I Am Malala - Harrellland

I AM MALALA
An extraordinary memoir
There is also the original edition.
Click below for a good, informative review of this edition:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bookreview-i-am-malala-by-malalayousafzai/2013/10/11/530ba90a-329a-11e3-9c681cf643210300_story.html?utm_term=.9174641df653
http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/14-non-fiction/9457-i-am-malala-yousafzai
This link with brief sections (based on the original but also relating to the young readers
edition) can replace any questions and excerpts I might choose as you discuss this memoir.
The link below takes you to significant things Malala said. You’ll discover many more sites of
her quotes, so click around.
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/24987300-i-am-malala-the-girl-who-stood-up-foreducation-and-was-shot-by-the-tal
Watch this movie trailer and news summary and discuss which one is most compelling to you and
why. Then if you’re like me, you’ll spend the next hour looking at the variety of YouTubes, news
and talk show clips and other videos posted on each site sidebar. I recommend that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE5gSHJkusU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIqOhxQ0-H8
Here also is the link to her speech upon winning the Nobel Peace Prize (you will be
teary-eyed as you watch) along with a link about this significant award.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOqIotJrFVM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Peace_Prize
Still I Rise ‐ Maya Angelou
This well-known poem about the
strength and determination of
women was written by a woman
many years older than Malala
and with a life story both similar
and different than hers. What
lines do you think could be
descriptive of Malala and which
ones better fit Ms. Angelo.
Which might apply to both? A
Venn diagram might help.
Perhaps you’d also like to
experiment with writing Malala’s
“Still I Rise” poem modeled on
Maya Angelou’s and using
details from Malala’s life.
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise…
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Mature students should read this first book in Maya Angelou’s series of autobiography.
It’s about her childhood. You’ll be compelled to learn more about this phenomenal
woman as well as see likenesses and differences between Maya and Malala. The link
below will teach you virtually everything you’d need to know as you read.
http://www.shmoop.com/i-know-why-the-caged-bird-sings/
Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and
memorable, as childhood itself.
'I write about being a Black American woman, however, I
am always talking about what it's like to be a human
being. This is how we are, what makes us laugh, and this
is how we fall and how we somehow, amazingly, stand up
again'
Maya Angelou
Caged Bird poem by Maya Angelou
Here’s the poem that informs the title of Ms. Angelou’s
book. Where might you see Malala in these lines as
well?
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
Maya Angelou, “Caged Bird” from Shaker, Why Don't You Sing? Copyright © 1983 by Maya Angelou. Used by
permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Source: The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (Random House Inc., 1994)
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.