Teaching and Making Real World Connections

 July 2022

J. Sanders-Nelson
Dallas, Texas

In the spring of 2022, I was creating a poetry unit and I somehow wanted to make a connection between poetry and what was going on in the Ukraine which had dominated all news on all sources of media.

 

My students and I had brief conversations about it but never really delve deeper into it.

I decided to Google "Ukrainian poetry" and bingo, I found this article: “You’ve got to live somewhere you aren’t afraid to die.” Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry From Kharkiv

Here I discovered the most amazing and relevant poetry by Serhiy Zhadan, a punk lyricist and definitely poet. 

With this singular resource, I created an engaging lesson that many of my students could absolutely relate to. Many commented on the poems being relevant to the social justice protest right here in our country. 

If you would like to use this poetry lesson for your students, please click here from the Great Schools Partnership Blog by Kate Gardoqui .

Lesson Plan: The Poetry of Serhiy Zhadan