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"Let America Be America Again"

The title and the beginning of the poem have a nostalgic tone towards what America used to be. But this is contrasted with the angry voice of the people who have never experienced America as it was dreamed to be. Let yourself see the images Langston Hughes used to evoke these emotions.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 11 Unit 1's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: A Cause Greater Than Self, The New Colossus, The Statue of Liberty Address, poems about America, America, America and I, What Is an American, Growing Up Asian in America, Let America Be America Again, The Four Freedoms, The Bill of Rights, What Is Freedom, Is the American Dream Still Possible, The Declaration of Independence, poems about immigrants, Money, A Raisin in the Sun, Who Burns, Roberto Acuna, Barack Obama, The Right to Fail
15 words 671 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

  1. connive
    form intrigues (for) in an underhand manner
    Let it be that great strong land of love
    Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
    That any man be crushed by one above
  2. opportunity
    a possibility from a favorable combination of circumstances
    O, let my land be a land where Liberty
    Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
    But opportunity is real, and life is free
  3. mumble
    talk indistinctly; usually in a low voice
    Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
  4. clutch
    hold firmly, usually with one's hands
    I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
    And finding only the same old stupid plan
    Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak
  5. profit
    excess of revenues over outlays in a given period of time
    I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
    Tangled in that ancient endless chain
    Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
  6. bondsman
    a male enslaved person
    I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil
  7. barter
    exchange goods without involving money
    I am the man who never got ahead,
    The poorest worker bartered through the years
  8. furrow
    a long shallow trench in the ground
    Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
    That even yet its mighty daring sings
    In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
    That's made America the land it has become
  9. strand
    a shore periodically covered and uncovered by the tides
    For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
    And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
    And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
    To build a "homeland of the free."
  10. relief
    aid for the aged, indigent, or handicapped
    Who said the free? Not me?
    Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
  11. foundry
    a factory where metal castings are produced
    Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
    Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
    Must bring back our mighty dream again
  12. leech
    carnivorous or bloodsucking aquatic or terrestrial worm
    From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
    We must take back our land again,
    America!
  13. oath
    a solemn promise regarding your future acts or behavior
    America never was America to me,
    And yet I swear this oath--
    America will be!
  14. graft
    the practice of offering something for an illegal advantage
    Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
    The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies
  15. redeem
    restore the honor or worth of
    We, the people, must redeem
    The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers
Created on Sat Nov 08 16:02:01 EST 2014 (updated Sun Nov 09 18:09:04 EST 2014)

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