Produced for K-12 educators, Teach This Poem features one poem a week from our online poetry collection, accompanied by interdisciplinary resources and activities designed to help teachers quickly and easily bring poetry into the classroom. The series is written by our Educator in Residence, Dr. Madeleine Fuchs Holzer, and is available for free via email.

Featured Poem

Enamorada (1946)

Filmed in 1946 and set during the Mexican Revolution, Enamorada was directed by Emilio Fernández and stars María Félix and Pedro Amendariz.

View the clip beginning at 32:23 and ending at 33:51.

 
Classroom Activities
  1. Show your students a clip from the film Enamorada (1946) twice, beginning at 32:23 and ending at 33:51. The first time they should simply watch the clip straight through. The second time, ask them to write down what they notice in the video. (It doesn’t make any difference if they can’t understand the Spanish.  There is much to notice without understanding the words.)
  2. Turn and talk:  Ask your students to talk with the person next to them about what they saw in the video and what they think it means.  Ask them to back up their interpretations with what they specifically noticed in the video.
  3. Project the poem “When There Were Ghosts” by Alberto Ríos.  Ask your students to read it silently while writing down words and phrases they think are important.  Ask one student to read the poem aloud to the class while the listening students add new words and phrases that might be important to their lists.  Repeat this process as another student reads aloud.
  4. Turn and talk:  Ask your students to talk with their partners about what jumped out to them in the poem.  How does it relate the video clip they saw earlier?
  5. Whole-class discussion:  What do your students think Ríos means in the last two stanzas of his poem?  What do they think he means by the “dance of the dream?”