Look closely at the image of The Tower (La torre) by Remedios Varo.
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: Listen to the song “Anything Could Happen” by Ellie Goulding. Which words or phrases stand out to you? Why?
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Before Reading the Poem: Look closely at the image of The Tower (La torre) by Remedios Varo. What stands out to you in the image? Why? Look again. What do you notice about the tower? What questions, if any, do you have?
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Reading the Poem: Silently read the poem “Anything Can Happen” by Seamus Heaney. What do you notice about the poem? Note any words or phrases that stand out to you or any questions you might have.
- 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 does the poem connect to the resources from the beginning of class? What do you think of the title “Anything Can Happen”? How does this connect to the poem and your own life?
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Whole Class Discussion: What allusions do you notice in the poem, both mythological and real? How do these allusions impact the poem? What imagery stood out to you most in the poem? Why?
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Extension for Grades 7-8: Using the title of the poem as inspiration, write about a time when something unexpected happened in your own life. Try incorporating imagery into your writing. Share your writing with the class.
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Extension for Grades 9-12: Inspired by Horace’s “Ode 1.34,” Heaney’s poem was written in response to September 11, 2001. Write a paragraph about how Heaney explores the balance between the mythical and the real world events. Share your writing with the class.
In this postcard from our archive, Seamus Heaney humorously rejects a request to be a judge for one of the Academy’s poetry competitions. With his tongue placed firmly in his cheek, Heaney bemoans the difficult task of judging poetry competitions with no lack of poetic exaggeration. “Since Purgatory has disappeared as a concept—‘a place or state of temporal punishment …,’ mankind has been attempting to replace it, and judging poetry competitions comes high on the list of substitutions,” he writes on the postcard. Read more.
Allusion is a reference to a person, event, or literary work outside the poem.