A Day of Remembrance

I know that my students are too young to remember 9/11/01. And soon I'll be teaching students that weren't even alive on that day. But I've still always thought that it's important to talk about it whenever the anniversary comes around.

In the past I've read some really good picture books, The Man Who Walked Between the Towers and Fireboat. These kicked off some really good discussions. But this year I decided to share a poem with them. It's called "Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100" and it is dedicated to the 43 employees working at the Windows on the World restaurant on that fateful day.

In the last two stanzas, it gets a little complex. We focused on the details in the first two stanzas, and on the change between stanzas two and three, when the poet stops talking about the people and starts talking about the attacks.

Sometimes it's good to read complicated material. I think (and hope) this was a worthwhile activity.

Here's the poem: http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16596