I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Summary
Maya Angelou

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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Summary & Study Guide
10 Student Essays
2 Encyclopedia Articles
9 Literature Criticisms
1 Book Notes
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30 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Lessons
20 Activities
180 Multiple Choice Questions
60 Short Essay Questions
20 Essay Questions
Pre-Made Tests and Quizzes
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Summary

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is Maya Angelo's painful, yet inspiring, autobiography about her childhood as a black girl in the deep South. Maya is sent to Stamps, Arkansas, by her parents from Long Beach, California. Her parents do not have time for Maya and her brother Bailey. Maya is not accustomed to the discrimination of the South, but she soon learns about the deep differences between blacks and whites. However...

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The I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Study Pack contains about 360 pages of study material in 26 products, including:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Study Guide

Plot Summary

Chapter Summaries

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Characters

Symbols and Symbolism

Setting

Themes and Motifs

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Encyclopedia Articles (2)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou - 1969

8,408 words, approx. 29 pages

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou - 1969 Introduction Maya Angelou's memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was her first published full-length literary work. The book takes its ti... Read more

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

3,326 words, approx. 12 pages

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou Beginning three years after Maya Angelou's birth in 1928, her autobiography unfolds against the backdrop of America between the wars. Within the work... Read more

Maya Angelou Biographies (4)

Maya Angelou

6,562 words, approx. 22 pages

Biography EssayMaya Angelou's literary significance rests primarily upon her exceptional ability to tell her life story as both a human being and a black American woman in the twentieth century. Five ... Read more

Maya Angelou

1,263 words, approx. 5 pages

Maya Angelou (born 1928)--author, poet, playwright, stage and screen performer, and director--is best known for her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970), which recalls a young African... Read more

Maya Angelou

4,151 words, approx. 14 pages

Standing before the church congregation, little Marguerite Johnson realized that everyone was looking at her, and that she wasn't a white girl with long blonde hair. As she remembered that she was a g... Read more

Maya Angelou

4,735 words, approx. 16 pages

Maya Angelou's literary significance rests upon her exceptional ability to tell her life story as both a human being and a black American woman in the twentieth century. Four serial autobiographical v... Read more

Essays & Analysis (19)

Critical Essay by Ernece B. Kelly

737 words, approx. 3 pages

Critical Essay by Ernece B. Kelly [I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings] is a poetic counterpart for the more scholarly [Growing Up in the Black Belt: Negro Youth in the Rural South by Charles S. Johnson].... Read more

Critical Essay by Myra K. McMurry

2,524 words, approx. 9 pages

In the following essay, McMurry discusses the metaphor of the cage in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. As a songwriter, journalist, playwright, poet, fiction and screen-writer, Maya Angelou is often a... Read more

Critical Essay by Liliane K. Arensberg

7,126 words, approx. 24 pages

In the following essay, Arensberg asserts that despite the often witty tone of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the primary theme of the narrative is death. When I think about myself, I almost laugh m... Read more

Critical Essay by Christine Froula

11,202 words, approx. 38 pages

In the following essay, Froula considers the impact of female autobiographies—such as I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Alice Walker's The Color Purple—on literary tradition and... Read more

Critical Essay by Dolly A. McPherson

11,050 words, approx. 37 pages

In the following essay, McPherson discusses I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as a record of Angelou's discovery of her own interior world and identity. “… We are a tongued folk. A ... Read more

Critical Essay by Opal Moore

3,891 words, approx. 13 pages

In the following essay, Moore addresses several of the major criticisms against I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, including the charge that the story is too honest and brutal for young audiences. I bri... Read more

Critical Essay by Pierre A. Walker

9,073 words, approx. 31 pages

In the following essay, Walker evaluates the political nature and influence of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Maya Angelou has told in interviews how Robert Loomis, her eventual Random House editor,... Read more

Critical Essay by Lyman B. Hagen

6,070 words, approx. 21 pages

In the following excerpt, Hagen traces the critical reaction to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The title of Angelou's first long book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970), was suggested by... Read more

Critical Essay by Pamela Loos

2,203 words, approx. 8 pages

In the following essay, Loos examines the implications of Marguerite's muteness in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. “I was liked … for just being Marguerite Johnson.” ... Read more

Perseverence with the Help of Love

1,023 words, approx. 4 pages

Although Marguerite Johnson experiences an amazingly difficult childhood where she is often displaced and even raped at a young age, she is able to somehow overcome these adversities and succeed i... Read more

Perseverance in "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"

1,401 words, approx. 5 pages

In this coming of age autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angleou goes from a young, awkward girl to a confident independent mother at the age of 16. Maya wrote this book in the early... Read more

Plot Summary of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"

1,727 words, approx. 6 pages

Being a black girl who feels displaced and isolated, Marguerite Johnson faced a lot of arduous experiences during her youth in the southern state of Arkansas. Problems such as racism, sexism, and hate... Read more

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

750 words, approx. 3 pages

Growing up and surviving in this complex cruel world can be painful. The agony of learning about life and accepting oneself is a journey all people make at one point in their life. The sense of... Read more

Cages in Caged Bird

622 words, approx. 3 pages

It was once said that the title of a poem can capture the meaning of the piece better than the piece itself. This is the case in May Angelou's autobiography titled I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, ab... Read more

Racism in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

498 words, approx. 2 pages

Racism is a very serious topic. In the autobiography of Maya Angelou's life I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings the main character and her family is African American. The book, taking place in the 1930'... Read more

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - The Importance of Title

464 words, approx. 2 pages

Maya Angelou probably chose the title I know why the caged bird sings for her memoir because the poem it self is about the struggles of life and how you should keep perseverance, hope and strive bur... Read more

Critical Analysis of "graduation"

542 words, approx. 2 pages

"Graduation" is an excerpt of the autobiographical book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, written by Maya Angelou. While the book is autobiographical in nature, this particular excerpt is much discu... Read more

Symbolism in "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"

852 words, approx. 3 pages

"During these years in Stamps, I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare. He was my first white love," a motif, one of many literary techniques that Maya uses to pull her audience in and enthral... Read more

Analysis of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" Poem

722 words, approx. 3 pages

stanza 1 The poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar is closely related to the novel I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. In stanza one of the poem, the message that Paul is extending is that the c... Read more

Free Book Notes (1)

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

16,053 words, approx. 54 pages

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Book Notes is a free study guide on I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. Browse the summary below: Author Biography / Context of the Work ... Read more

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