Teach This Poem: “Beans” by Mary Oliver

Look carefully at these images of beans and a bean field.

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.

1. Warm-up: Look carefully at these images of beans and a bean field. What do you notice? Work with a partner or small group to write a caption for each image. Then, share your captions and discuss what you noticed about each image.

2. Before Reading the Poem: (Teachers, before class, we suggest typing this Mary Oliver poem without any punctuation, line breaks, or stanzas so that students can read and practice thinking about these elements of poetry.) Read this definition of enjambment and end-stopped lines. Then, read the poem without any punctuation, line breaks, stanzas, end-stopped lines, or enjambment. With a partner or small group, rewrite the poem with these elements. Afterward, share your poem with the class and discuss the decisions you made. 

3. Reading the Poem: Silently read the poem “Beans” by Mary Oliver. What do you notice about the poem? Note any words or phrases that stand out to you or any questions you might have. 

4. 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. 

5. Small Group Discussion: Share what you noticed about the poem with a small group. Based on the details you just shared and the resources from the beginning of class, how does the published poem compare to your version of the poem? What decisions did the poet make about line breaks, stanzas, and enjambment versus end-stopped lines? 

6. Whole Class Discussion: What imagery do you see in the poem? How does this impact your reading? What do you make of the final line of the poem “But, what about virtue?” (Teachers, find some definitions for the word virtue.) 

7. Extension for Grades 7-8: Read more poems about food. Then, write your own poems about food, memory, or virtue. Share your poem with the class. What can we learn from writing about food? 

8. Extension for Grades 9-12: Imagine this poem in a series. What might the next poem be about—virtue, another vegetable, food, or even a poem from the point of view of the bean? Write a new poem about noticing something small and ordinary as extraordinary, and share it with your class. After hearing all the poems, what does this poem make you think about? Why?  

“[...] I think we’re creative all day long. We have to have an appointment, to have that work out on the page, because the creative part of us gets tired of waiting, or just gets tired. And it’s helped a lot of students, young poets, doing that—to have that meeting with that part of oneself, because there are, of course, other parts of life.” Listen to Krista Tippett talk with Mary Oliver about the wisdom of the world, the salvation of poetry, and the life behind her writing. 

Enjambment is the continuation of a sentence or clause across a poetic line break. Read more.