We Real Cool By Gwendolyn Brooks (Grades 7-9)

One of the most influential figures of the Harlem Renaissance, Gwendolyn Brooks wrote on the ordinary people around her, celebrating their lives and struggles. "We Real Cool" is one such poem--employing AAVE and situations from the quotidian lives of average African American teenagers in the city, Brooks both uplifts these often hidden stories, and laments at lost possibilities for these young people due to the unspoken discriminatory economical and political conditions that surrounds this poem.