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Night in Sine by Leopold Senghor



Tales of a Teacher
Weekly blog – 11/4/18







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Leopold Senghor's Night in Sine

Welcome back fellow teachers! This week we are going to be discussing “Night in Sine” by Leopold Senghor. This is a beautiful piece of African American poetry. It is full of imagery and metaphor that students are sure to enjoy. It is about the author’s love and affection towards his country of Africa. He uses metaphor to describe his country through the lense of a nurturing and caring mother, whispering stories to her child as he drifts off to sleep. With such a lovely connotation, the next step is to analyze…

Theme

The theme of this poem is “love and affection towards one’s country.” It is honestly just a love letter, but instead of to one’s love, the author is writing this love letter to Africa. This theme is a hard theme to recreate in the way that Senghor does. He writes this as though he is pouring out his soul to his country, where many poems of the same nature do not bring forth the same amount of grace. So then, how would one teach this theme to high schoolers?

How to Teach this Theme

“Love and affection towards one’s country” is a highly specific theme. However, I think there’s a way to connect this to the world of a high schooler. Although an older movie, An American Tale is what I would use to teach this. In the movie, a young mouse family moves to America. They speak of America with such grandeur and excitement, similar to how Leopold speaks of his country. I recommend showing clips of the movie and having students compare and contrast Leopold’s elegance to An American Tale’s cheerfulness in regards to speaking of their beloved country.

Here’s the Gist

This poem is written absolutely beautifully. The 
wording and the imagery are sure to strike a heart string with many. Connecting this to a lighthearted cartoon is 
the way to go to get those high schoolers’ attention 
spans. This is sure to be a combo you’ll want to revisit.
________________________________________

I would love to hear about your experience teaching “Night in Sine!” Shoot me an email through the link on the left or catch me at the “Teachers for a Cause” event 
in San Antonio, Texas this December!

Last week’s blog:
 Night Chant


www.nightchant.blog.net






Where can you get “Night in Sine”? Here’s the link!
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53355/night-in-sine


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