Resources for Teachers and Students
Prepare: Although Maya Angelou's rich career has
included a wide variety of experience as a playwright, actor,
civil rights activist, film director, musical composer,
educator and essayist, she is perhaps best know for her
poetry. Her biography can be found on the website of The
Academy of American Poets.
Read:
Maya Angelou wrote an
original essay for the Architects of Peace project.
Because the essay is so short, read it in conjunction with
her poem "Still
I Rise,". Both the essay and the poem are about
a heroic attitude of being willing to act for what is right.
Explore: "A
Brave and Startling Truth," a poem written
by Maya Angelou to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the
United Nations. The United Nations maintains its own news
center on the world-wide web. After reading "A
Brave and Startling Truth," scan the UN's news center,
looking for ways in which peace, as Angelou defines it in
her poem, is being achieved and for ways in which peace
is being blocked within the world community.
Write: Write a two-to-three page interpretive essay
that explores the metaphoric images of peace that are found
in "A Brave and Startling Truth." After close-reading
these images, conclude the paper by trying to compose a
working definition of peace based upon Angelou's poem. Is
peace, as the poem defines it, achievable? Is there a role
for poetic imagery in the peacemaking process?
Extend: Toward the end of "A Brave and Startling
Truth," Angelou states that one result of the peacemaking
process is that "We learn that we are neither devils
or divines." Using the conventions of Free Verse, compose
a short poem that suggests other lessons that humanity can
learn in the process of making peace.
Additional Resource: Maya
Angelou's "official" website.
Biography of Maya
Angelou