We had planned to post this on 9/11 as a remembrance, but we keep hearing that teachers are looking for resources and Lesley has them here. We will repost on this Friday as well.
Examining the Events of September 11th through MG/YA Novels
by Lesley Roessing
No historical event may be as unique and complicated to discuss and teach as the events of September 11, 2001, the day terrorists crashed planes into, and destroyed, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. At the time of this event no child in our present K-12 educational system was yet born, but, in most cases, their parents and educators would have been old enough to have some knowledge of, and even personal experience with, these events, making this a very difficult historic event for many to teach. However, with the devastation and impact of these events on our past, present, and future and as ingrained a part of history these events are, they need to be discussed and understood as much as possible.
This has been a challenging year; there have been countless complications from the COVID-19 pandemic, some more tragic than others, but all distressing and disappointing. For the last 18 years, the Tribute in Light has marked the anniversary of the events of September 11th. However, the pandemic has forced the tribute’s organizers to cancel this year’s Tribute in Light as well as the reading of victims’ names by family members. But there are ways we can mark this anniversary, honor the victims, and tribute the history of this event.
I have found the most effective way to confront difficult topics while still presenting a variety of perspectives and differentiated reading experiences for our diverse readers is through reading in book clubs. When classes read 5-6 novels about 9/11 where small groups of students are collaboratively reading, they can access differing perspectives to a story and generate important conversations within each book club and between book clubs. A complete unit on this topic for English-Language Arts and Social Studies classes is outlined—with daily focus lessons and student examples—in chapter 10 of Talking Texts: A Teachers’ Guide to Book Clubs across the Curriculum.
16+ Books; 16 Perspectives
Nine Ten: A September 11 Story is another novel effective in introducing young adolescent students to the many events of September 11, 2001. Nora Raleigh Baskin’s novel is set during the days leading up to 9/11—in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Columbus, and Shanksvlle, Pennsylvania, where readers follow four diverse middle-grade students affected by the events of 9/11. Sergio, Naheed, Aimee, and Will first cross paths in the O’Hare Airport on September 9. The four young adolescents are Black, White, Jewish, and Muslim and are collectively surviving loss, guilt, poverty, parental absence, neglectful fathers, bullying, the navigation of peer relationships, as well as the angst of middle school, “…everything felt different, as if you suddenly realized you had been coming to school in your pajamas and you had to figure out a way to hide this fact before anyone else noticed.” (p. 48). In their own ways they are each affected by 9/11, and on September 11, 2002, these four and their families again converge at Ground Zero, each there for different reasons, but this time their paths back together have meaning.
There are a multitude of important conversations to be generated by this little novel, a story of Before and After. I was especially grateful that the events and heroes of Shanksville were memorialized. In fact there are many aspects of heroism brought forth in the novel to discuss. But Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story is the story of people and three days in their lives, “Because in the end it was just about people…Because the world changed that day, slowly and then all at once.” (p. 176).
On her first birthday Abbi was saved by a worker in her World Trade Center complex daycare center. As she is carried out, wearing a crown and holding a red balloon, the South Tower collapsing behind, a photographer takes the picture that has branded her Baby Hope, the symbol of resilience. Abbi spends her childhood and adolescence in relative fame; strangers hug and cry, share their stories with her, frame and hang the photograph in their homes, and news outlets hold “Where is Baby Hope Now” stories.
Noah was a baby in the hospital, fighting for his life, on 9/11 when his father went back to his office in the World Trade Center for his lucky hat, never to return home. He and his mother now live with her new husband and Noah is obsessed with comedy.
At age 15, Abbi is experiencing a suspicious cough, keeping it a secret from her parents and grandmother. Connie, the daycare worker, has recently died from cancer, most likely 9/11 syndrome, and Abbi takes a job as a camp counselor in a nearby town, looking for some anonymity and a chance at a “happily ever after” to the story that began with “Once upon a time” (9/11). Unfortunately, Noah, a fellow counselor, recognizes her and blackmails her into helping him interview the four other people in the iconic Baby Hope picture, convinced that the man in background wearing a Michigan cap is his father and also convinced, since his mother won’t talk about him, that his father chose not to come home after escaping from the Tower.
This is a novel about 9/11, one that presents yet more facets than many other 9/11 novels, such as 9/11 syndrome which is affecting many of those who were at Ground Zero, heroism and sacrifice, survivor guilt, and “[What] happens when the story you tell yourself turns out not to be your story at all.” (280)
This is primarily a novel about relationships—shifting relationships with family, friends, ex-friends, strangers, and romantic partners. I absolutely adored these characters—Noah and Abbi especially (and their evolving relationship) and Noah’s BFF Jack, Abbi’s divorced-but-best-friends-and-maybe-more parents, her grandmother who is experiencing the onset of dementia, and even Noah’s stepfather who learns to make jokes. I was sorry when the novel ended, not that the story was unfinished but my relationship with the characters was.
But then the events of September 11, 2001, occurred, and Martians did invade the earth, only they looked like Sam and his family—Muslim. Because one of the terrorists had lived in their neighborhood and was a client at the bank where Mr. Madina worked, Sam’s father comes under FBI surveillance, and the neighborhood divides in their support. Not Jake, though. He believes in his friend and his friend’s family, physically fighting the school bully who refers to Sam as a “towelhead” and arguing with his own mother whose own grief keeps her from supporting their neighbors.
When his father is taken into custody, Sam refuses to attend school, abandons his cross-country team, and distances himself from Jake, taking a new interest in the Islam religion. But Jake does not give up, and the boys reconnect to peacefully stop their racist classmates, Bobby and Rigo, from attacking the local mosque. Afterwards, Jake realizes that they both have been affected by 9/11; he has learned that you can be both scared and brave at the same time, but he has also has learned that adversity can be defeated peacefully. And Jake realizes that Sam is now different. “For the first time I see Sam, a Muslim. An American Muslim. But he is still just Sam, no matter what.”
When fifth-grader Ema and her mother go to live with Ema’s very traditional Japanese grandparents during a difficult pregnancy, author Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu’s verse novel takes the reader through six months (June 21, 2001-January 2, 2002) of customs, rituals, and holidays, both Japanese and American. There are challenges, such a choosing a name for the new baby that brings good luck in Japan and that both sets of grandparents can pronounce. Ema celebrates American Independence Day and Japanese Sea Day, and she now views some days, such as August 15 Victory Over Japan Day from diverse perspectives.
On September 11, 2001 Ema experiences both two typhoons in her town and the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in America—on television. As the reader traverses the intricacies of two fusing two distinct cultures with Emi and her family, our knowledge of others is doubled
The attacks of September 11, 2001, affected our country as a whole, but it is even harder to imagine the effect on those who lived in NYC. Claire, Peter, and Jasper are three teenagers living in NYC on that date. Claire leaves her high school to pick up her brother from his elementary school; Peter has already left school and is at the record store, thinking about his impending date with Jasper; and Jasper is at home alone, his parents visiting their native Korea, before he leaves for college. None of the three are directly affected—none of their parents worked in the World Trade Center, none of their friends or relatives were killed; they were not physically hurt—but the events of this day color the year following. “I want to know why this is so much a part of me. I want to know why this thing that happened to other people has happened so much to me.” (104)
Readers view the day through their alternating perspectives. We view the constructive acts of strangers as Claire observes, “There are skyscrapers collapsing behind us, and nobody is pushing, nobody is yelling. When people see we’re a school group, they’re careful not to separate us. Stores are not only giving away sneakers, but some are handing out water to people who need it. You’d think they’d take advantage and raise the prices. But no. That’s not what happens.” (14) and Peter reflects, “And the people I care about, suddenly I care about them a little more, in this existential way.” (82)
Even though Peter and Jason’s date does not go well, another ramification of the day, the three become friends, especially Claire and Peter who attend high school together, Jason returning to college. And the year continues, each is a little changed. As Peter observes, “ If you start the day reading the obituaries, you live your day a little differently.” (123)
By December Jasper observes that he has finally gone an entire day without thinking of 9/11 but then wonders what that means. Claire feels the weight of the day lighten a little, but “It is still strange to see the skyline. I have never seen an absence that it so physical.” (126)
On the anniversary of 9/11 Claire retraces the steps she took on that day, and Peter and Jason finally have a second date. On March 19, 2003, the day of the United States invasion of Iraq, the three reunite, and Claire observes, “And we are so different from who we were on September 10th. And also different from who we were on the 11th. And the 12th. And yesterday.” (163) Together they have found the “antidote” to the fear and uncertainty; they have each other as they individually navigate the world and remember what matters.
Instead of focusing on the overwhelming statistics generated by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan—nearly 16,000 deaths and 3,000 people missing—the event becomes even more intense and compelling as author Leza Lowitz relates the story of one town and one boy and the resilience of many.
The story begins on March 11 when Kai, a half Japanese, half American 17-year-old and his teachers and classmates experience the “jolting of the earth,” and as trained, they evacuate, running for their lives, looking for the highest place, as their town is destroyed. Written powerfully in free verse, the reader feels the fury of nature as the water “churns,” “thrashes,” “surges,” “sweeps,” “charges.” Kai ends up in a shelter having lost his mother, his grandparents, and one of his best friends. His father left years before to return to America.
Faced with overwhelming loss and trauma, Kai walks into the ocean but is saved by one of his classmates and convinced to accept the opportunity to go to New York City on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 where he will spend some time with young adults who lost their parents as teens in the 9/11 attacks. At Ground Zero, Fia tells him, “Bravery means being scared and going forward anyway.”
Kai hopes to find his father in NYC but returns to his village to help the young adolescents who lost their families and to rebuild his town. “I want to be/ like that tree/ deep roots/ making it strong/ keeping it/ standing tall.” And it is to his roots Kai returns and stays—“The quake moved the earth/ ten inches/ on its axis./ I guess/I shifted,” too.”
Up from the Sea, well-written as a verse novel (a format that engages many reluctant readers), would serve as an effective continuation to a 9/11 study. Readers should already be aware of the events of 9/11 to understand the connection between Kai and Tom but will comprehend the trauma and loss experienced, and resilience that is required, by anyone who faces adversity.
The reader learns about the close relationship between 13-year-old Wendy and her mother through flashbacks: her mother's divorce, the sporadic visits of her father, her mother's marriage to her "other dad," and the birth of her half-brother. And then her mother goes to work at her job at the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001—and does not return. Wendy’s world changes. “Then September happened and the planet she lived on had seemed more like a meteor, spinning and falling” (p. 175).
The reader experiences not only Wendy's (and Josh's and Louie's) loss but the suffering and uncertainty of those left behind. Could her mother be walking around, not remembering who she is? As the family hangs signs, we learn how different this loss was for many people who held out hope for a long time without a sense of closure. And this loss was different because it was experienced by many—an entire country in a way. “Instead of just dealing with your own heart getting ripped into pieces, wherever you looked you knew there were other people dealing with the same thing. You couldn’t even be alone with it” (p. 95).
We see the loss through the eyes and hearts of a daughter, a very young son, and a desperately-in-love husband. Wendy leaves Brooklyn and goes to her biological father’s in California. Among strangers, she re-invents her life. As those she meets help fill the hole in her life, she fills the hole in theirs. Books also help her to heal.
Even though there are quite a few characters in this novel, but they all are well-developed, and I found myself becoming involved in all their lives, not only Wendy, Josh, and Louie and even his father Garrett, but Wendy’s new friends—Carolyn, Alan, Todd, Violet… On some level they all have experienced trauma and loss, and within these relationships, Wendy is able to heal and return to rebuild her family.
Although I did not want this novel to end and to leave these characters, this well-written novel taught me more about the effects of September 11, loss, and the importance of relationships and added a new perspective to my collection of 9/11 novels.
All We Have Left was so compelling that I read from dawn to dusk and did not put the book down until I finished. The novel intertwines two stories, that of 18-year-old Travis and sixteen-year-old Alia who were in the Towers as they fell and the story of Travis’ sister, Jesse, who, fifteen years later, is part of a dysfunctional family whose lives are still overwhelmingly affected by That Day and Travis’ death.
Seventeen year old Jesse is not sure who she is, who she should be, who she should hate, and who she can love. Her life is overshadowed by 9/11, her mother’s mourning, and her father’s hate.
But both Alia in 2001, and Jesse in 2016, learn that “Faith and strength aren’t something that you wear like some sort of costume; they come from inside you” (p.329) as does love. And Jesse realizes that she has to work on “treasuring right here, right now, because that’s important.” As one character says but all the characters learn, “You can fill that void inside you with anger, or you can fill it with the love for the ones who remain beside you, with hope for the future.”
What I appreciated about this novel is that is shows yet another side of how 9/11 affected people, especially adolescents, those adolescents who populate American schools everywhere. I strongly feel that students should not only be learning about the events and effects of 9/11, but that, through novels, readers learn more about how events affect people and especially children their ages.
“Things get a little more complicated when you know somebody’s story.…It’s hard to fear someone, or be cruel to them, when you know their story.”
The majority of the 21.3 million refugees worldwide in 2016 were from Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia. The United States resettled 84,994 refugees. Together with immigrants, refugee children make up one in five children in the U.S. More than half the Syrian refugees who were resettled in the U.S. between October 2010 and November 2015 are under the age of 20.
In Out of Nowhere by Maria Padian, narrator Tom Bouchard is a high school senior. He is a soccer player, top of his class academically, and well-liked. He lives in Maine in a town that has become a secondary migration location for Somali refugees. These Somali students are trying to navigate high school without many benefits, including the English language. They face hostility from many of their fellow classmates and the townspeople, including the mayor; one teacher, at the request of students, permits only English to be spoken in her classroom. When four Somali boys join the soccer team, turning it into a winning team, and when he is forced to complete volunteer hours at the K Street Center where he tutors a young Somali boy and works with a female Somali classmate, Tom learns at least a part of their stories. Tom fights bigotry, especially that of his girlfriend—now ex-girlfriend, but he still doesn’t comprehend the complexity of the beliefs, customs, and traditions of his new friends, and his actions have negative consequences for all involved. While trying to defend the truth, Tom learns a valuable lesson, “Truth is a difficult word. One person’s truth is another person’s falsehood. People believe what appears to be true and what they feel is true.”
Author Gae Polisner wrote The Memory of Things in alternating narratives—Kyle's in prose, the girl writes in free verse—the two characters sharing their stories and perspectives, introducing adolescent readers, many of whom had were not alive during 9/11, to the effects of this tragedy in their own ways.
The 5th grade characters explore “What does it mean to be an American?” as well as why history is relevant, alive, and, especially, personal as three students—one Black, one White, one Muslim—explore the effects of the events of 9/11 on each of their families. Déja’s “journey of discovery” about the falling of the Towers helps her father work through his connection to the event and his resulting PTSD.
“Sometimes when a terrible thing happens, it can make a beautiful thing seem even more precious.”
Eleven is the story of Alex who is turning 11 on September 11, 2001. I was concerned that the character would be too young for this topic. I also thought that, the character age’s implied that the novel wouldn’t contain the complexity the topic deserves. but, boy, was I wrong! I was hooked with the complexity of the first 2-page chapter. I wasn’t sure what was happening in this introductory chapter, but it was not a feeling of confusion as much as “It could be this; no, it could be this…” and inference and interpretation, even visualization.
I also forgot that New York City kids grow up faster, taking public transportation throughout the city, but more importantly, I forgot that when you need or expect a young adolescent to rise to the occasion, he will.
Alex loves airplanes and dogs—and he doesn’t realize it, but he loves his little sister Nunu who is relegated to her side of the bedroom they share by a black and yellow “flight line” down the middle of the room. And he loves his father, even though Alex told him, “I hate you,” the night before 9/11. When the Towers fall, Alex rises to the occasion, taking care of his little sister and an abandoned dog, making the sacrifice to return the dog he has always wanted to his owners when the vet finds a chip, facing bullies, making “deals” in the hopes these deals and good works will offset what he said to his father and ascertain his return from the Towers, and comforting Mac, a lonely man who is awaiting his only son’s return from the Towers.
In Eleven author Tom Rogers builds a character who is authentic, a kid who events serve to turn into a young man. Alex’s mother had said to him, “I need you to be grown up today” and, even though he was focusing on his misdeeds of the day, he did. “I’m proud of you, young man…. Young Man. Alex liked how that sounded.”
This book is not graphic but does not skirt the events. Readers hear the news announcement about the four airplanes and, more chilling, a description of an empty hospital—“There were no gurneys rolling through to the ER, no sick and wounded in pain. There wasn’t a patient in sight. And he knew then that none would be coming.” A powerful examination of the events of 9/11 and how they affected ordinary people—and one boy’s birthday.
Dawn is a foster teen who runs away to New York City and becomes affected by the events of 9/11. As she plays her flute on the streets near Ground Zero to earn money for food, she is approached by families of victims who ask her to play for them and the memories of their loved ones. As Dawn comes to believe this is her mission, she teaches herself music she feels appropriate for those of many cultures and stages of life. In doing so, she opens up to strangers and new friends, something she couldn't do with her foster mother.
Johar is an Afghani teenager, weaver, and poet. His father is killed by the Taliban, his mother is killed by a land mine, his older brother joins the Taliban, and his aunt is missing, leaving Johar to care for his three-year-old cousin. He and his cousin flee to a refugee camp in Pakistan where he works for the Red Cross doctor, Dawn's foster mother, another person who must learn to show love.
Dawn and Johar connect through phone calls and emails, and as they all work toward forming a family—one that spans the globe—the reader learns how war, the U.S. involvement, and the events of 9/11 affected those in many countries. This would be a book I would recommend for proficient readers with an interest in war or history.
P.S. After I read this book and posted my original Goodreads review, I was listening to a discussion about the days following 9/11 in the Middle East on NPR and found that I could actually follow it; therefore, I realize that I learned more than I thought from this novel.
As the son of a firefighter, Lucas was aware of the effects of danger and disasters. His father had been severely injured in a warehouse fire and was still not himself (“It turned him quiet.”). It had been a while since they had worked together on the firetruck model in the basement. But it was another tragedy that brought them back together as a family.
Lucas had sneaked into NYC that September 11 morning to ask his uncle to intercede on his behalf. After three concussions in two years of football, his parents and doctor were taking him off the team, and Lucas loved being on a team, a team of two with his father, his dad and uncle’s Ladder 177 firehouse, and especially his football team. Lucas was near Ground Zero when the planes hit the Towers, and when his father went looking for him, they were able to make it safely back to the fire station, helping others along the way.
Readers view the attacks of 9/11 up close and personal through Lucas’ eyes; they experience his loss, the heroism of the firefighters, and the resilience of his father. We feel the dust of the falling Towers, see the sky fogged with dust and ashes. “It wasn’t like regular dust. Some of the grains were jagged—bits of ground glass.… The dust, Lucas realized. That was the tower. It was practically all that was left.”
The story ends on a realistic but positive note with Lucas, not a player, but still a valued member of the football team. “Nothing would ever be the same again.” But his father told him, as time passed, it would get, not easy, but easier.
This was the first book in Tarshis’ I Survived series that I have read, and I was impressed with the writing, development of the main character, and the complexity of ideas presented in such a short text. This novel could be employed for MG or YA readers who are less proficient or more reluctant readers; English Language Learners who may not be ready for a longer or more complicated text; students who are short on time through absences, trips, or other obligations or who joined the class during the unit; or as a quick whole-class read for background before students break into book clubs to read one of the other 9/11 novels.
With Their Eyes was written from not only a unique perspective—those who watched the attack on the World Trade Center and the fall of the towers from their vantage point at Stuyvesant High School, a mere four blocks from Ground Zero, but in a unique format. Inspired by the work of Anna Deavere Smith whose work combines interviews of subjects with performance to interpret their words, English teacher Annie Thoms led one student director, two student producers, and ten student cast members in the creation—the writing and performance—of this play.
The students interviewed members of the Stuyvesant High study body, faculty, administration, and staff and turned their stories of the historic day and the days that followed into poem-monologues. They transcribed and edited these interviews, keeping close to the interviewees’ words and speech patterns because “each individual has a particular story to tell and the story is more than words: the story is its rhythms and its breaths.” (xiv) They next rehearsed the monologues, each actor playing a variety of roles. Although cast members were chosen from all four grades and to represent the school’s diversity, actors did not necessarily match the culture of their interviewees.
They next planned the order of the stories to speak to each other, “paint a picture of anger and panic, of hope and strength, of humor and resilience” (7), rehearsed, and presented two performances in February 2002.
With Their Eyes presents the stories of those affected by the events of 9/11 in diverse ways. It shares the stories of freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, special education students, an English teacher, a Social Studies teacher, the School Safety Agent, the Building Coordinator, a dining hall worker, a custodian, an assistant principal, and more, some male, some female, some named, others remain anonymous. Written as a play, readers are given a description of each character. Read and performed as a play, readers will experience the effect of Nine Eleven on others, actual people who lived that day and persisted in those days that followed, sharing their big moments and little thoughts.
“the air felt on the outside like something that you might smell at a,
or feel at a barbecue,
but it didn’t, it…it hurt you.
It hurt your windpipe.
I could feel like, things collecting on my esophagus or on my lungs,
and I don’t think that is something that I will ever forget.” (44)
“and you know
what an odd thing this is
a peculiar little odd thing
just a little quirk, just
an odd thing, but, ah, the day before
on Monday evening I had taken the time to shine my shoes.
‘cause it’s kind of weird I took the time to shine my shoes
and I did a good job, right,
and then Tuesday morning
it was a beautiful sunny day
and as I was dusting myself off
from the debris of the north tower
I—I shook my clothes off and then I looked down
at my shoes and my shoes were a whole ‘nother color
they were completely covered
and I thought to myself
‘I just shined them yesterday’…” (102)
And the pregnant English teacher who said,
“…during that time of feeling afraid I felt like I was
crazy to be in New York…
and I had lots of conversations with my friends about
whether or not we would…
we would consider, you know, just completely changing our
lives and leaving New York
So far I don’t know anyone who has done that.
But do I plan to raise my child in New York? Yes.” (90)
You know, I really believe in healing
And I believe that, the city will
I think you have to believe that.” (93)
With Their Eyes was written with the thoughts and pens of a school community.
The day was September 11, 2001, a teacher meeting day during which students at Will’s high school were to shadow their parents at their workplaces. Ninth-grader William’s father John worked in international trade in the World Trade Center.
Upon arrival, father and son went to the 107th floor Observation Deck for a quick tour and history of the Center and view of the city. “Maybe my father was right and the World Trade Center and all the money that passed through here each day really did represent the United States.” (42)
At 8:46, shortly after arriving at John’s office on the 85th floor of the South Tower, they felt the force of an explosion. And as he looked out the window Will saw a gaping hole in the North Tower, billowing smoke, thousands of pieces of paper—some on fire—and, before he could look away, he was horrified to notice a man and woman jumping from windows of the building.
Will’s father, as acting head of his office and fire warden for the floor, demanded that his staff and other businesses on the floor close and evacuate for the day. But at 9:03, just before John and Will were able to leave, the second plane hit the South Tower.
Readers follow the father and son as they make the harrowing journey down 85 floors through heat and smoke, formulating split-second decisions and stopping to rescue and carry an injured woman, only to experience the collapse of the building as they reach the lobby.
A quick but dramatic read, Eric Walters’ novel lets readers experience a close-up account of the day and the panic and fear and heroism of ordinary people—John and Will, the men carrying a man in a wheelchair, the firemen and police—as Will discovers another side of his father and John realizes how much time he has devoted to his job rather than to his family.
The title derives from the children’s rhyme “Ring Around the Rosie,” a song that is actually about the Black Death during the Dark Ages. Will learns this in history class on the previous school day, a foreshadowing of events to occur.
A middle school and high school teacher for twenty years, Lesley Roessing was the Founding Director of the Coastal Savannah Writing Project at Georgia Southern University (formerly Armstrong State University) where she was also a Senior Lecturer in the College of Education. In 2018-19 she served as a Literacy Consultant with a K-8 school. Lesley served as past editor of Connections, the award-winning journal of the Georgia Council of Teachers of English. As a columnist for AMLE Magazine, she shared before, during, and after-reading response strategies across the curriculum through ten “Writing to Learn” columns. She now works independently, writing, providing professional development in literacy to schools, and visiting classrooms to facilitate reading and writing lessons. She can be contacted at email@example.com or through Facebook Messenger.
Lesley is the author of
- Bridging the Gap: Reading Critically & Writing Meaningfully to Get to the Core
- Comma Quest: The Rules They Followed. The Sentences They Saved
- No More “Us” & “Them: Classroom Lessons and Activities to Promote Peer Respect
- The Write to Read: Response Journals That Increase Comprehension
- Talking Texts: A Teachers’ Guide to Book Clubs across the Curriculum
- and has contributed chapters to
- Young Adult Literature in a Digital World: Textual Engagement though Visual Literacy
- Queer Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the English Language Arts Curriculum
- Story Frames for Teaching Literacy: Enhancing Student Learning through the Power of Storytelling (in press)


Dear Miss Rae,
How can I help a student who has ZERO coping skills?
My student is a sweet girl who greets her teacher with a hug every day. She can follow routines. She rarely shuts down in class, but when she does it is around academics. When things are hard for her, she completely gives up. Her shutting down is crying and quiet. She will cover her face with her hair, but she does not ask for help. She does NOT like making mistakes. Help me so I can help her! Because the truth is I don’t know how to help her!
Approximately 4.4 million students, aged 3-17 years, have been diagnosed with anxiety (Ghandour, et al., 2018).
So teaching coping skills in schools is a must!
Coping means to make a conscious effort to solve problems and master, minimize, and handle stress or conflict!
Here are some coping strategies that I teach to my students:
ONE: Deep Breathing!
Oxygen helps our bodies relax. Have students breathe in through their nose, expand their bellies, and then, breath out. Try using a pinwheel or bubbles! As students breathe out, get the pinwheel to spin or make some bubbles float into the air!
TWO: WRITE ABOUT FEELINGS!
Writing helps students get their feelings out and learn from them. Give students time to free write about their feelings. This is a private place to confess how they feel. Writing down anxious thoughts helps take them away and allows students a chance to vent their frustrations. Through writing, students are able to connect and listen to themselves as well. This self-reflection allows them to evolve and gain control over their own thoughts.
Try these writing activities for stress:
*Keep a worry journal. Have students write down the worries they are feeling, but then, end with one positive feeling. This helps to break the negative thinking cycle!
*Start a feelings journal. Students write one feeling (i.e. happy, mad, sad, scared) on a page. Students should then think of something that gave them this feeling. Write or draw about what happened.
*Write and Rip! In this activity, students write or draw their worries on a piece of paper. They can read them to themselves, a teacher, counselor, or peer (if they choose). Then, rip up the paper and throw it away.
*Use a question and answer activity to help students process and reflect on their stress experiences.
Three: FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE!
Get students to change their thinking! Oftentimes, when we are anxious, we engage in negative self-talk. How we talk to ourselves affects our outlook on the world. So help students change their mindset!
Teach positive self-talk! Brainstorm ways to revise negative talk.
I can’t make this any better.
What can I improve?
I can’t do this.
I have to practice.
This is too hard.
This may take some time.
I’m never going to get this.
I’ll use a different strategy.
I made a mistake.
Mistakes help me learn.
Create lists! Students can create gratitude lists of things they are thankful for. They can also create favorite lists. Creating a list of things students love to do gives them choices when they are stressed out.
Four: GET MOVING!
Exercise releases endorphins. These are natural painkillers that the brain releases. This helps to reduce stress. So get your kiddos moving! Students can walk in place, run in place, dance, do jumping jacks, stretch, take a walk, or do some yoga all in their classroom!
Relaxing helps students to calm their minds and thus, regulate their emotions.
Create a calming corner within the classroom. This gives students a place to go to for some relaxation time. Students can ask to go to this safe space within the classroom. Once there, they can use a sand timer to track the length of their stay. Then, they can engage in relaxing activities that are all available within the calming space. This could be fidgets, coloring books, clay, books, a mini sandbox, and more. Teach your students how to use these tools to relax prior to introducing the space.
Teach students a trick to release this stress from their bodies:
Tense all of your muscles in your body (really tight...make fists even). Hold your muscles tight for five seconds. Release. Notice how you feel. Repeat two to five times.
You can also teach tensing one muscle group at a time, holding for five seconds, releasing, pause to notice how you feel, and then, moving to the next group.
Let students create a character that represents their anxiety. Have them talk to their character about ways to feel strong and deal with their anxiety. Practice visualizing talking to this character. This will help students use this strategy in a moment of anxiety.
Have your students create video game remote controls for their anxiety. Each button can be a strategy that works for the student. Practice pressing a button and using this strategy.
Create a worry box for the classroom. Decorate a box for the classroom. Students can write their worries on a piece of paper and place them in the box.
Seven: TRACK THE DATA!
We use data to motivate our students in their academics so why don’t we do this with their stress. Students can track their stress in a notebook in order to analyze it. Does their stress have a pattern? Conference with your students to help them gain a deeper understanding of their stress. What was the catalyst for the student’s stress? What was the antecedent to the stress? What was the consequence of the stress? What can a student do to prevent this pattern from continuing
For the most severe cases of students who lack coping skills, teachers can help them by creating IEP goals for them!
Sample IEP Goal:
Given direct instruction, XXX will develop coping skills and strategies to manage frustrations in 3 out of 5 observable opportunities.
1. XXX will be able to use calming strategies when frustrated (breathing exercise or counting backwards) in 3 out of 5 observable opportunities.
2. XXX will be able to verbalize difficulties and accept when no further help can be offered for completing tasks or tests in 3 out of 5 observable opportunities.
3. XXX will put forth effort when confronted with perceived difficult tasks in 3 out of 5 observable opportunities.
Coping skills are skills that our students need to be successful in life - no matter where their journey takes them. Let’s help them to have success in life!
By: Miss Rae
Ghandour RM, Sherman LJ, Vladutiu CJ, Ali MM, Lynch SE, Bitsko RH, Blumberg SJ. Prevalence and treatment of depression, anxiety, and conduct problems in U.S. children. The Journal of Pediatrics, 2018. Published online before print October 12, 2018
TEACHER SELF CARE GUIDE
When students push, give them a hug.
The first day I met Jon, he entered my class followed by one of the school’s many Crisis Interventions. After exchanging some words, it appeared that Jon had not followed an instruction that he was given. The Crisis Interventionist was clearly angry, and Jon was clearly not. And most obvious to me was that Jon was in control of the entire situation. He made the situation go the way he wanted. I respected him for that. I saw the leader in him. I also saw the challenge of fostering the POSITIVE leader in him.
Over the next few months, Jon and I fostered a strong relationship. He was a positive leader in our classroom community. I made sure to allow him to always feel safe and in control when he could be. But then, one day, everything changed. He walked into class, told me he hated me, and then, proceeded to do everything in his power to show me how much he hated me.
Jon had been diagnosed with something called Reactive Attachment Disorder or RAD, as it’s known.
RAD is a condition characterized by markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate ways of relating socially in most contexts
When a baby is repeatedly comforted and cared for, an attachment forms with the caregivers. Baby’s who have their needs met learn to love and trust others, develop healthy relationships, regulate emotional responses to situations, be aware of others’ emotions and needs, and have a positive self-image.
On the other hand, when a baby experiences abuse and neglect at the hands of caregivers, attachments do not form. Failure to establish these expected bonds negatively impacts children, leading to possible depression, irritability, and mistrust and/or fear of trusting adults or peers.
Repeated abuse and neglect can leave children at-risk for RAD.
The signs and symptoms of RAD include the following…
-Failure to reach out when picked up or interest in peek-a-boo
-Unexplained withdrawal, fear, sadness or irritability
-Sad and listless appearance
-Not seeking comfort or showing no response when comfort is given
-Failure to smile
-Watching others closely but not engaging in social interaction
-Failing to ask for support or assistance
But RAD is a rare disorder. The majority of children who experience repeated abuse and neglect, including those that have been bounced around to multiple caregivers and experienced abuse and neglect with each, do not develop RAD.
Wait! What?! How is it rare when I can think of at least 3 students in my classroom that exhibit these symptoms?!
Modern-day students make this disorder feel like the norm, right?!
Some of our students have been hurt and let down by adults in the past. When something happens to someone over and over, it becomes an expected behavior. So instead of being let down by another adult who you have started to care about, why not push them away? Isn't that easier? Then, that adult can't hurt you. That adult can let you down like all of the others have.
Not only did Jon state in front of the whole class how much he hated me, he also continued to tell them why he hated me, including my stupidity and ugly appearance in his tirade. He refused to participate in morning meeting, getting two others to follow his choice after explaining how boring morning meeting is. During reading, he broke the picture of my puppy on my desk and twenty minutes later, threw a chair at me. And at the end of the day, I told him that I didn’t know what I had done to upset him, but I couldn’t change unless he told me. I also told him that I cared for him, I didn’t like to see him this upset, and tomorrow is a new day!
The next day he came in and quietly observed the class for the day, never once speaking to me.
At the end of the day, I told him that I was happy to see that he seemed less angry, but I missed the old Jon. Tomorrow would be a new day.
After that, Jon acted as if those two days never happened. He did push again at times, but never so intensely.
Trauma leaves an impact. No matter the trauma, a person’s brain is essentially altered in terms of thinking, emotional regulation, and response to fears.
So when a student pushes you away, don't let them. Instead, let them know that you are not like the other adults who have let them down in the past. Let them know that you are not going anywhere. They aren't going to be able to push you away - just give it up, kid
When students push, give them a hug.
By: Miss Rae
Calling all teachers!!!! Does this sound familiar???
“Suzy isn’t friends with me anymore. She called me a bad name at lunch.” ...or...
“Boys and girls, we have been so chatty in our groups that we are not finishing our work.” ...or how about...
“Johnny keeps cutting me in line.” ...or...
“Class, the rule is that we are silent when we travel as a class in the hallway. We have been late to lunch all week because our line has to keep stopping and waiting for students to stop talking.”
And how about these???
“I read this math problem. Now what? How do I solve this math problem?”
“Why did the American Revolution happen? I don’t see where it says it in the text.”
“Who knows why the character chose to do that? What was she thinking?”
And then, there are the questions we ask ourselves:
How do we teach our students to independently problem solve???
How do we teach them how to solve their social conflicts???
How do we teach them to challenge themselves in their own learning in order to grow as a learner???
Our students do not know how to solve problems! They have not learned how to analyze problems before jumping right in!
So, here is what I do!
I use the Analyzing a Problem Classroom Protocol! And I use it in my academic content area instruction AND for solving classroom management issues!
Analyzing a Problem Classroom Protocol includes a step-by-step structured approach for students for analyzing problems prior to attempting to solve them! This protocol gives educators an approach to follow to work together in order to solve classroom community and academic problems!
Analyzing a Problem Classroom Protocol:
-Presenter describes the problem and asks a focus question.
-Group members ask clarifying questions.
-The Facilitator facilitates Response Rounds, eliciting responses from each group member to the presented problem.
-The Presenter should take notes throughout the process and then reads the notes aloud.
-The Presenter asks “What options for solution did our group present?”
-Make a list of the solutions.
Optional: Debrief the team process: What were the team’s strengths? Difficulties? What helped the team work together? How can difficulties be improved next time?
Happy problem solving!
By Miss Rae
You might also like...
Humans are rooted in emotion so let's build the roots of our education by teaching and supporting emotional learning! ...but how can we possibly add another content area into our day??? How about we infuse Social Emotional Learning into our already existing curriculum?!
One way I infuse SEL into my read alouds!
Self-Management - ability to successfully regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, stress, impulses, & behaviors in different situations & work toward personal & academic goals
Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein
Mouse Was Mad by Linda Urban
Middle School/High School:
Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
Fast Break by Mike Lupica
Self-Awareness - ability to assess one’s strengths & challenges & correctly identify one’s own emotions & how they influence situations & others
The Orange Shoes by Trinka Hakes Noble
Carla’s Sandwich by Debbie Herman
Middle School/High School:
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Responsible Decision-Making - ability to make constructive, socially acceptable, & ethical choices about personal behavior & social interactions
Hooper Humperdink..? Not Him! By Dr. Seuss
The Summer My Father Was Ten by Pat Brisson
Middle School/High School:
House Arrest by K.A. Holt
Parrot in the Oven: Mi vida by Victor Martinez
Relationship Skills - ability to establish & maintain healthy & positive relationships with diverse groups through clear communication, good listening skills, positive collaboration, & conflict resolution
A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead
Hooray for Hat by Brian Won
Middle School/High School:
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Social-Awareness - ability to take the perspective of & empathize with others, including people from diverse backgrounds & cultures
The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig
Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson
Middle School/High School:
Freak the Mighty by W. Rodman Philbrick
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
And the core SEL skill that I also like to teach…
Say Something - empowerment to protect one’s communities & other individuals from negative influences
Say Something by Peggy Moss
Mary Wrightly, So Politely by Shirin Yim Bridges and Maria Monescillo
Middle School/High School:
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Whatever you choose to read, learn from it as a classroom community!
By Miss Rae
The news has never been my happy place, but it's been especially upsetting in 2018. From mass shootings in places of worship and schools to mail bombings, our world is a scary place. And obviously, we are all very upset about this.
But why are we not addressing mental illness in this country?!
Sometimes I feel like screaming. There is never enough time in the day to get everything I need to get done. I'm literally running at my highest capacity every minute of every day. I've never felt so stressed in my life.
We are all running on high all day; intensifying and exhausting our emotional and mental capacities.
Our students are feeling the same.
And now, we are both forced into the integrated experience of the classroom, where naturally, our actions and words affect the actions and words of others within the same microcosm of the classroom.
Previously, students could be targeted and remediated on a case by case basis, but with today's prevalence, SUPPORTS MUST BE MAINSTREAMED.
And those supports MUST address our students mental health needs.
Okay, so this isn't going to be simple. And we can start with baby steps.
In moments of heightened anxiety, we can stop, breathe, and re-center ourselves. Similarly, if we insert these moments, forcibly, into our day, including our time with students, where we stop and breathe (i.e. a mindfulness activity, yoga, go noodle, etc.), we can stop running at such a high level, and perhaps, we begin to regulate our emotions as well.
We need to teach this to our students because it does not come naturally anymore. This is the world now. This is us. These are our students.
1. Build a Classroom Community
A classroom community means that students trust and support each other. They feel safe to accept and give feedback and take risks.
Spend the first month and some time each week throughout the year playing a classroom-based community-building game to build trust and problem-solving and cooperative learning skills.
2. Address SE (social emotional) needs
Start your Mondays off right - by addressing your students' social emotional needs!
Welcome them into the week with a friendly morning greeting! Ease them back with some conversation to set the tone... What's one thing you are looking forward to this week? What's one thing that will make you happy this week? What is your goal for this week?
3. Infuse SEL (social emotional learning) into our current content
We barely have time in the day to use the restroom, right?! How could we possibly fit another block of time into our day to teach SEL? Well, you don't have to. Much of our current curriculum lends itself to SE learning skills. Stories in history and ELA, games in Math, giving and receiving feedback, and working collaboratively in the science lab all lend themselves to SE skills. What we do need, then, is professional development on SE skills! Are you listening higher ups?
4. Explicitly Teach Pro-Social Skills
Teach expected behaviors and do it explicitly. State the rule, role play what the rule looks like and doesn't look like, discuss the rule, praise students you see displaying the rule, etc.
AND hold students accountable. Consequences are a natural part of life. Develop reasonable consequences that match infractions AND make sure they are enforceable. Consequences must abide by the school rules, but they also have to be consequences that you are willing to implement. If you say a student is going to stay in for recess, does the school allow this AND are you willing to give up your time to be inside with this student?
5. Make Teacher Self Care a Priority
You are good to your students. Be good to yourself! The saying is true - you cannot pour from an empty cup. Take care of yourself first!
~By Miss Rae
One of the most important factors in behavior management is data tracking!
Without the data, interventions are just an opinion! How do we know what’s working and what’s not working without the data?
We track the data! Tracking the data is the way to change the behavior!
Let me give you an example of data tracking with a common classroom issue -
How do you handle a student who swears in your classroom?
For the minor offense (i.e. it slips out in conversation or out of frustration), I acknowledge it and I redirect...
“Let’s watch our language as that is inappropriate for school.”
(As with all redirections of behavior, you want to make sure you explain why you are asking for the behavior to be corrected. Answer the question: What is the behavior’s negative impact?)
With a major swearing offended, you are going to take a different approach. A student who chooses to swear or swears multiple times in one period is a major offender.
With these major offenders, DO NOT acknowledge the swear!
And I repeat - DO NOT!
By acknowledging the swear, you are actually reinforcing swearing.
start by obtaining a baseline. You will get this if you have tracked the data or by tracking the data!
Example: Cam swears 20 times in 60 minutes on average…
Next, have an honest conversation with your student...
"Your goal is to swear less and here’s why we need to reduce your swearing..."
Then, implement the intervention!
AND begin tracking the data!
The intervention is to reinforce the expected behavior. When the student doesn’t swear...
"Oh good job, Cam! Here's a merit for not swearing in the last 5 minutes."
Build the time frame of the reinforcer! Depending on baseline data and continued progress monitoring data, the reinforcer (i.e.merits) can build toward a bigger reinforcer (i.e. lunch with the teacher, homework pass). The reinforcer should be something reinforcing BUT within reason!
Over time, the reinforcer fades as the behavior is phased out!
~By Miss Rae
Back to School Icebreaker
Set a tone for your school year!
Icebreakers are effective and interactive team-building activities that typically precede the big event, and in our case, the big event is class! They enable students to get to know each other in a relaxed setting and buy into the purpose of the event - learning! They also allow for diverse learning styles and opportunities to help each other.
Research has demonstrated that students will learn when they are physically, mentally, and emotionally involved. Games allow educators to meet these needs.
Icebreakers convey a tone of working together through communication, support, and laughter.
Here is an example of a back to school icebreaker:
The Name Game!
Materials: soft tossable object, timer (optional)
Students stand in a line or sit in a circle. The first person says their name and a favorite thing. The second person then says their name and a favorite thing, as well as the name and thing of the person before them. Each person after that adds the names and items of all of the people before them.
★ Have students say their name only
★ Do not time the students. Simply use it for learning each others’ names.
Variation for the School Year:
•Instead of names, have students wear index cards or stickers…
••with sight words, vocabulary words, etc. on them. Students will have to read and/or spell the word they are tossing to.
••with a math fact on them. Students can say the fact and answer before tossing the object.
••with names of items in a sequence (think ABCs, planets, life cycles, events on a timeline, etc.) that students are learning about. Students have to toss the object in the correct sequence.
Get a free pdf version HERE!
This activity and more can be found in my Back to School Small Group Activities resource!
Have fun breaking the ice this year!
~ By Miss Rae
On May 16, 2013, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, commonly referred to as the CDC, released a report compiling estimates of the number of children living in the U.S. with specific mental health disorders. The report asserted 13 to 20 percent of children suffer a mental disorder in a one year time period.
The most prevalent parent-reported social emotional related diagnosis of children ages 3 to 17 years were as follows: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (6.8 percent), behavioral or conduct problems (3.5 percent), anxiety (3.0 percent), and depression (2.1 percent). Based upon the collected information completed during 1994 through 2011, the CDC’s report indicated an expected increase in the predominance of such conditions.
Negative emotions are correlated to lower levels of student engagement (Reschly, et al., 2008). These negative emotions can stifle learners. Negative emotions can result in emotional deficiencies, and such deficiencies can result in academic derailment.
Positive emotions, on the other hand, were found to be correlated to adaptive behaviors. This results in increased student engagement. As a result, adaptive behaviors, then, in turn, promote positive emotional skills such as an ability to handle change, work with a team, and improve interpersonal relationships.
The reality is that today's educators don't have a choice. We MUST address our students' Social Emotional needs.
The second reality is that educators do not always know where to begin to even address such skills. The budgets of school systems are bursting at the seams; finding the funds to provide professional development and a Social Emotional curriculum can be a moot point.
So what's the answer?
We must infuse Social Emotional Learning into the curriculum, using our content as a springboard!
And here are some ways to do that!
Use the lessons, morals, character development, plot, theme, etc. to drive Social Emotional Learning conversations!
Check out my Social Emotional: Short Story Empathy to learn how to teach Social Emotional Learning with texts!
Stories can provide a basis to prompt discussions and to determine a life lesson to be learned!
2. ADVENTURE GAMES
Connect learning goals to cooperative learning games. Think a Tug of War game to model the Revolutionary War AND elicit discussion around Social Emotional goals (i.e. How did the sides feel?)
Check out my Social Emotional Classroom Adventure Game: Goal Setting to learn how to teach Social Emotional Learning with games!
Games can prompt discussions around teamwork, setting goals, adjusting goals, and MORE!
Work hard, play hard, learn hard!
~ By Miss Rae
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [Mental Health Surveillance Among Children — United States, 2005–2011]. MMWR 2013;62(Suppl 2).
Reschly, A. L., Huebner, E., Appleton, J. J., & Antaramian, S. (2008). Engagement as flourishing: The contribution of positive emotions and coping to adolescents’ engagement at school and with learning. Psychology In The Schools, 45(5), 419-431. doi:10.1002/pits.20306
All Back To School Behavior Calming Toolbox Sequence Classroom Management Conflict Resolution Coping Skills Coronavirus Flu Fighting Posters COVID-19 & Schools Data Tracking Distance Learning Diversity Dropout Prevention EB/BD EBD Emotional Intelligence Feedback FREEBIES Glitter Jar Goal Setting Learning Disability Mental Health Positive Affirmations Problem Solving Reading School Re-Opening SEL And LD Self Care SEL Game SEL IEP Goals SEL Story Social Emotional Social Emotional Learning


Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African-American to gain national eminence as a poet. Born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio, he was the son of ex-slaves and classmate to Orville Wright of aviation fame.
Although he lived to be only 33 years old, Dunbar was prolific, writing short stories, novels, table de pythagore (multiplications), librettos, plays, songs and essays as well as the poetry for which he became well known. He was popular with black and white readers of his day, and his works are celebrated today by scholars and school children alike.
His style encompasses two distinct voices – the standard English of the classical poet and the evocative dialect of the turn-of-the-century black community in America. He was gifted in poetry – the way that Mark Twain was in prose – in using dialect to convey character.
Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African-American poet to garner national critical acclaim. Born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1872, Dunbar penned a large body of dialect poems, standard English poems, essays, novels and short stories before he died at the age of 33. His work often addressed the difficulties encountered by members of his race and the efforts of African-Americans to achieve equality in America. He was praised both by the prominent literary critics of his time and his literary contemporaries.
Dunbar was born on June 27, 1872, to Matilda and Joshua Dunbar, both natives of Kentucky. His mother was a former slave and his father had escaped from slavery and served in the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and the 5th Massachusetts Colored Calvary Regiment during the Civil War. Matilda and Joshua had two children before separating in 1874. Matilda also had two children from a previous marriage.
The family was poor, and after Joshua left, Matilda supported her children by working in Dayton as a washerwoman. One of the families she worked for was the family of Orville and Wilbur Wright, with whom her son attended Dayton’s Central High School. Though the Dunbar family had little material wealth, Matilda, always a great support to Dunbar as his literary stature grew, taught her children a love of songs and storytelling. Having heard poems read by the family she worked for when she was a slave, Matilda loved poetry and encouraged her children to read. Dunbar was inspired by his mother, and he began reciting and writing poetry as early as age 6.
Dunbar was the only African-American in his class at Dayton Central High, and while he often had difficulty finding employment because of his race, he rose to great heights in school. He was a member of the debating society, editor of the school paper and president of the school’s literary society. He also wrote for Dayton community newspapers. He worked as an elevator operator in Dayton’s Callahan Building until he established himself locally and nationally as a writer. He published an African-American newsletter in Dayton, the Dayton Tattler, with help from the Wright brothers.
His first public reading was on his birthday in 1892. A former teacher arranged for him to give the welcoming address to the Western Association of Writers when the organization met in Dayton. James Newton Matthews became a friend of Dunbar’s and wrote to an Illinois paper praising Dunbar’s work. The letter was reprinted in several papers across the country, and the accolade drew regional attention to Dunbar; James Whitcomb Riley, a poet whose works were written almost entirely in dialect, read Matthew’s letter and acquainted himself with Dunbar’s work. With literary figures beginning to take notice, Dunbar decided to publish a book of poems. Oak and Ivy, his first collection, was published in 1892.
Though his book was received well locally, Dunbar still had to work as an elevator operator to help pay off his debt to his publisher. He sold his book for a dollar to people who rode the elevator. As more people came in contact with his work, however, his reputation spread. In 1893, he was invited to recite at the World’s Fair, where he met Frederick Douglass, the renowned abolitionist who rose from slavery to political and literary prominence in America. Douglass called Dunbar “the most promising young colored man in America.”
Dunbar moved to Toledo, Ohio, in 1895, with help from attorney Charles A. Thatcher and psychiatrist Henry A. Tobey. Both were fans of Dunbar’s work, and they arranged for him to recite his poems at local libraries and literary gatherings. Tobey and Thatcher also funded the publication of Dunbar’s second book, Majors and Minors.
It was Dunbar’s second book that propelled him to national fame. William Dean Howells, a novelist and widely respected literary critic who edited Harper’s Weekly, praised Dunbar’s book in one of his weekly columns and launched Dunbar’s name into the most respected literary circles across the country. A New York publishing firm, Dodd Mead and Co., combined Dunbar’s first two books and published them as Lyrics of a Lowly Life. The book included an introduction written by Howells. In 1897, Dunbar traveled to England to recite his works on the London literary circuit. His national fame had spilled across the Atlantic.
After returning from England, Dunbar married Alice Ruth Moore, a young writer, teacher and proponent of racial and gender equality who had a master’s degree from Cornell University. Dunbar took a job at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. He found the work tiresome, however, and it is believed the library’s dust contributed to his worsening case of tuberculosis. He worked there for only a year before quitting to write and recite full time.
In 1902, Dunbar and his wife separated. Depression stemming from the end of his marriage and declining health drove him to a dependence on alcohol, which further damaged his health. He continued to write, however. He ultimately produced 12 books of poetry, four books of short stories, a play and five novels. His work appeared in Harper’s Weekly, the Sunday Evening Post, the Denver Post, Current Literature and a number of other magazines and journals. He traveled to Colorado and visited his half-brother in Chicago before returning to his mother in Dayton in 1904. He died there on Feb. 9, 1906.
Herbert Woodward Martin, University of Dayton professor emeritus, is an acclaimed scholar and interpreter of Dunbar’s works. Join audiences around the world in celebrating the beauty of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s words, embodied by Martin. Download RealPlayer.
Poems newly recorded by Herbert Martin:
After a Visit
Ante-Bellum Sermon, An
Death Song, A
Easy Goin’ Feller, An
Farm House by the River, The
Haunted Oak, The
He Had His Dream
In the Morning
Invitation to Love
Little Brown Baby
Making Up, The
Negro Love Song, A
Not They Who Soar
Ode for Memorial Day
Ode to Ethiopia
Poet and His Song, The
Right to Die, The
Toast to Dayton
We Wear The Mask
When Dey 'Listed Colored Soldiers
When Malindy Sings
For printed volumes of Dunbar’s work, see:
￼The Collected Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar
Edited by Joanne M. Braxton
(University Press of Virginia, 1993)
In His Own Voice: The Dramatic and Other Uncollected Works of Paul Laurence Dunbar
Edited by Herbert Woodward Martin & Ronald Primeau
(Ohio University Press, 2002)
With help from Herbert Woodward Martin, the Dayton Opera commissioned the new one-act production, “Paul Laurence Dunbar: Common Ground,” and hosted a lavish premiere Feb. 10, 1995, in the fully restored Victoria Theatre in Dayton.
He wrote of little brown babies and a man who had his dream. He revealed the mask worn by many and penned an ode to Ethiopia.
Paul Laurence Dunbar, a native Daytonian and the first black American to gain national prominence as a poet, ignited the literary world with his turn-of-the-century works and now has inspired two contemporary university professors to celebrate his poetry with operatic splendor.
“Be proud, my Race, in mind and soul;
Thy name is writ on Glory’s scroll
In characters of fire.”
So begins the new opera, with stanzas from “Ode to Ethiopia” and “Compensation,” which give “a sense of striving for that which is worthwhile,” says the librettist.
Dayton Opera commissioned the new one-act production, “Paul Laurence Dunbar: Common Ground,” and hosted a lavish premiere Feb. 10 in the fully restored Victoria Theatre in Dayton. Over the next three months, the four cast members took the 35-minute production to about 70 junior and senior high schools in an 11-county area surrounding Dayton, introducing students to Dunbar and the art of opera. An additional 40 performances were given for community groups.
Herbert Woodward Martin, English professor and poet-in-residence at the University of Dayton, selected the 12 poems to be included in the opera and wrote the libretto. Dialogue is delivered in between the poems to provide a narrative thread, and it links the works to Dunbar’s life, calling attention to the guidance offered by his parents, his love for his wife, Alice, and the tragedy of his death at the age of 33 in 1906. “The poetry is extraordinarily singable. There’s an inordinate amount of music already in the poems,” Martin says. He calls the opera “charming and quite delightful. I think it’s accessible, that it’s a cohesive piece that makes sense right away.”
The opera’s composer is Adolphus Hailstork, professor of composition at Norfolk State University. “When I discovered Dunbar’s work, I realized that he was my artistic ancestor, because I write music that reflects a double cultural experience, that of my standard European-oriented education and that of my ethnic heritage.” Hailstork blended the two influences in the opera, using standard harmonic and melodic styles for some pieces while choosing a musical style reflective of African-American blues and gospel in others.
“A Love Letter” and “A Frolic” are light-hearted poems written in African-American dialect, the form that brought Dunbar his initial fame. They set up a courtship theme that dominates the middle of the production and are followed by two serious and heartfelt love lyrics written in standard English, “The Awakening” and “Thou Art My Lute.”
Designed to fit easily into schoolday schedules, the production is also extremely portable, with only costumes and folding screens to set the mood on stage. Props such as chairs and podiums were borrowed from each school, and conductor Jeffrey Powell provided piano accompaniment. Powell and sopranos Marcia Porter and Angela Powell, tenor Ray M. Wade Jr. and baritone Kirk A.Walker answered questions from the audience following each school performance.
“Little Brown Baby,” one of Dunbar’s best-known dialect poems, reintroduces a playful note to the opera, portraying a father alternately teasing and cuddling his young son, “pappy’s pa’dner an’ playmate an’ joy” for whom he wishes “ease an cleah skies.”
Is the opera successful in teaching a new generation about Dunbar? Yes, says the librettist. “The person who is unfamiliar with Dunbar sees how clever he was and how ingenious he was,” says Martin, a Dunbar scholar who dresses in period clothes and takes on the voice of the poet for readings in some of his UD classes as well as for local, regional, national and international groups. “The person who is already familiar with Dunbar sees again the lasting effects he’s created, how well he created his characters and how alive they all are. Each group comes away with something quite marvelous.”
Tender teasing quickly gives way to good-hearted goading in “A Negro Love Song” for the two men in the cast and nosy inquisitiveness in “Discovered” for the two women. The poems are energetic and humorous and showcase Dunbar’s genius for relating human nature. “Dunbar’s characters are all different, they all have an individuality that comes across as being real and vibrant,” Martin says.
He does not claim to have contributed the definitive work on Dunbar, though. “Every generation has to find out how he or she can read Shakespeare or Chaucer, and I think Dunbar falls into that category too,” Martin says. “I’m sure that there are other ways of looking at those poems and finding another sense of humor in them, another sense of seriousness in them, and that’s okay.”
“What we tried to do is suggest that there is a kind of common pursuit and struggle that’s related to everyone’s life,” Martin says. “We wanted to capture the atmosphere and the tone of Dunbar’s reaction to the world around him.”
“Accountability” sets the stage for the reverent passion of “A Hymn” and “An Ante-Bellum Sermon,” leading to the prophetic “He Had His Dream.” At the end, the singers offer a reprise of “Ode to Ethiopia” and “Compensation,” strong voices and lyrics interwoven in a powerful wall of sound that begins at the stage and rolls outward, embracing the audience.
“Because I had loved so deeply,
Because I had loved so long,
God in His great compassion
Gave me the gift of song.”
The Chronicle of Higher Education, the nation’s leading higher education periodical, profiles Herbert Woodward Martin performing as Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Enter the Paul Laurence Dunbar House here and you will find the original Remington typewriter that the turn-of-the-century black writer used to pound out his poetry, scraps of time-worn paper on which are scrawled early drafts of his 100-year-old poems, and a bicycle he purchased from his childhood friends, the Wright brothers.
Every so often, you may also discover in the house a man, wearing a morning coat and striped trousers, who bears a striking resemblance to the dead poet.
But Herbert W. Martin, a professor of English at the University of Dayton and a poet himself, is not Paul Laurence Dunbar; he just plays him on television – in an educational video – and in a one-man show for audiences at countless schools, clubs, and libraries across Ohio and the rest of the country. Dressed in late-19th-century-garb, Mr. Martin recites the poet’s work, including his popular dialect poems, and brings Dunbar vibrantly to life.
‘A star professor’
As a child, Mr. Martin often was teased by fellow classmates about his eerie likeness to the poet. But it wasn’t until Mr. Martin came to the University of Dayton in 1970 that his fascination with the city’s favorite hometown poet began.
Mr. Martin’s performances, which have made him a local celebrity or, according to the April 1992 Ohio Magazine, a “star professor,” have also allowed him to get some exposure for his own work.
“I’ve made a rule that I will read maybe 35 minutes of Dunbar and during maybe the last 10 or 15 minutes, I will read two or three of my own poems, before answering questions about Dunbar,” he says. “So I feel that it has been of some kind of a benefit for the both of us.”
Mr. Martin does not mind that he has become better known for reciting Dunbar’s poetry than for his own.
“I don’t feel like I’m in competition with him, and I don’t feel overshadowed by him, and certainly do not envy his short life,” he says.
Dunbar died of tuberculosis in 1906 at the age of 33. But in his brief life, Dunbar, who is widely regarded as the first black person to achieve national eminence as a poet, was very prolific, publishing six volumes of poetry as well as short stories, novels, librettos, songs, and essays. Mr. Martin recently found an original manuscript of a three-act play of Dunbar’s that has never been published.
As a poet himself, Mr. Martin has had his successes. He has published four books of poetry, including the latest in 1980. The books focus on diverse subjects – from the loneliness of the city to racism and the frustrations of being black in America to sexuality and love.
Mr. Martin has continued writing and has succeeded in publishing many individual poems, but he has had little luck lately getting his works published as books. “It has been a difficult time for poets to get books in print, especially with the recessed economy,” says Mr. Martin, adding, “It would take a very long time to find somebody who spends their extra money on a book of poetry.”
Competing for recognition
To get books published these days, he notes, poets must enter contests, competing with hundreds of others for recognition. “The whole market seems to have swung to contests, so that means, in a small contest, they are likely to get anywhere from 200 to 500 entries, and only one book can win, when there are probably at least 10 there that would be good,” he says.
It is a very different time from the 1960s when poets, including Mr. Martin, flooded the coffeehouses of New York City’s Greenwich Village for public poetry readings. Then, publishers like Broadside Press hunted down young, aspiring black poets with the goal of getting them into print.
It was an exciting time, says Mr. Martin, who worked some of the same clubs as Bob Dylan. “The poets took to the streets, and they captured the American imagination,” he says, putting their “pulse” on the concerns of their audiences. “And people started buying books of poetry like they hadn’t done since anybody could tell in a month of Sundays.”
Since then, he says, poets have generally focused more on the personal than on the political. And the public, he says, has generally lost interest in what poets have to say.
Still, Mr. Martin loves to write and feels that his next book contract is not too far away. He says he never lets himself get discouraged: “I think you are called to be a poet, like ministers are called to be ministers, and doctors are called to be physicians. Something touches you and says this you can do, and you can do it well.”
What would Dunbar think?
He has been shopping around three manuscripts for books: one about a man dying of AIDS, another about his mother’s battle with cancer and a third titled The Log of the Vigilante, which chronicles the voyages of a slave-trade ship.
Sitting in the study of the Dunbar House, the room in which Dunbar composed much of his poetry, Mr. Martin wonders out loud what the famous poet would have thought of his poems.
“I would hope that he would like my poetry, but beyond that there’s no guessing. Even if he liked only one or two, that would be OK,” he says. “I guess I’m the only one who’s supposed to like them all, since they are my children. Some are more successful than others, some are better constructed than others, some have excellent bodies, and no ideas, some have excellent ideas, and no bodies, so you have to take it like you catch it, as Dunbar said in one of his poems.”
(Nov. 3, 1993)
Copyright 1997, The Chronicle of Higher Education. Posted with permission on the University of Dayton’s Paul Laurence Dunbar Web site, http://www.plethoreum.org/dunbar/. This article may not be published, reposted, or distributed without permission from The Chronicle of Higher Education.
A UD professor breathes life into Dunbar’s poetry with passionate study and performance. A poet himself, Herbert Woodward Martin “borrows” Dunbar’s voice to recreate the fury, humor and rhythm of his works.
When Herbert Martin was a child growing up in Birmingham, Ala., his classmates taunted him when he read aloud Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poetry.
The youth bore an uncanny resemblance to Dunbar, a Dayton native and the first black American to achieve national eminence as a poet. Because the schoolchildren had to memorize Dunbar’s works, “they took out their dislike for poetry on me,” remembers Martin. “Either I’ve repressed that or gotten over it.”
Now himself a poet, Martin hears only applause when he reads Dunbar’s work today. Well, “reads” is not exactly the right word. Dressed in a turn-of-the-century morning coat and striped trousers, Martin “borrows” Dunbar’s voice to bring the poet’s verse to life. At times, he exhibits the spiritual frenzy of a black preacher in a folk sermon. In other moments, he delivers Dunbar’s humorous refrains with the rat-a-tat speed and perfect timing of a successful late-night TV comedian.
“I try to show that the dialect poems are accessible,” says Martin, who became seriously interested in Dunbar’s work in 1972 when he organized a centennial birthday celebration in the poet’s honor at the University of Dayton. “Looking at his poems on the page, they seem really kind of difficult to read. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, there is a feeling in this country that dialect means that you are uneducated and unintelligent and to use it or speak it somehow makes you second rate or second class. (Mark) Twain has gotten away with it, but I think black people have been embarrassed by dialect.”
The son of ex-slaves, Dunbar stepped in and out of dialect for effect, never losing his distinctly black voice. “In ‘An Ante-Bellum Sermon,’ he presents ideas about freedom in a very humorous, satirical way, but when he is extraordinarily furious, he moves just slightly to the right of dialect. He plays both sides of the fence it seems to me. He involves the reader in such a way that you cannot miss the point.”
Juggling two “acting” engagements per week on top of his teaching load in the University’s English department Martin has taken his one-man show to schools, libraries, and clubs around the state. He’s even performed for the official Paul Laurence Dunbar Reading Club in New Castle, Pa., and one Fortune 500 company – the Mead Corp. Black Entertainment Television, a national cable station, has featured Martin as “English professor by day, Paul Laurence Dunbar by night.”
Like Dunbar, whose notebooks contained several drafts of the same poem, Martin incessantly revises his work. The creative process starts before dawn. Arising early “before the house wakes,” he scribbles out poems in longhand and slowly punches them into a word processor. Then he revises and revises and revises.
The University of Dayton’s poet-in-residence for over two decades, Martin has published four books of poetry and a monograph on Paul Laurence Dunbar and is trying to interest a publisher in a book-length collection of poems about people with AIDS and a long series of poems called “Final W” about his mother dying from cancer. His poems have been published in academic publications and such national magazines as Poetry and the George Washington Review.
The words don’t come easy: “When you look at that flat sheet of paper, it’s pretty fearsome and awful to think that you’re trying to create a world on a sheet of paper that’s 8 1/2 by 11 to bring it (the poem) to life so that the reader feels the emotion,” says Martin. “All of that is pretty worrisome, especially if you’re calling yourself a professional. When one of my books comes out, I always think, ‘well, here I am being foolish in print again.’”
Martin, also an accomplished Shakespearean and musical theater performer, says he often feels the same way when he’s behind the footlights. Whether performing or writing he tries to rely on what he calls a sense of youthful arrogance. “If you begin to have serious and second doubts as you go on the stage, the audience is not going to believe that you are who you say you are,” he observes. “I think readers can also recognize that lapse and falseness in tone.”
At Scott High School in Toledo, Martin remembers writing a series of “really dreadful” poems that he claims to have “burned by my own hand and destroyed so they can’t come back and haunt me.” In the '60s he began reading his poetry in New York coffee houses. His work has run the gamut from militant themes to unrequited love, and he says he’s still trying to find his own “voice.”
At first, he says, "(TS) Eliot and (Ezra) Pound held sway. Everything I wrote in the early days had that echo. Slowly I began to write poems that could not have Eliot’s or Pound’s or anyone else’s perspective.
“The voice I’m still trying to find is occasionally humorous, maybe even has a twinkle in it somewhere. It’s serious, I would hope that it’s highly lyrical and that much of my voice is informed by music and that it is in some ways elevated, not out of the reach of the general public, but not so low and mundane that everybody just sort of tramples on it and takes it for granted,” he muses.
Not surprisingly, Dunbar, too, heard music in poetry. Says Martin, “It echoed in his work.”
See suggestions for teaching using Dunbar’s poetry in middle and secondary schools.
See information on video and audio tapes of Herbert Woodward Martin performing as Dunbar.
To learn more about Dunbar’s home in Dayton, visit the Paul Laurence Dunbar House
The Paul Laurence Dunbar House was awarded a grant worth nearly $117,030 by President Clinton’s Save America’s Treasures program. For more information click here.
Wright State University in Dayton has an experimental database of Dunbar’s works.
William Grant Still, an African-American composer, set some of Dunbar’s poem to music. To read about the Afro-American Symphony, see this Duke University site. To learn more about African-American history and literature, visit Keele University’s American literature site, which includes information about other African-American writers and links to other African-American literature sites.
The Black Collegian, a career and self-development site, has compiled a list of African-American writers, artists, activists, scholars and politicians with links to profiles of these important historical figures.
Mark Twain, a contemporaty of Dunbar’s, also used dialect in his extraordinary writings of American life. To learn more about Twain and his unique style, see this comprehensive site, which includes excerpts and critcal essays.
To learn more about Dunbar’s life and career, see The Modern American Poetry’s Paul Laurence Dunbar page, which includes literary criticism and examples of Dunbar’s illustrated poems.
University of Dayton
University of Dayton Quarterly, an eclectic look at UD
University of Dayton admission information
UD professor, Herbert Woodward Martin sits at Paul Laurence Dunbar’s desk.
The historic home of Paul Laurence
Dunbar located in Dayton, Ohio.
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Herbert Woodward Martin
Paul Laurence Dunbar’s desk at his Dayton home.
The Paul Laurence Dunbar Web site is a project of the Public Relations office of the University of Dayton.
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