Listen to the song “Misguided Ghosts” by Paramore.
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: (Teachers, before class, ask students to bring in an image or object that corresponds to the title “A Song of the Road.”) Join with a small group, and share your image or object. Discuss why you brought this particular item to class. After sharing, look closely at everyone’s image or object. What do these items say about the road? What does it mean to you to go on a journey?
- Before Reading the Poem: Listen to the song “Misguided Ghosts” by Paramore. What do you like about this song? What words or lyrics stand out? How would you describe the mood of this song?
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Reading the Poem: Silently read the poem “A Song of the Road” by José Santos Chocano, translated by John Pierrepont Rice. 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. You may enjoy listening to the English translation of the poem.
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Small Group Discussion: Share what you noticed about the poem with a small group of students. How might this poem connect to the resources from the beginning of class? What object might this speaker use to tell of this journey?
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Whole Class Discussion: What imagery stands out the most to you in the poem? Why? How would you describe the voices in the poem? What do you think of the final two lines of the poem: “At night they come, and they are gone by day, /And love is but an inn upon life’s way.” How has the speaker changed from the beginning of the poem? How do you know?
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Extension for Grades 7-8: Think back to the image or object that you shared at the beginning of class. Use this as inspiration to write your own “Song of the Road.” Who and/or what might you encounter on this journey? Share your writing with the class.
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Extension for Grades 9-12: What else might the voices have to say? Choose to write a poem from their point of view or read more poems with ghosts. Share your writing or your thoughts with the class.
“‘Haunted Houses’ and ‘Unbidden’ are poems about ghosts, and like all good poetry they go beyond the clichéd images to a deeper place that connects to being human [...] They provide diverse students access to the poem through preparatory activities to hone their perception, a collaborative way of reading the poems and analyzing them, and post-activities to help them imagine and interpret their own ‘ghosts.’” Find more lesson plans about ghosts by Dr. Madeleine Fuchs Holzer.