Title: Harlem
Author: Walter Dean Myers
Illustrator: Christopher Myers
Publisher and Year: Scholastic Press 1997
Number of pages: 32
Tags: Award Book, Culture, Emotion, Non-fiction, 6-12, Joe Marras
Descriptive Analysis: This poem brings the reader on an adventure through the burrough of Harlem. This is a very powerful poem that captures the mood of Harlem through words and pictures. This is a poem that describes Harlem through its music, its people, its smells, and its sadness. There are many things in here that are historically relevant so prior knowledge on African American history is helpful to fully understand the poem.
Classroom Application: This poem would be very useful in teaching about African American history. This could also be used to teach about different ways of writing poems, that they don’t always have to rhyme or go in a specific template. This poem does not have rhyming or any template style of writing and it still is extremely powerful. So it could help to show that there are many ways to convey powerful writing.
Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: This poem represents African American culture and its history in Harlem, but also from Africa. “Harlem was a promise of a better life, of a place where a man didn’t have to know his place simply because he was black,” Harlem was supposed to be a place of equality and bring together many African Americans from different parts of the world. “They brought a call, a song first heard in the villages of Ghana/Mali/Senegal,” people from all across Africa were brought together in Harlem and they united with one another to make Harlem a special place. This poem brings up many different countries and famous African Americans, so it can be used to introduce people like Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, and Sugar Ray.
