Color – Caste – Denomination –
Fr836
Lesson guide by Bruce M. Penniman, Ed.D.
Written in 1864 amid the social disruption and dreadful human sacrifice of the Civil War, Emily Dickinson’s poem “Color – Caste – Denomination – ” is a poignant and ironic commentary on the social distinctions —of race, class, and religion—that sharply divided American society then and continue to divide it even now. As such, this poem is eminently teachable to high school students, many of whom are sensitive to instances of prejudice and discrimination and activated by social justice causes.
LESSON OBJECTIVES
Engagement
Connect themes raised by Dickinson’s poem to current social justice debates reckoning with race, class, and religion.
Content Knowledge
– Explain the poem’s views on people’s physical traits.
– Connect the poem’s ideas to its Civil War context.
Process Knowledge
– Unpack the poem’s syntax to paraphrase its content.
– Interpret the role of Death as personified in the poem.
Transfer Goals
– Recognize that the ideas expressed and the questions raised by poets and poetry of bygone eras can still meaningfully address issues of contemporary concern.
– Develop their appreciation for poetry as an art form and hone their skills of close reading, interpretation of figurative language, and analysis of themes.
Color – Caste – Denomination –
These – are Time’s Affair –
Death’s diviner Classifying
Does not know they are –
As in sleep – all Hue forgotten –
Tenets – put behind –
Death’s large – Democratic fingers
Rub away the Brand –
If Circassian – He is careless –
If He put away10
Chrysalis of Blonde – or Umber –
Equal Butterfly –
They emerge from His Obscuring –
What Death – knows so well –
Our minuter intuitions –
Deem unplausible
Bruce M. Penniman taught writing, speech, and literature at Amherst Regional High School from 1971 until 2007 and recently retired (again) as the site director of the Western Massachusetts Writing Project at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 1999 he was Massachusetts Teacher of the Year and a finalist for National Teacher of the Year, and he is the author of Building the English Classroom: Foundations, Support, Success (NCTE, 2009). He has served as a teacher curriculum mentor in all four NEH Emily Dickinson: Person, Poetry, and Place workshops and has facilitated discussions in the Poetry Discussion Group on topics ranging from “Emily Dickinson and the Bible” to “Emily Dickinson and Science.”