One Book, One Chicago - A Raisin in the Sun - Further Reading

One Book, One Chicago Spring 2003

ISU Play Concordances: A Raisin in the Sun
By Rosanne Potter and Joe Struss
2002
This site has a complete concordance of the play. Every word is “indexed and connected to its textual context. You can search it for wordlists (alphabetic and frequency-ordered), for KWIC concordances and for collocations (in the context around the keyword).”

‘A Raisin in the Sun’, Present at the Creation
(NPR)
2002
This site discusses the Broadway opening of the play, explaining the challenges it faced and exploring the connections between Hansberry’s life and the events of the play. An audio version of the report and links to video clips of an interview with Hansberry and the trailer for the movie are also available.

Women of Color Women of Words
This site offers a full biography, as well as a substantial list of critical and biographical resources.

Lesson Plans/Teaching Guides:

A Raisin in the Sun Interactive Lesson Plan
By J. Perry
2002
This site gathers together links and suggestions for discussions and interactive activities regarding theme, setting, characters, symbols and many other topics.

A Raisin in the Sun Lesson Plan
(TeacherVision)
While this site is specifically designed to teach the screenplay, it has lots of ideas that can also be used for teaching the play itself. Many of the suggested activities are best for high school students.

Woman Emerging in the Twentieth Century
(Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute)
This site, which covers several female American authors of the 20th century, offers specific discussion questions for each scene of the play. There is also a general discussion of the role and struggles of women writers throughout the early 20th century. Geared toward younger students.

Books for Young Readers

The Block: Poems
By Langston Hughes, illustrated by Romare Bearden
Viking, 1995 (Ages 9-12)
Brilliant and bold illustrations accompany 13 of Hughes’ poems about African American city life.

DeShawn Days
By Tony Medina, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
Lee & Low, 2001 (Ages 7-11)
You are invited to join 10-year-old DeShawn Williams as he gives a tour of his neighborhood and daily life.

Evan’s Corner
By Elizabeth Starr Hill, illustrated by Sandra Speidel
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967 (Ages 4-7)
Evan lives in a crowded apartment, but there is still enough room for each family member to have their own special place.

Families: Poems Celebrating the African American Experience
Edited by Dorothy S. Strickland and Michael R. Strickland, illustrated by John Ward
Boyds Mills Press, 1994 (Ages 6-9)
Poems by such writers as Gwendolyn Brooks and Arnold Adoff pay joyous tribute to family diversity and togetherness.

The Palm of My Heart: Poetry by African American Children
Edited by Davida Adedjouma, illustrated by Gregory Christie
Lee & Low, 1996 (Ages 7-10)
Twenty inner-city kids contributed to this moving anthology filled with powerful words and feelings. For older readers.

The African American Family Album
By Dorothy Hoobler and Thomas Hoobler
Oxford University Children’s Books, 1998 (Ages 12 and up)
This intimate and immediate book preserves and presents firsthand the experiences of millions of lives gathered from pictures, letters, interviews and diaries.

Bronx Masquerade
By Nikki Grimes
Dial, 2002 (Ages 13 and up)
High school classes express their thoughts in a poetry assignment and learn details about each other’s lives that reveal the depth of their feelings.

Hush
By Jacqueline Woodson
Putnam, 2002 (Ages 12-15)
Toswiah/Evie and her family have to leave their neighborhood after they are touched by a crime, and it is then that they have to learn who they are together and as individuals.

In Praise of Our Fathers and Our Mothers: A Black Family Treasury by Outstanding Authors and Artists
Compiled by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson
Just Us Books, 1998 (Ages 12 and up)
This amazing compilation of words and images tells a powerful story of families and role models.

Jazmin’s Notebook
By Nikki Grimes
Dial, 1998 (Ages 12 and up)
Jazmin shares her thoughts and views of the world from the front stoop of her 1960s Harlem apartment building, a place shared by numbers’ runners, an alcoholic mother and all the potential happiness possible in the mind of a 14-year-old girl.

Lorraine Hansberry: Playwright and Voice of Justice
By Catherine Scheader
Enslow, 1998 (Ages 10 and up)
This is a book that provides fascinating insight into the author’s life and influences.

Mississippi Challenge
By Mildred Pitts Walter
Simon & Schuster, 1992 (Ages 12 and up)
From the time of slavery to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, this title chronicles the incredible struggle of African Americans in Mississippi.

Sweet Words So Brave: The Story of African American Literature
By Barbara K. Curry and James Michael Brodie, illustrated by Jerry Butler
Zino, 1996 (Ages 11-14)
An imagined conversation between a man and his granddaughter provides an introduction to the many magnificent words told and written from slave narratives to the works of modern day.

Tell All the Children Our Story: Memories and Mementos of Being Young and Black in America
By Tonya Bolden
Abrams, 2001 (Ages 12 and up)
Learn about the lives of African American children from the time of slavery to the present.

The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963
By Christopher Paul Curtis
Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1995 (Ages 10-13)
This is an award-winning and exciting account of a family from the North traveling to Alabama during the early days of the civil rights movement.

One Book, One Chicago - A Raisin in the Sun - Further Reading One Book, One Chicago Spring 2003

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One Book, One Chicago Spring 2003

One Book, One Chicago Spring 2003

Further Reading

Writings by Lorraine Hansberry

Plays

Screenplays

Nonfiction

Web Resources

Lesson Plans/Teaching Guides:

Books for Young Readers