The Hanging Tree: Relating the Past & the Present

This is a follow exercise for correlating gospel and slave narrative songs to the "The Hanging Tree" song from the hit movie "Mockingjay". To pre-teach this worksheet, play a sample or two of gospel music like "Roll Jordan Roll" or "Wade into the Water". Then using this worksheet, have the students compare this "modern" song to those of the past. After using this journal exercise, students can work in small groups to compare their findings/opinions.