PBS has some great resources for students to check out about the Harlem Renaissance. “places referenced” Ghana, Senegal, Mali “athletes referenced “Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray” “writers referenced” Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, James Baldwin”, etc.). It can even turn into a group project because there are multiple examples of these references (e.g.

For example, the students can each pick one historical or cultural reference to research and create a poster, or a PowerPoint, or some type of visual to share with the class. An interesting way to go about covering some of this background knowledge is for teachers to have students carry out a sort of research project. The many examples of allusion that Walter Dean Myers uses in this book would require a decent amount of background knowledge for students to understand and feel the impact of this text. Through collage art, Christopher Myers depicts the everyday life of the people of Harlem: a young man shooting a jump shot on a basketball court, kids playing in the water springing from a fire hydrant, an old woman daydreaming out of her window, two young people sitting at a bus stop, a woman fixing her daughter’s hair, and ending, powerfully, with the street sign of Dr. Myers uses onomatopoeia to bring the sounds of Harlem to the reader: The uptown A rattles past 110th Street.” he uses personification show that even the wind must take notice of this captivating city: “In Harlem the wind doesn’t blow past Smalls, it stops to listen to the sounds.” Supporting Myers’ poem is the artwork of Christopher Myers, Walter Dean Myers’ son.

Alliteration, simile, imagery, and rhyme are just a few of the poetic devices used in this text to enhance the reader’s experience. Walter Dean Myers weaves history and culture into the language of his poetry. Walter Dean Myers and Christopher Myers fill this book with the sounds, sights, and spirit of those who came to Harlem. A collective “sound, a celebration, memories of feelings, a place”. And on the streets you can see “a carnival of children, stickball heroes, hide-and-seek knights and ladies, waiting to sing their own sweet songs, living out their own slam dunk dreams, listening for the coming of the blues.” Barbecues, fried fish joints, Sunday Night Gospel, collard greens. The voices of Langston, Countee, Du Bois, and Baldwin shape this city. A place where a man didn’t have to know his place simply because he was black.” Those who came to Harlem brought with them a song, first heard in the villages of Ghana and Senegal, and now left flowing through this city: “a new sound, raucous and sassy.” Religion, music, and art fill the souls of the people of this city as they hope, and pray, and sing, and paint, and write.

Harlem by Walter Dean Myers