LESSON PLAN IN ENGLISH 9

I.OBJECTIVES
MELC: Make connections between texts to particular social issues, concerns or dispositions in real life.
a. Extract the message of the text and relate it to real life situations.
b.
II. CONTENT
Subject matter: “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes

III. LEARNING RESOURCES

A. References:
K to 12 Curriculum Guide, Learner’s Material and Online references
Materials: Audio recording of the poem, speaker, manila paper, bond paper, cartolina, crayon and photocopy of the poem

IV.PROCEDURE
A.PRE-LISTENING
Motivation
1. The teacher will show different pictures that shows the role of amother.

2. Students will give words related to the picture.

“What word/s comes into your mind when you see the picture?”

Vocabulary Development

Match the vocabulary words to its meaning.

VOCABULARY WORDS Meaning

1. Crystal a. damage, divide
2. Tacks b. slice, broken
3. Splinters c. expose, uncover
4. Torn d. clear, shiny
5. Bare e. fasten, attach

Presentation of the lesson

Motive questions:
a. Who is the speaker or persona in the poem?
b. To what does the speaker compare her life?
c. What does the mother tell her son?
d. What is the poem about?
e. Which lines of the poem talk about hardships?
f. Which lines of the poem talk about hardships? How to overcome or persevere? Encouragement or advice?
 About the Author
Langston Hughes 1901-1967

James Mercer Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1901, in Joplin, Missouri. Hughes’s birth year was revised
from 1902 to 1901 after new research from 2018 uncovered that he had been born a year earlier. His parents, James
Nathaniel Hughes and Carrie Langston Hughes, divorced when he was a young child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was
raised by his maternal grandmother, Mary Sampson Patterson Leary Langston, who was nearly seventy when Hughes was
born, until he was thirteen. He then moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family
eventually settled in Cleveland. It was in Lincoln that Hughes began writing poetry.
After graduating from high school, he spent a year in Mexico followed by a year at Columbia University. During this
time, he worked as an assistant cook, a launderer, and a busboy. He also traveled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman.
In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C. Hughes’s first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, (Knopf, 1926) was
published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926 with an introduction by Harlem Renaissance arts patron Carl Van Vechten. Criticism of
the book from the time varied, with some praising the arrival of a significant new voice in poetry, while others dismissed
Hughes’s debut collection. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930
his first novel, Not Without Laughter (Knopf, 1930), won the Harmon gold medal for literature.

Hughes, who cited Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly
known for his insightful portrayals of Black life in America from the 1920s to the 1960s. He wrote novels, short stories, plays,
and poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in his
book-length poem Montage of a Dream Deferred (Holt, 1951). His life and work were enormously important in shaping the
artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable Black poets of the period, such as Claude
McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen, Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the
common experience of Black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture,
including their love of music, laughter, and language, alongside their suffering.

B. LISTENING
ACTIVITY: Students will listen to the audio recording of-
“Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes.
(A photocopy of the poem awill be distributed)

Mother to Son
BY LANGSTON HUGHES
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

C. POST LISTENING
ANALYSIS
Processing of the motive question:
a. Who is the speaker or persona in the poem?
b. To what does the speaker compare her life?
c. What does the mother tell her son?
d. What is the poem about?
e. Which lines of the poem talk about hardships?
f. Which lines of the poem talk about hardships? How to overcome or persevere? Encouragement or advice?
ABSTRACTION
 How important is the poem’s message in your life?
 What have you learned from it?
 Which among the advices have you already heard from your mother?

Mother’s Advice No. of students who heard the advice from their mother
1. Be true to yourself.
2. It’s going to be okay.
3. Be grateful.

 Based on the result, advice # ____ ranked first as to the most popular advice.
 While advice # ____ ranked as the least popular advice of a mother.

APPLICATION

Students will be grouped into four and do the following tasks:

GROUP 1: Look for a song that has the same message as to the poem. Perform the lines of the song.
GROUP 2: List atleast 3 quotations and support your answer. What quotation can you relate to the message of the
poem?
GROUP 3: Read aloud your favorite part of the poem and draw the message conveyed by the lines.

GROUP 4: Make a short role play portraying your own life situation as a mother and son/ mother and daughter.

V. ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION
As a response to the mother’s message in the poem, make a heart-shape paper and write a message inside it. The
content of the letter should be about the son’s reaction to his mother.

CRITERIA
Content - 15
Creativity - 5
Total - 20 points

VI. ASSIGNMENT

On your notebook, list verses in the bible that talks about the sacrifices or advices of a mother to a son. List as many
as you can.

Prepared by:

LOU-ANN B. GERMAN
Subject Teacher