Look closely at this image of a home.
The following activities and questions are designed to help your students use their noticing skills to move through the poem and develop their thinking skills so they understand its meaning with confidence, using what they’ve noticed as evidence for their interpretations. Read more about the framework upon which these activities are based.
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Warm-up: Read the words “ghostly,” “haunt,” and “abandoned.” As a class, create a list of related words together. Then, discuss what you notice about these words. Do any words stand out? Are there any patterns emerging?
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Before Reading the Poem: Look closely at this image of a home. What stands out to you? Why? What might the story of this house be? Look again. What else do you see?
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Reading the Poem: Silently read the poem “Abandoned” by Joseph Auslander. What do you notice about the poem? Note any words or phrases that stand out to you or any questions you might have.
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Listening to the Poem: Enlist two volunteers and listen as the poem is read aloud twice. Write down any additional words and phrases that stand out to you.
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Small Group Discussion: Share what you noticed about the poem with a small group. Based on the details you just shared with your small group, how do the resources from the beginning of class connect to the poem? What do you think of the title, “Abandoned”? How might the poem be different without it?
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Whole Class Discussion: What imagery stands out to you in the poem? Why? What is the mood in the poem? How does the imagery show the mood?
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Extension for Grades 7-8: Write a new poem from the point of view of the house. What might the house need to say? Read your poem to the class, and if you feel inspired, create an image to accompany your poem.
- Extension for Grades 9-12: Read more poems about ghosts and/or Halloween. Choose one or more words from the list you generated at the beginning of class. Trace how this particular word is represented in the poems. Share this with your classmates.
Find tricks and treats this Halloween with a selection of poems featuring haunted houses, goblins, vampires, ghosts, and ghouls, along with Halloween-inspired lesson plans, essays on poets’ graves, poets’ last words, and more. Explore poems and resources for Halloween.