Responding to Tragedy: Then and Now

Printouts

Websites

Preparation

 

PRINTOUTS

• Reflecting on Tragedy
• Then and Now Poetry Reflection

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WEBSITES

• Poems After the Attack
  

  A collection of poems responding to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks written by "poets who believe in the value of poem-making and the power of word-art in the face of calamity and horror."

• Featured Drawings from the September 11, 2001 Documentary Project
  

  From the American Folklife Center, this collection of 14 drawings was submitted by third-grade students from Sequoyah Elementary School in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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PREPARATION

1. Based on the age and backgrounds of your students, assess the amount of knowledge they have about the
   September 11, 2001 tragedy (or the tragedy you choose for the lesson’s focus). Carefully consider the
   possibility that some students may have extremely personal connections to the events, while others may
   know very little about them.
2. Discuss with students appropriate ways for listening and responding to different perspectives on an
   event. The diverse views provided by sample poems in this lesson will allow for modeling and
   boundary-setting, but be ready to remind students that they need to be respectful of their classmates’
   perspectives, especially if they differ from theirs. Conversely, students need to be reminded that hate
   speech and other derogatory language is not appropriate in framing their own perspectives.

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