Calling CPS High School Teachers: No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks

We invite all 9-12 Chicago public schools, including Charter and Options schools, to request tickets by October 8, 2017 to bring your classes to a production of No Blue Memories at Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy, November 9 and 10, 2017, two performances per day, 10AM and 1PM.

What is No Blue Memories?
In honor of the great Chicago poet Gwendolyn Brooks’s centennial year, the Poetry Foundation presents a live staged production of her life and work that will be available for free to 9-12 grade Chicago Public Schools students and their teachers. Using simple, illuminative paper-cut puppetry and live action, this enchanting production imagines the moments of witness that inspired Gwendolyn Brooks to write her poetry. Created by Manual Cinema in association with Crescendo Literary, with story by Eve L. Ewing and Nate Marshall, and with music by Jamila Woods and Ayanna Woods.

“NO BLUE MEMORIES” tells the story of Gwendolyn Brooks and her life as a poet and activist in Chicago’s Bronzeville before, during, and after the civil rights movement. The production features some of Brooks’s most memorable poems, including “We Real Cool,” “Chicago Picasso,” “Beverly Hills, Chicago,” and “Speech to the Young / Speech to the Progress-Toward,” as well as original poetry and music by the artistic team. 

Purpose of travel
Students will travel to Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy (250 East 111th Street, Chicago, IL 60628) to attend a performance of Manual Cinema’s “NO BLUE MEMORIES: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks.”

Educational benefits to be derived
Students will view the 1-hour performance and participate in a question and answer session with collaborators of the production, including writers, actors, puppeteers, and musicians. Students will gain an understanding of artistic collaboration and the creative process. They will also use skills developed in their coursework to analyze components of the program pertaining to their courses as well as the effect of the production on the audience.

Relevant Common Core State Standards include:

• RL.11-12.2 Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.
• RL.9-10.7 Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment.
• RL.9-10.9 Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work.
• RL.11-12.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful.
• RL.11-12.5 Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact.
• RL.11-12.6 Analyze a case in which grasping point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement).

Sign-up
Please fill out this online ticket request form http://bit.ly/nobluememories by midnight on Sunday, October 8. Schools selected to attend will be informed on Wednesday, October 11.

We encourage you to bring a large, multi-class group to this production. There are a total of 1600 tickets available for the four performances.

Note:
The Poetry Foundation can reimburse schools for the cost of busing students to and from Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy, 250 East 111^th Street, Chicago, IL. Once the school has made arrangements directly with the bus company, all that is needed for the reimbursement is the bus company’s invoice and school’s name and address. The Foundation can process reimbursement before the performance date, as soon as the buses are confirmed.

For more information contact Jeffrey Waraksa in the Arts Education Department at 773-553-2170 / [email protected]