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Reading Assignment: Please read the first 75 pages of The Help.

Writing Assignment: Please view the video clip of folk icons Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie performing "You Got to Walk that Lonesome Valley." Write a paragraph explaining why the author of Sounder, William H. Armstrong, would choose to have the boy's mother sing that particular song. Like book titles, songs in novels usually say something about character and/or theme. What is the message of this song and how is it relevant to  Armstrong's story?

 

Please note, "You Got to Walk that Lonesome Valley" belongs to the genre of music called spirituals. Spirituals are a mixture of African rhythms and European hymns created by African-American slaves, who had been brought to the country in chains and who used music for spiritual consolation (comfort) and sometimes to speak in code about the people who owned them.  I have also posted a video of the same spiritual by the great Mississippi bluesman John Hurt, whose version might be a little closer to the style in which the mother sings on page 69 of Sounder.

 

Lyrics for the song are at the URL below, but it is incorrect to say that the song was written by Woodie Guthrie as the website does. This is his version of a song that has been around since the late 19th century, sometimes with the title "Jesus Walked." 

 

http://woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Lonesome_Valley.htm

Last edited by Laraine
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