Lesson 5

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

• • “Advice to Graduates,” George Saunders, The New York Times Company, 2005
  • “Kindness,” Naomi Shihab Nye, Far Corner Books, 1995

• • “‘Kindness’ by Naomi Shihab Nye is Poets.org’s Most Popular Contemporary Poem in 2018,” Academy of American Poets, 2018
  • “Naomi Shihab Nye,” Academy of American Poets

Optional

• • “Emma Thompson Reads Naomi Shihab Nye’s Poem ‘Kindness’,” S Bettina Brand, YouTube
  • “‘Kindness’ by Naomi Shihab Nye, a Poetry Film by Ana Pérez López,” Naomi Shihab Nye and Ana Pérez López, On Being Project
  • “Naomi Shihab Nye Reads ‘Kindness’,” Naomi Shihab Nye, Wisdom Ways Center for Spirituality and Saint Catherine University

Materials

Tools

• Attending to Details Tool

• Comparison Organizational Frame

• Evaluating Ideas Tool

• Responding to Questions Handout

• Vocabulary Journal

Reference Guides

• Academic Discussion Reference Guide
• Annotating and Note-Taking Reference Guide
• Literacy Toolbox Reference Guide
• Questioning Reference Guide

Question Sets

• What Does It Mean to Live a Life Well-Lived?: Section 1 Question Set

Editable Google Docs

• Attending to Details Tool

• Comparison Organizational Frame

• Evaluating Ideas Tool

• What Does It Mean to Live a Life Well-Lived?: Section 1 Question Set

• Vocabulary Journal

Activity 1: Listen – Read – Discuss

We will be introduced to a different perspective on kindness by listening to a reading of the poem “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye and discussing key details that stand out to us.

Step 1

Having examined George Saunders’s "Advice to Graduates" and its ideas about important human virtues such as kindness and empathy, consider and discuss this question:

1. How might you understand, develop, and apply virtues like kindness?

To help you think about this question, access a copy of the poem "Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Listen as the poem is read aloud, and consider these guiding questions:

1. What words and images stand out to you as you listen to the poem?

2. As you think about the title of the poem and the virtue it focuses on, what seems surprising or paradoxical (contradictory) in the way the poem views its subject?

Step 2

As a class, discuss the opening lines of the poem, in which Nye presents her first paradoxical claim about kindness:

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

Begin by thinking about the words in these lines and the voice behind them. Now consider these text-specific questions, again from the Question Set for the poem:

1. Who seems to be speaking in the poem?

2. What makes you think it is the poet’s own voice?

3. To whom might the voice in the poem be speaking when addressing its message?

4. What opening claim is the poet making about kindness and what you must do before you know it?

Step 3

Discuss whether you think Nye’s paradoxical claim about the relationship between kindness and loss is meaningful for you.

Make an entry for paradox in your Vocabulary Journal.

Activity 2: Read – Discuss

We will consider the perspective from which “Kindness” was written, and learn more about the poet Naomi Shihab Nye and the circumstances surrounding her writing of the poem.

Step 1

On the poets.org website, access the webpage about Naomi Shihab Nye.

Read the biographical text about the poet, considering these questions:

1. What details from Naomi Shihab Nye’s life might have shaped her perspective in poems like "Kindness"?

2. What is William Stafford suggesting when he says about Nye that "her poems combine transcendent liveliness and sparkle along with warmth and human insight. She is a champion of the literature of encouragement and heart. Reading her work enhances life"? In what ways does this commentary fit for the poem "Kindness"?

Step 2

Now access the poets.org webpage that honors "Kindness" as the American Academy of Poets’s most popular contemporary poem of 2018. Read the introductory paragraph that announces and explains the award.

Then read and discuss the quotation from Nye about the award that begins "In a time in our society that feels too frequently unkind, I am very touched that people feel this poem speaks to them."

1. In what ways do Nye’s thoughts about the importance of the poem and the circumstances in which she wrote it influence your understanding of its perspective and meaning?

2. This poem was published in 1995 in a volume titled Words Under the Words. How does that book’s title relate to the possible meaning of "Kindness"?

3. Why do you think "Kindness" might have become the most popular contemporary poem in 2018, 23 years after its publication?

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Activity 3: View – Discuss – Write

We will consider how the perspective of a reader can also influence how a poem such as “Kindness” is interpreted.

Step 1

We will consider the ways in which a lyrical work like a poem can take on different meanings when viewed from different perspectives: the author’s own perspective and those of various interpreters or readers.

First, access a video of Naomi Shihab Nye talking about and reading "Kindness" in 2016. Listen to the poet explain the circumstances in which she wrote the poem. Consider these text-specific questions as you listen, watch, and discuss the reading.

1. Why does Nye say, "I actually was the secretary for ‘Kindness’"?

2. What more do you learn about the circumstances in which the poem was written? How do those details influence your developing sense of the poem’s message and meaning?

3. Now that you know how Nye says the poem came to her, how does that change your interpretation of whether the voice in the poem is the author’s? Who might the "you" to whom the poem is addressed be?

4. As you listen to Nye read her poem and watch her face, what do you sense about her perspective on the poem, its circumstances, its imagery, and its view of kindness?

5. What does Nye say about how the simple act of writing down words can guide you? What potential guidance might you find in the poem?

As a class, discuss what you now think the poem means, and what it meant for Naomi Shihab Nye.

Step 2

Next, access a second video reading of the poem, this one by actress Emma Thompson in 2020, originally posted on Instagram as a message to her friend Emilia Clarke. As you listen to her introduction of the reading, think about these questions:

1. Why does Emma Thompson dedicate her reading of the poem "to the people we are going to be, after this"? What might "this" refer to in 2020?

2. Why might Thompson say the first question we have to address in any situation is "But is it kind?" What seems to be her perspective on the poem’s view of kindness?

3. As you listen to Thompson read the poem and watch her face, what further do you sense about her perspective on the message of the poem about kindness?

Step 3

To study a third, visual perspective on the poem, access an interpretive video by illustrator and animator Anna Perez Lopez. As you watch the video, pay attention to the images that accompany Naomi Shihab Nye’s words, and consider these questions:

1. What visual images stand out to you in this interpretation of the poem?

2. What do the images Anna Perez Lopez creates tell you about her perspective on the poem and on kindness?

Step 4

After watching and thinking about the video, discuss your feelings and impressions with a discussion partner. Consider what is similar and different about the ways in which you each have watched the video and are now interpreting the poem’s message about kindness.

In your Learning Log, reflect on how your sense of the poem’s meaning has evolved as you have learned more about it and seen how its author and others have presented its subject and images.

Activity 4: Read – Discuss

We will use literary analysis questions to study the claims presented in “Kindness” and the poet’s use of literary devices such as paradox, imagery, simile, and metaphor.

Step 1

As a class, consider additional questions from the question set for "Kindness." These ones are focused on the literary devices used in the poem to communicate its message. You will use these questions as you work with a reading partner to develop an analytical interpretation of its imagery, metaphors, and implicit meaning in the poem.

1. What are the three claims the poem makes about what you must do before you know kindness?

2. How do these claims present paradoxical ideas about kindness?

3. What seems to be the meaning of the claim the poem makes about the relationship between kindness as the "deepest thing inside" and "the other deepest thing" you must know?

4. What is the final claim made in the poem about kindness? How is kindness personified to develop this final claim?

As a class, review these four questions about the central ideas, or claims, that are stated or implied in the poem. Using the Responding to Questions Handout, analyze what types of questions these are and what kinds of details they cause you to look for.

Step 2

Discuss the ways in which literary works communicate their ideas, claims, or themes and how those are different from the ways someone like George Saunders might present claims in an essay, argument, or speech.

Discuss the specific literary device called personification and how kindness becomes an "I" in the final stanza of the poem.

Who is the "I" in the last stanza of the poem, and what does that "I" say she will do for "you"?

Add a short definition and example for personification to your Vocabulary Journal.

Step 3

Follow along as your teacher reviews and discusses three more examples of literary devices used in the poem: imagery, simile, and metaphor. Add short definitions and examples for these terms to your Vocabulary Journal.

Discuss the first image and simile (comparison) used in the poem’s opening lines about how "you" must "feel the future dissolve in a moment / Like salt in a weakened broth." Think about the meaning of this simile, remembering how Anna Perez Lopez depicted it in her interpretive film.

Step 4

With a reading partner, do a close reading and annotation of "Kindness" and the imagery it uses to communicate its ideas, considering the following text-specific questions. Begin by using the Responding to Questions Handout to analyze what type of question these are and what kinds of details they cause you to look for.

1. What visual images does the poet use to bring her characterization of kindness to life? How do these images literally relate to or stem from the circumstances in which the poem was written?

2. In what ways do the images in the poem also become metaphors or symbols for ideas about kindness that Nye is expressing?

Step 5

In a class discussion, volunteer examples of imagery in "Kindness." For each example you note, discuss how it both literally relates to the circumstances that produced the poem and figuratively serves as a metaphor or symbol for Nye’s ideas about kindness. Connect the written images from the poem to Anna Perez Lopez’s depiction of them in her film.

Activity 5: Discuss – Write

We will learn to use a tool to evaluate the perspective and ideas in a text, and we will use that tool to evaluate the poem “Kindness.”

Step 1

Follow along as your teacher introduces or reviews the Evaluating Ideas Tool, which you can use to note, analyze, and evaluate key details in a text.

The Evaluating Ideas Tool supports and guides a process for evaluating a text, and it focuses on the author’s purpose, perspective, and credibility. It can help you think about and analyze relationships among details in the text, how those details suggest the author’s motivation for writing the text, and how the author views the topic. This tool focuses on a guiding question related to the author’s purpose or perspective and helps you make an observation or conclusion about the overall ideas, believability, and relevance of the text.

Step 2

Use the tool in the following way:

1. Write down the guiding question in the space provided at the top. You might be assigned the guiding question by your teacher, it might come from a question set, or you might think of your own question. This question can help you focus your reading, or it might give your reading a specific purpose. It will usually be a question that leads to an evaluation or judgment about the text based on evidence that suggests its purpose, perspective, or credibility.

2. As you read, note details (words, phrases, or sentences) that relate to the guiding question or that might give you evidence of the author’s perspective. Depending on how long the section of text is, you might find several examples. You can use the Attend to Details row on the tool to write down the details that most strongly relate to the guiding question.

3. Determine and analyze the author’s perspective based on the details you identify. The Analyzing Perspective row asks you to look at the words or phrases you selected in the previous row and think about why the author chose those words or phrases and not others. For example, if the author is using words like urgent or critical, you can get a sense of their perspective on the issue: the author considers it important and in need of immediate attention or action.

4. Evaluate the author’s ideas, the author’s position, and the information the author presents. Your guiding question will probably hint at what you are supposed to evaluate; you might be looking to assess credibility or relevance.

5. Evaluate the text based on the evidence you have gathered and your analysis of that evidence. The previous rows provide that evidence and analysis. In the Evaluate the Text row, you are making connections between your analysis and your evaluation. For example, if your evaluation involves determining whether the author’s argument is reliable, you will draw on the previous rows to support your judgment and observations about the text’s reliability.

Step 3

In this case, you will be using the Evaluating Ideas Tool to further study the poem "Kindness," the perspective from which it comes, and the significance or value of its meaning for you as a reader. You will use one of the following text-specific questions to guide your use of the tool to develop a text-based response:

1. In what ways do the images in "Kindness" also become metaphors or symbols for ideas about kindness that Nye is expressing?

2. To what extent do you agree with Nye’s metaphorical characterization of kindness and her claims about what you must do to know it?

Step 4

Considering images and other key details from the poem that you previously identified, individually complete an Evaluating Ideas Tool for "Kindness." Follow the thinking process organized by the tool to arrive at your own conclusions about how the perspective, tone, claims, and imagery of the poem influence your evaluation of the poem’s meaning and implied ideas about kindness.

Step 5

With your reading partner, compare the Evaluating Ideas Tools you developed and the conclusions you separately reached about the meaning you found in "Kindness." Think about how the key details you each selected and analyzed might have influenced your analysis of its perspective and your evaluations of its ideas and meaning for you.

Using the Responding to Questions Checklist from the Responding to Questions Handout, assess how thoughtfully and completely the conclusions you have reached respond to the questions you considered.

Activity 6: Write

We will think about our own perspectives on kindness and the way it is considered in Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, comparing the poem’s view to that of George Saunders in his graduation speech. We will then write a short personal narrative in which we express our evaluations of the claims in the poem and our own thoughts about whether kindness should be a compass as we undertake our journeys in the world.

Step 1

As a class, discuss the various ways in which you have responded to the poem "Kindness," analyzed its message and use of literary devices and figurative language, and evaluated its meaning for you.

Return to the characterization of kindness presented by George Saunders in "Advice to Graduates." Compare the central messages in the two works, noting both similarities and differences in their perspectives, use of a personal story, and commentary on the role of kindness as a virtue and compass within one’s life.

1. How do the two perspectives on kindness presented by George Saunders and Naomi Shihab Nye relate and compare?

2. Both works are based on personal experiences that brought the importance of kindness to light for their authors. Which personal story and related ideas about kindness has been most meaningful to you? Why?

Step 2

Reconsider the lead question for this lesson:

1. How might you understand, develop, and apply virtues like kindness?

In light of your reading, discussion, analysis, and evaluation of "Kindness" and the backdrop of Saunders’s graduation speech, write a short personal response in which you reflect on this lead question and do the following:

• present what you think is the central idea about kindness found in each of the two texts

• compare the two texts and synthesize your own central idea about kindness that you have developed through reading them

• evaluate the perspective on kindness presented by Naomi Shihab Nye in her poem, considering what you know about her as a writer and about the circumstances in which the poem was written

• reflect personally on whether kindness might be an important compass for you as you undertake your journey in the world