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"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" - "Let America Be America Again"

• The following version of this book was used to create this Lesson Plan: Hughes, Langston. Vintage Hughes. Vintage Books, 2004. Print.

• In "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," Hughes uses rivers to symbolize renewal, cleansing, and emotional energy.

• One of the poem’s most famous lines includes the speaker’s claim that his “soul has grown deep like the rivers” (3).

• In "Aunt Sue's Stories," a “dark-faced child” (4) listens to tales told by Aunt Sue.

• The child knows that “Aunt Sue never got her stories/Out of any book at all” (4).

• In "Negro," the speaker is a professional singer who has performed “all the way from Africa to Georgia” (5).

• In "Mexican Market Woman," Hughes uses the word “hag” (6) to describe a woman selling her wares in the unforgiving weather for years on end.

• Hughes describes the way in which she...

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