The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom - Poetry (multicultural)

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom

by Margarita Engle

     The Surrender Tree is a five part book, mostly through the eyes of Rosa, a medicine woman. It follows slavery, war, love and fear as she works to heal people through Cuba's fight for freedom. 

     This book falls under poetry, because it is entirely composed of poems. The subcatagory would be narrative poetry. Narrative poetry sets a story with characters, plot and theme into a poetic framework (Literature and the Child, 20101 pg. 157). The book is through Rosa's world, in a time when slavery was a big part of Cuba's country.

     

     Activities that could be used to motivate students in reading could be to create a Venn diagram of slavery as it is in the book and slavery in the United States. This could be used during history before, during and/or after reading. Another activity could be to create a foldable after reading that follows the story. The project could have five parts, just as the book did, with a picture and 1-2 sentences summarizing what happened in that section. The goal of this should be for a student who has never read the book to be able to use the foldable to understand the primary elements of the story. This activity could also be used to check student understanding. 

    

     A few reader response questions for the book could be:

• Why would those on "the outside" (slave hunters, plantations owners) call Rosa a witch?
• Explain what Rosa means when she says that hatred must be a hard thing to learn.
• Decide if you would have healed Lt. Death like Rosa did. Why would you? Why not?
• What do you think it would be like to be Rosa? What would you see as the most difficult and the best parts of her life?

     Personally, I find this book intriguing. It's composed of poems, which isn't the traditional way of telling a story, yet it is still captivating. Normally, in a story of freedom and slavery, the point of view would be through a slave, slave owner or someone who physically fought in the war. Yet instead, it is written from the eyes of a medicine woman, who is seen as a witch and hated, who, despite that, heals all, both good and evil. Rosa grows with the story and meets new people along the way. It can be used in many areas of the classroom and can engage all students. 

Resources:

BookRags. BookRags, n.d. Web. 17 Jan. 2017.

"The Surrender Tree.pdf." Laii.unm.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Jan. 2017.