Subject Areas |
Art and Culture
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Anthropology |
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Folklore |
History and Social Studies
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U.S. History - African-American |
Literature and Language Arts
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American |
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Fiction |
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Time Required |
| Lesson One: Two class periods
Lesson Two: Three-four class periods
Lesson Three: Two class periods
Extending the Lesson: Long-term assignment, but in-class portion can be finished within a class period
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Skills |
| Listening skills
Literary analysis and interpretation
Information gathering and research
Critical thinking
Creative writing
Collaboration
Internet skills
Reading literary texts
Drawing inferences and comparisons
Performance |
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Additional Data |
| Date Created: 07/09/02 |
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Author(s) |
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Etheljean Deal
Washington, DC
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Date Posted |
| 7/9/2002 |
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Folklore in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
IntroductionIn the years since Alice Walker's
famous "rediscovery" of Zora Neale Hurston, Hurston's work has received new and
richly deserved attention from high school English teachers. Hurston's work is
lively, lyrical, funny, and poignant, but this consummate literary craftsperson
was also a first-rate ethnographer, conducting fieldwork for Franz Boas, the father
of American anthropology, and for the Works Progress Administration. It
is not surprising, then, that Hurston's fictional output sings (sometimes literally!)
with the sounds, songs, and stories of the Southern black folk tradition. Their
Eyes Were Watching God, often acclaimed Hurston's masterpiece, is perhaps
the richest beneficiary of her work as a folklorist: its evocation of picking
in the jook joint, playing the dozens, and petitioning root doctors offers a compelling
synthesis of ethnological reality and lively characterization and setting. In
tribute to Hurston's fusion of social science and the author's art, this lesson
plan focuses on the way Hurston incorporates, adapts, transforms, and comments
on black folklife in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Students will read the
novel, explore Hurston's own life history and collection methods, listen to her
WPA recordings of folksongs and folktales, and compare transcribed folk narrative
texts with the plot and themes of Their Eyes. Along the way, the history
of black autonomy in the post-Civil War South (especially the town of Eatonville,
where Hurston grew up and which is the setting for much of the novel) is available
for interdisciplinary connections or simply as a potent reminder of the vital
relationship between place, tradition, history, and story. In short, the idea
is to understand, both as formal analysts of voice and style and as historians
of literature, the crucial role of oral folklore in Hurston's written canon. Guiding
Question:What is the relationship between formal
individual literary creativity and the informal, traditional aesthetic standards
of the writer's own community? Learning ObjectivesAfter
completing this lesson, students will be able to do the following: - Define
folklore, folk groups, tradition, and oral narrative
- Identify traditional
elements in Their Eyes Were Watching God
- Analyze and understand
the role of traditional folkways and folk speech in the overall literary impact
of the novel
- Compare Zora Neale Hurston's work as a collector of folk
narrative with her better-known status as a novelist
- Understand as both
listeners and tellers the importance of voice, pacing, and other features of performance
in oral narrative
- Transcribe orally given narrative into eye dialect.
Preparing
to Teach this Lesson- Review the lesson and
bookmark all material to be downloaded or copied. For several of the activities
described below, you will need the handout, Folklore:
Some Useful Terminology, available here as a downloadable pdf file. For two
of the exercises (1.Folklore
and Traditional Life and 2.
Folk Song and Folk Narrative.), you will need to download the worksheet, Folklore
in Their Eyes Were Watching God.
- In preparation for exercise
2, below, you may wish to review and download selections from Hurston transcriptions
of folktales: available from the EDSITEment resource American
Studies at the University of Virginia is the etext of her seminal collection
of black Southern folklore, the anthology Mules
and Men.
- Available from the EDSITEment resource Documenting
the American South are two useful survey essays that situate Hurston's work
in the twin contexts of Southern literature and folklore: "Literature
in the American South" and "Folklore in Literature" (for the second webpage,
go to "Literature in the American
South," and find "folklore" on the left sidebar). Both essays are also lucid
and introductory enough to share with students who may not have a formal education
in either field.
- For biographical material on Zora Neale Hurston, including
a chronology of her collecting and publishing enterprises, see the page
of resources on Their Eyes Were Watching God from the EDSITEment-reviewed
Internet Public Library. (Do note, however,
that the IPL accepts as authoritative the birth year of 1901, which is the year
Hurston, in her later years, would usually claim she was born; most scholars,
however, accept 1891 as the more probably authentic date. As with much else about
Hurston's life and work, separating the factual from the imaginative can be tricky!)
Also available from the IPL's resource
page on Hurston is a link to an article, originally published in African
American Review, entitled "The
World in a Jug and a Stopper in Her Hand: Their Eyes as Blues Performance."
The article traces elements of the blues oral tradition in the novel and is an
excellent resource for teachers looking either to challenge advanced classes with
sophisticated literary criticism or to forge interdisciplinary links with music.
Also available through the resources of the Internet
Public Library are the archives of the New York Times, where you can find
a fascinating article discussing Hurston's collecting endeavors: "A
Well Untapped: Black Folktales of the Old South." Also available from the
archives is a lesson plan, "Legends
and Lore: Understanding and Creating Folk Tales in the Language Arts Classroom."
- Teachers looking for a broader literary consideration of Their Eyes
will find a stimulating roundtable discussion transcribed at Wired
for Books: Community Reconsidered, a link on the EDSITEment resource, Center
for the Liberal Arts; among other topics, the discussants, who are Ohio University
professors, explore the role and nature of community in the novel, a perspective
very useful for instructors seeking insights into Hurston's creation and exploration
of folk social dynamics in her fiction.
Suggested
Activities
This lesson is designed to be used
in conjunction with a thorough reading and discussion of Their Eyes Were Watching
God from a more conventional textual viewpoint. It also assumes that students
are familiar with the broad outlines of Hurston's biography, which is widely available
in biographical reference anthologies and on the Web. The
following lesson steps assume that students have already read (or have gotten
at least as far as Chapter Six in) Their Eyes Were Watching God. 1.
Folklore and Traditional Life in Their Eyes Were Watching God - Begin
by sharing Folklore: Some
Useful Terminology with students. While assigning students to read a lengthy
term sheet straight through is probably both punitive and counterproductive, teachers
should make sure to cover the terms culture, tradition, narrative, orality
and performance (listed in that order under "The Basics"); the sections on
"Folklore and Its Component Terms" and "What Isn't Folklore?" in their entirety;
and the genres of folktale, Märchen, legend, and ballad from the
section entitled "A Few Folk Narrative Genres." A good approach with many of these
terms, especially culture, tradition, and narrative, is to have
students define them first—on the board, in writing, or in conversation with the
teacher and with other students—before showing them the more formal definitions.
The likelihood that students' own informal definitions are largely correct is
empowering and a good place to start stressing the idea that everyone belongs
to multiple folk groups and everyone possesses lore.
- When students have
a solid understanding of the meanings of these terms, ask them to work together
in small groups to identify their own membership in folk groups. Remind them that,
broadly defined, a folk group is any two or more people who share at least one
common factor. Students will likely find they belong to a diverse array of folk
groups constituted along lines of gender, class, family, age, and interests. Then
ask each small group to identify as specifically as possible a folk group
to which all the members belong (bonus points for wit if they identify the small
group to which you just assigned them). Once they've chosen such a group, ask
them to list as many of the traditions that unite that folk group as they can,
and then have them categorize their shared lore by genre—is it folk speech, folk
narrative, folk belief, folk costume, calendar customs, etc.?
- After students
have a firm idea of how the basic concepts of folklore studies relate to their
own lives, assign them the following task: review as much of Their Eyes Were
Watching God as they've already read, looking for both as many distinct folk
groups as they can find and for the traditions that bind those folk groups together.
To which genres of folklore do those traditional practices belong? This assignment
would work well as homework, allowing students an opportunity to consider parts
of the novel they've already read from a different critical perspective. You could
also require that students present their findings in a more formal way—a handout
of some kind, a multimedia display, or simply an oral presentation. Teachers with
large groups of students or limited time may find it most useful to break the
novel up into sections, assigning different students or groups of students responsibility
for different chapters; alternately, having students consider the same chapters
allows them to cross-check each other and compare their findings and interpretations.
Do what works best for your schedule, class size, and classroom dynamic.
- Once
students have shared their findings, it's time to expose them to Zora Neale Hurston,
folklorist and anthropologist. Referring to the biographical
resources listed above from Internet Public Library,
tell them that Hurston was also a well-traveled, successful, and admired collector
of black Southern folklore. Students should read Hurston's "Proposed
Recording Expedition in to the Floridas," archived in the Florida Folklife
from the WPA Collections, from the American
Memory Collection. Another resource from the American Memory Collection worth
reviewing at this point is "Ethnic
and Cultural Groups Recorded by the WPA in Florida."
- Students can
then compare Hurston's description of Floridian blacks' folklife to that found
in the novel. Is her depiction in the novel anything like the real-world folk
traditions she describes? How many of the ethnic and cultural groups listed does
Hurston incorporate into her novel, and how thoroughly does she present their
traditional life? Using the websites above, along with the first section of the
worksheet, Folklore in
Their Eyes Were Watching God, document your findings and the answers
to these questions. Teachers—especially those interested in encouraging creative
writers—can remind their students that most great writers write what they know,
drawing on their experiences and on first-hand research to create more compelling
and lively fiction.
2.
Folk Song and Folk Narrative: Orality, Performance, and Transcription - In
order to complete this module of the unit, students and teachers will need access
to a computer that has audio download and playback capacities. If such equipment
is lacking, the teacher might consider substituting another audio or video tape
recording of a storyteller performing African-American folktales. Rex Ellis's
The Ups and Downs of Being Brown (audiobook from August House Publishers)
is one such collection that would work with this lesson; although the stories
will not mesh as well with Their Eyes as will the actual stories Hurston herself
collected, they do present a picture of the African American narrative tradition.
- If the proper computer audio technology is available, teachers should
direct students to Florida
Folklife from the WPA Collections, available from American
Memory. From here, click on "Search" and type in "Hurston" when the option
to "Search Descriptive Information" comes up. Twenty-six documents should return,
most of them audio files of ballads and other folk songs Hurston collected (and
in many cases performs) throughout the rural black communities of Florida. Before
having students embark on transcription on their own, the teacher can model a
simple transcription exercise, working with the entire class as a group to show
how transcription is done. "Let
the Deal Go Down" would be a good choice for this exercise, owing to its relative
brevity and simplicity.
- Once they feel comfortable with the rudiments
of transcribing from oral performance, encourage students to browse through the
other tracks if time and resources allow; it is best for them to feel ownership
of a particular song and to choose that song for themselves. (Teachers should
be aware that these songs make reference to drinking, gambling, and sex; some,
such as "Uncle Bud," are particularly ribald. If a class is reading Their Eyes,
however, then there should be very little content in the songs that isn't also
in the novel.) Eventually, working alone or in groups, students should select
a song to work with. Teachers can direct more or less capable and confident students
to longer or shorter tracks, as transcription is more difficult the longer a track
gets.
- Allow students to listen to their chosen track multiple times,
at first just paying attention to the words and the music but on successive listenings
zeroing in on more performative features—tone, pacing, dynamics, and the like.
Teachers should define any of these terms that are unclear, making sure that students
are clear on their meanings. Eventually, students should listen while taking notes,
either using a word-processing program or a pen and notebook. Students may need
to replay bits and pieces of their tracks repeatedly: that's fine, as some portions
of the tracks may be more easily intelligible than others. (It may be easiest
if students have access to headphones so they don't distract others or get distracted
themselves. If feasible, a language lab would be an ideal environment for such
an exercise.) If only one or a very few computers are available, the teacher can
limit the exercise to group transcription of one song together—the important thing
is to get students focused on the relationship between oral performance and written
text.
- Next, students will transcribe their choice from among Hurston's
songs using the audio recordings on the WPA site above. They should try their
best to faithfully recreate its performative dimension on the printed page, just
as Hurston does in many of her works. Students have by now doubtless noticed that
Their Eyes Were Watching God is written in eye dialect (for a definition
of eye dialect, see page 3 of Folklore:
Some Useful Terminology); for another definitive example of eye dialect, try
Mark Twain's The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, from the University
of Virginia Electronic Text Center, a link on the EDSITEment-reviewed Center
for the Liberal Arts. If students have not already read aloud from Their
Eyes (or from Huck), now is a great time to actually have them read
the words not as they would sound translated into so-called standard English,
but as the spelling and arrangement of those words literally suggest. Discuss
the various tactics authors use to recreate the sounds of various dialects and
speech features when writing. Students may have already transcribed their chosen
songs into "standard" English, but they should also attempt to transcribe them
into appropriate eye dialect—either have them revise a "standard" English transcription
or, if time is short, transcribe directly into eye dialect.
- Once students
have finished their transcriptions, have them trade transcriptions with other
students or transcribing groups, and try to read one another's transcriptions
aloud. Which transcriptions are most phonetically accurate? Which are closest
to "standard" written English? Where did two students or groups of students make
different choices in transcribing the same oral text? Ultimately, students should
see that transcription approaches and eye dialect are judgment calls on the part
of folklorists and authors, who must balance readability with local color/accuracy.
Having a student read the eye dialect transcription of a song she hasn't heard
and then playing the song to see how close the two pronunciations and readings
is a great way of getting students to think about the relationship between oral
and written language and literature.
- Next, share with students some of
Hurston's own transcriptions: her seminal collection of black Southern
folklore, the anthology Mules
and Men, available as an e-text from American
Studies at the University of Virginia. Mules and Men contains Hurston's
transcriptions of some of the folksongs archived at the Florida WPA site, including
"Mule on de Mount" and "Let the Deal Go Down," so if students chose either of
those songs, a comparison may be illustrative. Remind students that Hurston's
patrons and audience were largely composed of white Northern scholars and writers—do
they think she watered down (or, conversely, exaggerated) any features of dialect
for her audience's sake? If so, did she make the right choice? Are the same factors
at work in Their Eyes Were Watching God? Who, in students' opinions, was
the target audience for the novel?
3.
Hurston and Storytelling - Having
crafted written transcriptions of texts first encountered in oral form, students
may enjoy converting one of Hurston's already-transcribed texts into a live performance.
An excellent choice from American Studies
is the etiological folktale "Why
Women Always Take Advantage of Men" which not only contains some excellent
examples of pacing, dialect, and tone, but comments on gender relations in a manner
very germane to Their Eyes. Students may wish to act out the story in groups
like a play, or they may want to practice creating different voices, postures,
and gestures for each of the characters in the story (God, the Devil, Man, and
Woman). In any case, make sure to instruct the audience (i.e., the rest of the
class) to pay close attention and be ready to ask the storyteller or actors about
the decisions he/they made when performing the story. Which characters, scenes,
and lines were most effective from the audience's point of view? How did the performance
choices made contribute to the theme or message of the folktale?
- If time
permits, the teacher can break the class into groups, assigning each group a folktale,
which they are to perform as a group to the rest of the class, and which only
the teacher and they have seen in advance. Afterward, have the audience (everyone
except the performing group) write, from memory, a transcription of a few lines
from the story highlighting the most important performance features they noticed
when the group acted out the story. Remind students that Hurston didn't always
have a tape recorder when she was collecting, and that she often relied on both
her memory and her ear for features of dialect and performance! (Other appropriate
folktales for this exercise include "How
the Negroes Got Their Freedom," "Why
They Always Use Rawhide on a Mule," and "How
a Loving Couple Was Parted"; all three texts are available from American
Studies).
- Have students pull out their completed worksheets (see
exercise
1, above) and then return the discussion to the text of Their Eyes Were
Watching God: Which scenes and characters in the novel do students feel are
most like those found in the folktales they've looked at? Have them complete (perhaps
as homework, or in groups) the second part of the worksheet, labeled "Their
Eyes Were Watching God and the Folktale." To what extent do the most folktale-like
parts of the novel overlap with those portions that most vividly and accurately
reflect folklife and culture as identified by students on the first part of the
worksheet? Remind students that good storytelling relates details of plot, character,
and setting in both vivid and familiar terms; this principle holds for novelists
as well as spinners of oral tales.
- At the very end of the novel, Janie
tells Pheoby, "…Talkin' don't amount tuh uh hill uh beans when yuh can't do nothin'
else….It's a known fact, Pheoby, you got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo' papa
and yo' mama and nobody else can't tell yuh and show yuh. Two things everybody's
got tuh do for theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out
about livin' fuh theyselves." And yet, some of Janie's most powerful moments in
the novel come when she tells stories or uses language in some way—her defense
in court of the true circumstances of Tea Cake's death, for instance, or her telling
Joe off on his deathbed. Is Janie right? Is talking no substitute for experience?
Can talking count as experience? When and when not? These questions are a good
way to draw to a close a consideration of the role of orality and storytelling
in the novel—not just compositionally, but thematically. In what other novels
do characters tell stories in ways that affect others or express the novel's themes?
Extending the Lesson
- As
a capstone to the unit, have students craft their own short stories in which they
draw on their own folk traditions and folk group affiliations to create believable
characters, social relationships, conflicts, and dialogue. Refer them to Chapters
Five and Six of Their Eyes Were Watching God, which contain some of Hurston's
liveliest evocations of folklife, for use as models. Drawing on the folk groups
they identified and explored in exercise
1, and the transcription activities from exercise
2, challenge them to create short stories in which eye dialect, traditional
narratives such as jokes or family stories, and other aspects of oral tradition
figure prominently. Students may find it helpful to do some "ethnographic spying,"
interviewing or listening to their friends with tape recorder and/or notebook
in hand to record credible and accurate details of folk speech.
- Follow
up with a reading aloud of students' stories (it would be wonderful also give
hard copies of each story to all the students so they could again compare the
authors' oral performances and the printed texts of each story) and with a discussion
of how their stories are similar to or different from Hurston's narrative in Their
Eyes Were Watching God. How easy or hard was it to portray their own folklife
in writing? How well do they think they did? How important is it to get these
details right? Where else in their reading have they seen authors incorporate
aspects of traditional life into their fiction?
- Another way to extend
the lesson, as suggested above, is simply to bring students' attention as much
as possible to the presence of folklore in other works of literature. For example,
in an American literature survey course, students might enjoy exploring the role
of folklore in the following canonical novels: Puritan folk beliefs concerning
witches and the devil in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter; slang
and customs present in the party scenes of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
(even the rich possess folklore, remember!); and tracing the many, many depictions
of superstition, folk magic, and folk speech in Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn.
- Another possible approach is to delve more deeply into Hurston's
work, investigating the way she weaves folk tradition and literary creativity
together not just in Mules and Men, but in Jonah's Gourd Vine, Moses,
Man of the Mountain, and Dust Tracks on a Road. What sorts of parallels
exist between those works' utilization of folklore and the folklife that forms
the heart of Their Eyes Were Watching God?
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