2021 Post #7 -- A Contrafactual Hypothesis

 by Carol Jago

Contrafactual hypotheses have always fascinated me. In this poem Eve Ewing imagines that Emmett Till wasn’t murdered in Mississippi but lived, breathed, and shopped on the southside of Chicago. I love the details she depicts: Till’s porkpie hat, Roosevelt Road, and of course the candy bar. Among other things, the poem is an invitation to learn more about Till’s death and funeral, a landmark in the history of civil rights.

Eve Ewing’s 1919 is both a poetry collection and a history lesson. Drawing from events in the “Red Summer” when racial tensions erupted into violence across the nation she presents poems, photographs, and primary documents in conversation that invite the reader to reflect upon current events.

You can provide a print copy of "I Saw Emmett Till This Week At the Grocery Store" and then listen as a class to Jonny Sun read the poem for the Poetry Foundation’s Ours Poetica project.

Invite students to:

1. Read the poem identifying compelling details (“whistling softly,” “his hat, one of those fine porkpie numbers,” “Roosevelt Road,” “candy bar in hand”).
2. Brainstorm people from history or from the news (a celebrity, a sports figure, a politician, etc.)
3. Choose one of these people to learn more about.
4. Do a quick online search for information about the individual, looking for compelling details.
5. Write a poem modeled after Eve Ewing’s in which the individual is suddenly observed in a familiar contemporary place (at a bus stop, in the woods, on a Zoom call, walking down the street).

Further Reading: 

Carol Jago has taught middle and high school for 32 years and is past president of NCTE. She is associate director of the California Reading and Literature Project at UCLA and the author of The Book in Question: Why and How Reading Is in Crisis. (Heinemann 2019).

2020 Post #28 -- Toi Derricotte's "Cherry Blossoms"

by Brett Vogelsinger

I recently asked students what they noticed they had more time to do during the days of our state's stay-at-home order. One student told me, "I'm taking long bike rides again," and then added after a slight, shy pause, "and I'm noticing flowers a lot more."  

There is a vulnerability in 21st century teens acknowledging that they look at flowers.  

You have likely noticed that this great pause we are taking tears down some of the walls that prevent us from sharing that kind of vulnerability.  Teachers unabashedly confess their love of their classes and their chagrin at being torn unexpectedly from their students.  Students express what they miss about school, and the strange new discoveries they are making in confinement, pulling out old crates of Legos, watching backyard birds.  

The poem "Cherry blossoms" by Toi Derricotte, is about pausing to take notice of flowers.  It is also about togetherness, and the common bonds we enjoy during warmer seasons and our shared interactions with beauty.  While our shared interactions may be on hold right now, our common bonds are not, beauty is not.  

The first and last stanzas of the poem seems to resonate more than ever right now: our desire to "mingle our breath" and our simultaneous need to be "patient" with social distancing. The crux of the poem creates tableaux of the kind of moments we are craving to return to again.  

There is no special assignment to go along with this poem.  If you use a poem of the day with your class, it is important to have days where there is no writing, no analysis, no wisdom nugget you specifically hope to impart.  Just enjoy the poem. Share it.  Marvel at it's beauty, it's relevance, it's heart. 

And for the fascinating story behind "the friendship of the cherry trees" in Washington D.C. see the National Park Department's page here.  

Further Reading:

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth-grade English teacher at Holicong Middle School in Bucks County, PA.  He has been starting class with a poem each day for the past ten years. He is the creator of the Go Poems blog and the author of Poetry Pauses: Teaching With Poems to Elevate Writing in All Genres.   Find him on Twitter @theVogelman.

2020 Post #17 -- A Harlem Renaissance Classic

by Donte' Demonbruen

James Mercer Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. Langston Hughes was an African American writer whose poems, columns, novels and plays made him a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920's.

It was during this time that Hughes first began to write poetry, and one of his teachers introduced him to the poetry of Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman both of whom Hughes would later cite as primary influences.

Langston’s 1926 poem "I, Too" is a riveting poem that sparked much conversation during the Harlem Renaissance but is still very much relevant today in 2020. Hughes focused on the importance of being accepted and treated equally in America, two important topics in today’s society.

As a class, read the poem aloud and when finished, take a few moments to allow those words to sink into the minds of the students who just experienced Hughes's writing. Ask students how those lines relate to the world we live in today in America. Are we still fighting the same exact fight for equality or are we battling new demons? If the students respond with "we aren’t battling the same demons," then what demons are we battling?

 

Further Reading: 

Donte’ Demonbreum is a senior English major currently studying English education at a four-year public university in Clarksville, Tennessee, Austin Peay State University. Donte’ enjoys reading young adult literature in his free time and being with family. He graduates from APSU this spring with an English degree and a minor in professional education. You can follow him on Twitter @MrDemonbreum.

2019 Post #21 -- History Written By the Victors

by Mike Melie

Before students read the poem "Enlightenment" by Natasha Tretheway, have students consider and discuss the following quote from Winston Churchill: “History is written by the victors.”

What does Churchill mean? How has America been a “victor” throughout its history - who has it defeated? What would America’s history look like if its history was told from the point of view of one of the groups that it had “defeated”?

After reading the poem, discuss the title: What is the “enlightenment” referred to in the title? Who is enlightened during the course of this poem, and what is the nature of his/her enlightenment?

Next, choose one or more elements of the poem to explore with greater depth.

Paradox: A paradox is a joining of two things that are seemingly impossible to connect together, which forms a contradiction. Example: “I can resist anything but temptation” -Oscar Wilde OR “All [men] are equal, but some are more equal than others” -George Orwell. What examples of paradox or contradiction do you see in this poem? What is the author’s purpose in including these seeming impossibilities?

Analysis: The speaker states, “For years we debated the distance between word and deed...as if to prove a man’s pursuit of knowledge is greater than his shortcomings, the limits of his vision.” Compare Jefferson to the speaker’s father. What were their “pursuits of knowledge”? What were their “shortcomings”? Does one outweigh the other, and is it fair to judge someone’s legacy in these terms?

Tone: Briefly research Sally Hemings here and here. Consider the speaker’s tone (attitude towards the subject matter) when discussing Hemings in the poem. How would you describe this tone? How would you describe the father’s probable tone when discussing Hemings? Support your answers with evidence from the text.

As a closing activity, ask students to reflect on the poem and to apply Churchill’s quote above. As a “victor” in American history, how is Jefferson traditionally portrayed in elementary and high school history classes? After researching more about Sally Hemings, does her story change your view of Jefferson’s accomplishments? Why or why not?

For a post using another one of Natasha Tretheway's poems, click here.

Further Reading:

Mike Melie is an English Teacher and Instructional Coach at Downers Grove North High School in Downers Grove, IL. He is one half of the Trojan Poetry web series with his friend and colleague, John Waite, in which they make poetry accessible for students through conversation (and laughter). You can find Trojan Poetry on YouTube and Twitter; you can also follow Mike’s blog on equity issues here and contact him at mmelie@csd99.org.

2018 Poem #14 -- Voice of the Past

by Brett Vogelsinger

There is always something special about hearing a poet read his or her own words, and perhaps something extra special about hearing a recorded poet read these words posthumously.  This act reminds us that even the poems that end up commonly anthologized and in the canon are meant to be heard aloud, that they speak from the past most eloquently when we breathe life into them.

Langston Hughes poems frequently surface in student anthologies.  In this video, students have the chance to hear Langston Hughes talk about the experience that led him to write "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" as a young man just out of high school, and then he reads the poem aloud.

An intriguing video to pair with this: a contemporary high school student recites the same poem in the twenty-first century for the Poetry Out Loud competition: 

Three questions to discuss with students after sharing this poem:

• How does knowing the background of the poem and hearing it in the writer's own voice affect our experience with the poem?  
• How does listening to a poem written nearly one hundred years ago give voice to the past? 
• How does the content of the poem give voice to the poet's past? 

Further Reading:

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth-grade English teacher at Holicong Middle School in Bucks County, PA.  He is the faculty adviser for the school literary magazine, Sevenatenine.  Besides his annual blogging adventure on this site, he has published work on Nerdy Book Club, The New York Times Learning Network, and Edutopia and you can follow him on Twitter (@theVogelman).