years, until a kind and loving teacher pulls her out of her silence. Angelou eventually moves to California, where her adventures include running away from home, getting pregnant, and becoming the first African-American streetcar conductor in San Francisco.

Beautifully written from a first-person point of view, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is powerful and captivating. Because of the novel's mature subject matter, though, it should only be studied with older students; middle and early high school students might miss the novel's beauty amidst the ugliness of the events it describes.

Themes/ Topics

Families

Generations

Race, Ethnicity, and Culture

Challenges and Triumphs

The Individual vs. Society

Author/Illustrator/Editor Information

Maya Angelou has had a distinguished career as a poet, novelist, activist, singer, historian, and actress. Her autobiography spans five best-selling volumes, of which I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the first. Her contribution to American literature and culture was honored during Bill Clinton's first inauguration, when Angelou read her poem,"On the Pulse of the Morning," before a national audience. Angelou is a professor of American History at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.

For more information on Maya Angelou:

http://www.mayaangelou.com This official site for Maya Angelou offers biographical information and a video clip of Angelou's interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Media Connections

Movies/ Documentaries

A Time to Kill (1996) This film portrays the tragic domino effect created by the rape of a child on the victim herself, her family, and her community.

Steetwise (1984) This film tells the story of a group of homeless teenage runaways similar to the group with which Angelou lived for a month.

The Color Purple (1985) Criticized by some for being too critical of African-American men, this movie portrays a strong woman forced to overcome deep brutality.

Once Upon a Time...When We Were Colored (1996) This film depicts an African-American community from the 1940s to the Civil Rights Movement.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) A classic film that depicts racial tensions in the South through the eyes of children.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1979) Produced Angelou's blessing (and collaboration), this film rendition of the novel was originally made for TV.

The West (1996) This Ken Burns and Stephen Ives documentary focuses on the struggles of Native Americans.

The Fights in the Fields (1977) This documentary focuses on the United Farmworkers Union and its founder, Caesar Chavez.

Television

My Brother and Me – any episode. First aired on Nickelodeon in the mid-90s, this critically-acclaimed show focused on the close relationship between two African-American siblings.

Saturday Night Live – January 12^th, 2002; host: Josh Hartnett. During the Weekend Update segment, Tracy Morgan gives a fall-down hilarious impersonation of Maya Angelou reading her Hallmark greeting cards.

Music/ Audio Recordings

"Young Woman's Blues." Lyrics by Bessie Smith. From Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Volume 3, 1992. (first-person account of the difficult life of an African-American woman from the South)

Online Resources

http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/angelou.htm A collection of lesson plans and ideas for units centered around I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Maya Angelou's other works.

http://www.newsun.com/angelou.html An interview with Angelou by David Frost.

http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/angelou/maya_mmm.mov An audio recording of Angelou's address at the Million Man March

http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/stats.htm A listing of statistics concerning child abuse and online resources for victims of child abuse.

http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/home.htm A multimedia history of segregation in America.

http://www.divorcesource.com/info/children/children.shtml Vast resources for youth whose parents are separated.

http://www.pbs.org/theblues/ This site accompanies Martin Scorsese's documentary about the role of blues music in American culture; it has classroom resources and a great deal of information about blues music.

Related Texts

Gallo, Donald R. (Ed.). (1997). No Easy Answers: Short Stories About Teenagers Making Tough Choices. New York: Delacorte, 323pp. This anthology features sixteen stories about teenagers facing difficult decisions, including ones concerning blackmail, sexual urges, gang violence, and, most appropriately for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, unwanted pregnancy.

Hurston, Zora Neale. (2000). Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper Collins, 231pp. Required reading for most high school and college students, Hurston's classic novel paints a portrait of the Depression-era South through the eyes of a strong, intelligent African-American woman.

Tashlik, Phyllis (Ed.). (1994). Hispanic, Female, and Young: An Anthology. Houston: Piñata Books, 217pp. This collection of poems from Las Mujeres Hispanas, a group of Latina teenagers living in New York City, offers a first-person perspective of life as a minority woman in America. Several of the poems focus on coping with racism and misogynism.

Morrison, Toni. (1970). The Bluest Eye. New York: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston, 164pp. Morrison's first novel tells the tragic story of Pecola Breedlove, a little girl who was driven to insanity after being raped by her father. This beautifully written but troubling novel (which, like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, shouldn't be read by younger students) speaks volumes about the permanent emotional scars sexual abuse leaves behind.

Salinger, J.D. (1951). The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Modern Library, 277pp. This would be a great supplementary text for an in-depth study of the period in Angelou's life in which she ran away from home; students could compare/ contrast the two protagonists. Due to frequent adult language, The Catcher in the Rye is not recommended for younger students.

Williams, Cecil J. (1995). Freedom and Justice: Four Decades of the Civil Rights Struggles as Seen by a Black Photographer of the Deep South. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 247pp. Pictures speak louder than words, especially for the "television generation." Students could write their own captions to the pictures, or a short story with the people in the pictures as characters.

Honey, Maureen (Ed.). (1989). Shadowed Dreams: Women's Poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 238pp. This anthology features poems from over thirty African-American women; students could select a poem and"match" it with a certain chapter or event in the novel, or take the perspective of a character in the novel and respond to a poem.

Teaching Ideas

(1) "Literature Panels" Divide the class into groups of three and assign each group four successive chapters from the novel; each group should study their assigned chapters in-depth. When the time comes to discuss the chapters assigned to them, each group will convene at the front of room and field questions from their classmates (which are to be prepared ahead of time) without the use of notes or the text itself. The goal is to teach students how to answer (and ask) complex, thought-provoking questions. [Summarized from "Literature Panels" by Thomas J. Kinsella in Classroom Notes Plus. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. November 1988, pp. 3-4.]

(2) "Tampering with Tone" Select a handful of passages from the novel. Read a passage aloud to the class and ask the students to identify its tone (and jot down specific words or phrases from the text to back up their claim). Use the students'results to start a discussion on the importance of tone and the deliberate decisions authors make to establish it. After the discussion, instruct the students as a group to change the tone of the earlier passage by changing the "key words" they identified; for further practice, ask students to choose a pre-selected passage, identify its tone, and change it using their own words. [Summarized from "Tampering with Tone" by Helen M. Griffin in Classroom Notes Plus. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. January 1988, p. 5.]

(3) "Literature Journals" Select a handful of passages from the novel, preferably ones in which something critical to the plot or the main characters'development occurs. Instruct students to write a journal entry from the perspective of a character featured in one of the passages; have them describe not only what happened, but how it made the character feel. For further study, instruct students to choose another passage and another character. [Summarized from "Literature Journals" by Myron Bietz in Classroom Notes Plus. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. November 1986, pp. 6-7.]

(Review written by Parker Cragg and edited by Jennifer E. Moore)