To Begin….

1)What makes a bad neighborhood?

2)What can fix a bad neighborhood?

3)What happens to a snitch?4)What are heart-ears?

The Boy Died in My AlleyBy Gwendolyn Brooks

From Poem to Persuasion

Read the Poem

Overall Reaction•It makes me sad and scared for my students in neighborhoods like the one in the poem.•I wonder who the speaker is.•I liked the rhythm.•I did not like the ending.•The words are simple, yet very powerful.•I can imagine the “story” in the poem.•The poem seems repetitious, but in a good way.

Important Parts• “Thousand shots before”• “Have you known this boy before?”• “closed my heart-ears.”• “I have killed him

ever…….unknowing.”• “long stretch-strain”

Questions

• How are police officers viewed in neighborhoods with a lot of crime?

• Why do people lose compassion?

• What happens when people don’t snitch?

• Should people snitch?

Vocabulary

•Ornaments

•Futurefall

•Volley

•Heart-ears

•Knowledgeable unknowing

Author

•Feels……

•Likes……

•Sees……..

•Hears…..

•Age……..

•Race…....

•Gender……

DEBATE

People who snitch in court should be able to trade their criminal sentence for a lighter one.

“such testimony was forbidden since the bribery statute prohibits giving anything ‘of value’ to a witness in exchange for testimony.”