Assignment Task: Questions about "Theme for English B"
1) Is the instructor's assignment a good one? Why or why not?
2) What assumptions about writing does the instructor make?
3) Does the speaker of the poem agree with the instructor's assumptions?
4) What's the significance of the word, "colored" in the poem?
5) Who is Bessie?
6) What significant things about himself does the speaker reveal?
7) What's his attitude toward his instructor?
8) Langston Hughes was well past college age when he wrote this poem. The speaker is not the poet. What might have been Hughes reasons for giving someone else a voice?