A Sept. 11 Artifacts Poetry Display

Personal 9/11 artifacts and acrostic poems recall the depth of human loss

Today, I’m posting some photographs sent to me from a fellow high school teacher, Joe Wolf, who last week tried my “The Stories the Artifacts Tell” lesson plan featured in this 9/11 lesson post.

Wolf teaches at Hollister High School in southwest Missouri and was nice enough to send me these photos with the note that the project was “a complete win!”

The project merges one-word summaries with acrostic poems to describe and honor a personal artifact owned by a 9/11 victim.

My intention for this plan was to put the human element into the story of 9/11. Viewing a crumpled and nearly destroyed employee i.d. card adds a visceral element to the sterile facts, dates, and statistics that can all too often dominate a textbook study of the 9/11 terror attacks.

The poem at left in the photo above spells out “Never Forget” and reads:

No matter the situation, they are there for you,
Even during the darkest, most fearful times
BraVe souls we'll never forget
Every firefighter that stood with you,
CouRageous enough to hold your hand

Flags fly high for these Americans,
Often not knowing if they will come home
For that we Respect and show
Gratitude towards these heroes,
Eager to save New York,
Thank you, we will never forget.

I think this bulletin board display is a great way to not only showcase student work, but memorialize the attacks and the thousands of innocent lives lost as well.

I hope you’ve enjoyed Joe Wolf’s photos. Pin this post so you can easily access it next fall when the twentieth anniversary of the attacks will be observed.

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