33 pages • 1 hour read
Ted KooserA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
1. Begin with the teacher or a student reading the poem aloud to the class as everyone pays particular attention to how Kooser layers the details of the poem one by one: for instance, “A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall” (Line 9) followed a few lines later by “Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves” (Line 13). Using your classroom as the backdrop for a poem, start a poem in the style of Kooser’s “Abandoned Farmhouse.” You might write “The chalkboard was bare, says the dusty eraser” or “The floors were speckled with dirt, says the broom in the corner.” Pass the paper around with each student (or small group of students) adding a line to the poem in a similar vein, using the power of perception and observation and speaking through the voice of the objects in the classroom. After everyone has contributed, read the class’s poem aloud so all can hear how the poem developed. Spend some time discussing how it felt to write from the objects’ point of view, and talk about whether it was difficult, freeing, or challenging.
2. Separate into small groups of three or four. Each group should pretend it is a team of detectives that has just arrived at a crime scene. Go through “Abandoned Farmhouse” line by line to pull out all of the pieces of “evidence” or details that might suggest what happened. After compiling this evidence, each group should come up with one theory as to what occurred to the family, supported by the evidence they found. While Kooser leaves clues, he’s careful to never directly say what occurred. This activity is largely an exercise of imagination; you are using the clues in the poem to deduct a possible “solution” to the puzzle the poem presents. Once each group has had time to write down what they think happened, they should present their theory to the rest of the class, using textual evidence to back up the theory.
By Ted Kooser