Teach This Poem, though developed with a classroom in mind, can be easily adapted for remote-learning, hybrid-learning models, or in-person classes. Please see our suggestions for how to adapt this lesson for remote or blended learning. We have also noted suggestions when applicable and will continue to add to these suggestions online.
Watch the video of Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwoʻole's “Hawai’i ‘78.”
The following activities and questions are designed to help your students use their noticing skills to move through the poem and develop their thinking about 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.
“For a while now, there have been discussions within our communities about disaggregating this grouping [Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month] because we aren’t really sure if this is actually serving any of us. So, from a Pacific Islander poetry perspective, this grouping has resulted in our issues and creative work being somewhat invisible within the American public sphere, because our work tends to be eclipsed by the really amazing work of Asian American poets.” Listen to or read the interview with May 2022 Poem-a-Day guest editor Brandy Nālani McDougall.
This week’s glossary term is speaker, the voice of the poem, similar to a narrator in fiction. Read more.