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[Transcript]
Study Guide to The Learning Tree
Gordon Parks is a man of remarkably diverse talents. Perhaps the world knows him best in the role of photographer-his first career, launched during the Depression years. His photographic essays have appeared in Lite magazine for twenty years and have won him international renown.
But Parks-a sort of 20th-century model of the Renaissance man - has not limited himself to one field. What he couldn't express through his photographs, he has written- in poetry, music, and fiction. His poems, illustrated by his pictures, are published in a book entitled A Poet and His Camera. His symphony and four piano concertos have been performed by orchestras throughout the world.
Parks' career as a novelist started while he was in Paris on assignment for Life. He began to recall his experiences as a boy, the youngest of fifteen children of a poor black family in Fort Scott, Kansas. Poverty, prejudice, and hardship had not defeated his family, particularly his mother, who clung to the hope that her youngest child could break out of their bleak, restricted environment and make something of himself. Parks began to write a novel based on these memories of his Kansas boyhood. He called it THE LEARNING TREE, an echo of his mother's advice. As Sarah Winger tells her son in the novel:
"You can learn just as much here about people and things as you can learn any place else. Cherokee Flats is sorta like a fruit tree-. Some of the people are good and some of them are bad-just like the fruit on a tree .... If you learn to profit from the good and bad these people do to each other, you'll learn a lot 'bout life. And you'll be a better man for that learnin' someday . . . . No matter if you go or stay, think of Cherokee Flats like that till the day you die-let it be your learnin' tree."
After THE LEARNING TREE was published in 1963, Parks dreamed of turning his novel into a motion picture. For years he had wanted to make a movie but was frustrated by Hollywood's filmmakers-they would not risk trying out a Negro director. Finally, one studio decided to take a chance, and Parks was able to make his movie exactly as he wished. His amazing versatility took charge. For the film version of THE LEARNING TREE, Parks wrote the screenplay, directed and produced the picture, and even composed the musical score. The movie was filmed in and around his hometown of Fort Scott, where Parks was welcomed home as a hero by both blacks and whites.
After doing both novel and movie, Gordon Parks agreed to record THE LEARNING TREE for Scholastic Records. Working with Editor Sheila Turner, Parks decided that to condense his story to a length that could be comfortably read in two hours, he would have to concentrate on the conflict between Newt and Marcus, and on the murder trial which Newt resolves with his testimony.
Using the Record
1. Comprehension Level
The student who has trouble reading may find it easier to be introduced to THE LEARNING TREE via the record. Though he may have difficulty with the words in the book, he will have no trouble understanding the story through listening. After he has listened to the records, he may have developed enough confidence in his ability to understand the story that he will be able to tackle the book.
2. Maturity Level
While book and film are probably too mature for junior high school classes, the record presents scenes and language that will be acceptable by most teachers of mature junior high school students.
3. Change of Pace
The record of THE LEARNING TREE could be used either in small groups or in brief takes with students who may be reading other novels in class. In other words, you can have your students experience a book in recorded form instead of through reading. Students who have difficulty imagining the "voice" of the writer will find it easier to hear the author through listening to the record. If you do use the record this way, perhaps it would be better not to test or question students about the content of the story.
After having students listen to the record, you may want them to move to the book or film. The rest of this teaching guide focuses on the book and film.
If your students wonder what happened to Gordon Parks after he left Fort Scott at the age of 16, suggest they read his autobiography, A CHOICE OF WEAPONS. A CHOICE OF WEAPONS is also available in a two-record set from Scholastic Records, 906 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632.
Introducing the Book
Begin by discussing Gordon Parks-his work as photographer, composer, and author, his personal beliefs. Some critics claim that Parks is not militantly involved in the black struggle for civil rights. Parks resents this and claims that he is "extremely militant"- with his camera, with his pen. These, he says, are his weapons. Ask students how a camera and pen can be weapons, and how a man like Parks can be both fighter and creator. As they read THE LEARNING TREE, ask students to notice Parks' kind of militancy, and to decide, at the book's end, whether his weapons are effective in the black cause.
Analyzing the Novel
Most mature high school students will respond to THE LEARNING TREE. It is a universal story of a boy growing into young manhood, learning about life from a series of painful and illuminating experiences. It is exceptional only because the boy, Newt Winger, is black and because his story is set in Kansas during the 1920's. But today's teenage readers-whether country- or citybred, white or black, can easily identify with Newt's problems, hopes, fears, and dreams.
You might center discussion of the book on the events most important in the shaping of Newt Winger. Treat each event as a learning experience, examining what Newt discovered about himself and other people in such key episodes as:
-His choosing to tell the truth about Marcus and the beating up of Jake Kiner
-His being forced out of the drugstore where he and Arcelia were sitting with white friends
-His feeling of disgust after he wins the free-for-all fight at the carnival
-His confrontation with Miss McClinock, his racist teacher at the white high school
-His decision to reveal what he witnessed in the murder of Jake Kiner.
Along with the conflicts of growing up, THE LEARNING TREE reveals the strength of a unified family and the relationships of blacks and whites in a small Kansas town. Ask students to give examples of Newt's solid family experiences. How does Jack, his father, prove himself a good parent? What role does his brother Pete play in the shaping of Newt's life? What contributed to the warmth and security of the Winger family, despite their poverty?
Newt sees that not all white people are hostile to him and other Negroes. Who are the whites his family knows well and trusts? When does being black become a problem for Newt and his friends? Is the racial climate really as mild as it seems? ("Cherokee Flats wallowed in the social complexities of a borderline state. Here, for the black man, freedom loosed one hand while custom restrained the other.") Find examples of racial prejudice and fear, and Newt's reactions to them. Why do the black parents organize to protest the exclusion of their children from the white high school?
Marcus Savage, the hostile, unhappy outsider is Newt Winger's antagonist. What has made Marcus brutal and aggressive ... "black and tough ... smart in the way that the desperate must be to survive, cunning in the way that the poor must be to cheat their misfortunes"? Why does Marcus hate Newt? Why does he break down and cry when he comes home from the reformatory, and why does he try to silence the world by putting pebbles in his ears?- Marcus tries to kill Newt, yet Newt lets him go, hoping he will escape Sheriff Kirky. How do you account for Newt's feeling about Marcus?
The Film
After your students have seen the movie version of THE LEARNING TREE, ask them to compare the book and film. Some characters and events are left out of the movie, and students may enjoy speculating about
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