"Mother to Son"

In this poem, Langston Hughes takes on the voice of a mother who refuses to let her son give up.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 7 Unit 4's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, maggie and milly and molly and may, Mother to Son, Haikus, It Happened in Montgomery, Monologues, The Raven, Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, Casey at the Bat, Outlaws and Highwaymen, The Highwayman, We Wear the Mask, Twelfth Night
10 words 214 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. crystal
    a solid having a highly regular atomic structure
    Well, son, I'll tell you:
    Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
  2. tack
    a short nail with a sharp point and a large head
    It's had tacks in it
  3. splinter
    a small thin sharp bit of wood, glass, or metal
    And splinters
  4. bare
    lacking embellishment or ornamentation
    And boards torn up,
    And places with no carpet on the floor --
    Bare.
  5. landing
    an intermediate platform in a staircase
    And reachin' landin's
  6. corner
    a predicament from which a graceful escape is impossible
    And turnin' corners
  7. light
    mental understanding as an illuminating experience
    And sometimes goin' in the dark
    Where there ain't been no light.
  8. hard
    unfortunate or difficult to bear
    Don't you set down on the steps
    'Cause you finds it's kinder hard
  9. climb
    go upward with gradual or continuous progress
    For I'se still goin', honey,
    I'se still climbin'
  10. stair
    support consisting of a place to rest the foot while ascending or descending a stairway
    And life for me ain't been no
    crystal stair.
Created on Fri Sep 12 12:12:41 EDT 2014 (updated Mon Sep 15 17:36:08 EDT 2014)

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