Sentence:  It is interesting , however , that despite this strong upsurge in Southern writing , almost none of the writers has forsaken the firmly entrenched concept of the white-suited big-daddy colonel sipping a mint julep as he silently recounts the revenue from the season 's cotton and tobacco crops ; of the stereotyped Negro servants <WSD>chanting</WSD> hymns as they plow the fields ; of these and a host of other antiquated legends that deny the South its progressive leaps of the past century . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  recite with musical intonation; recite as a chant or a psalm