The following activities and questions are designed to help your students use their noticing skills to move through the poem and develop their thinking skills so they understand its meaning with confidence, using what they’ve noticed as evidence for their interpretations. Read more about the framework upon which these activities are based.
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Warm-up: (Teachers, before class, type up the text of the poem without any line breaks, stanzas, or punctuation. If you have access, give students materials, like markers and poster paper to write the poem so everyone can see it.) With a partner or small group, read the text of “We Real Cool.” Rewrite the text into a poem using line breaks, stanzas, and punctuation. Share the poem you created. What choices did you make? Where did you add punctuation, line breaks, and stanzas? Why?
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Before Reading the Poem: In poetry, line breaks refer to where one line ends and another begins. Read about end-stopped lines and enjambed lines. Reread your poem and add or revise your lines. Share your poem. If you made changes, what did you change and why? If you did not make any changes, why not?
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Reading the Poem: Silently read the poem “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks. What do you notice about the poem? Note any words or phrases that stand out to you or any questions you might have.
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Listening to the Poem: Enlist two volunteers and listen as the poem is read aloud twice. Write down any additional words and phrases that stand out to you. Watch the animated film of the poem. What stands out in the video? Why?
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Small Group Discussion: Share what you noticed about the poem with a small group. Based on the details you just shared and the resources from the beginning of class, what stood out to you in the video? Why? What did you notice about the way the poem looks on the page? What choices did the poet make? How did these choices inform your understanding of the poem?
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Whole Class Discussion: What do you think of the epigraph “The Pool Players. / Seven at the Golden Shovel”? What role does this serve in the poem? How does Brooks use line breaks and stanzas in the poem?
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Extension for Grades 7-8: Brooks’s poem inspired a poetic form called the golden shovel, created by the poet Terrance Hayes. As a group, work together to write a golden shovel poem that uses Brooks’ lines. Read the new poem you wrote. What do you notice? What do you like about this poetic form?
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Extension for Grades 9-12: Read Terrance Hayes’s poem “The Golden Shovel.” What stands out to you in the poem? How does this poem compare to “We Real Cool”? Why? Choose a line from a poem, book, movie, or song. Use that line to write your own golden shovel. Share your new poem with the class. Discuss which choices you made as a poet and why. What was easy about writing in this form and what was challenging?
“We stand in the June of our lives and try to sing it all the way through each season, always ending each line on the word that brings us together as much as it pivots us into new revelations: We. We. We. We. We. We. We.” Read a short essay by Tyehimba Jess on “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks.
Enjambment is the continuation of a sentence or clause across a poetic line break. Read more.