Page 50 - SpringBoard_CloseReading_Workshop_Grade8_Flipbook

Third Reading: Text-Dependent Questioning
Now read the poem again, this time focusing on reading to respond to the Key Ideas and Details interpretive questions. Write your responses to each question and highlight or underline the textual evidence that supports your answer.
Lift Every Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson
Lift every voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty, Let our rejoicing rise
5 High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, 10 Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod
Bitter the chast’ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat
15 Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered
We have come, treading our path thro’ the blood of the slaughtered, Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
20 Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast. God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way; Thou who hast by Thy might,
25 Led us into the light, Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we meet Thee, Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world we forget Thee; Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.
key ideas and deTails
Johnson begins the poem with a series of imperative sentences (sentences
that make a command or request). Underline several of these commands and describe the effect these sentences have on the reader or listener
key ideas and deTails
Select one of the vivid images from the second stanza and explain how it contributes to a shift in tone.
key ideas and deTails
Examine how the diction changes in the third stanza along with the direct address to God. How does this diction help describe the relationship between God and man as portrayed by the writer?
Close Reading Workshop 3 •
Close Reading of Poetry 49
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