I had been teaching high school English for 4 years when 9/11 happened. So now, it is 20+ years later, and I am teaching high school students who were born years after the tragic events of that day. I remember working through 9/11 lesson plans with one of my mentor teachers in the fall of 2002. When it was only a year out, it was so surreal and seemed so necessary to help the students work through it all.
However, in the later years, I feel like we tended to not put the same level of focus on teaching students about September 11, 2001. But last year, in my AP® Language class, one of our first rhetorical analysis tasks was George Bush’s 9/11 speech. It was amazing to see how quickly these students became engaged in the George Bush 9/11 speech rhetorical analysis and their thirst for more.
Seven 9/11 Lesson Plans for High School English
Collaborative Annotations of “The Names” by Billy Collins
Billy Collins was the Poet Laureate of the United States in 2001. And his response was a poem called “The Names.” This poem appeared in the New York Times in September of 2002. It was written in response to the tragedy and focuses on the lives lost.
This is a great poem to have students complete do collaborative annotations. I have used this poem for a pass-a-passage style. It is a great way to get the students reading and rereading.
For more on collaborative annotations, check out this post. This link to the poem also includes an interview with Billy Collins and a video of him reading it. You might begin with that as the first reading of the poem.
Rhetorical Analysis of mini-documentary “Boatlift”
Despite the fact that I live in upstate New York, I had no idea that 1000s of private boats arrived in the port of New York to help evacuate Manhattan. This is 12 or so minute documentary narrated by Tom Hanks that will have your students riveted.
Have the students consider the rhetorical triangle (Speaker, Audience, Purpose). Then have them write a paragraph discussing the techniques that the producers used to achieve their purpose.
Virtual Field Trip of the 9/11 Museum
We totally did all of this in the wrong order last year, but in my 9/11 lesson plans for this year, we will be starting by exploring the interactive timeline on the 9/11 Museum website. Since we start our rhetorical analysis unit with images, students will select an image to examine through a rhetorical lens.
Gallery Walk of 9/11 Poetry
Select 5-8 poems that were written in response to 9/11. Print them out in larger text and post them around the classroom. Then have students move around the room taking a turn at each poem. At each poem, students can take note. They can practice Reader Response or do a quick dialectic journal.
9/11 Poetry Students will Love
“New York, September 12, 2001” (Breyten Breytnnbach)
“History of the Airplane” (Lawrence Ferlinghetti)
“When the World as We Knew it Ended” (Joy Harjo)
“September 12, 2001” (X.J. Kennedy)
“Going to Work” (Nancy Mercado)
“September Morning” (Colette Inez)
“Attempting to Fly” (Michele Wolf)
Use Songs about 9/11
When I teach September 11, I always use the song “Firehouse” by Christine Lavin. It is her response to the loss of firefighter lives at her NYC neighborhood firehouse. It definitely captures to emotions of the days that followed 9/11. It’s a great song to talk about tone and imagery.
Share StoryCorps 9/11 Stories
NPR’s StoryCorps ’s made is a mission to collect stories about every person who died in the 9/11 attacks. Heart wrenching and compelling. Just let students listen and respond. Some of them have been animated.
I like to start with the story of Father Mychal Judge who was the chaplain at one of the local firehouses and the first certified death of the World Trade Center Attacks.
Do an Oral History Project
Even though our current students were not alive on 9/11, this is a great opportunity for students to interview someone who was. I started using this 9/11 lesson plan about 15 years ago. It was just about the time point when my students were too young to remember the day themselves.
You can give them questions to ask or have them develop questions as a group. Have them record the interviews and make it a podcast or video project. Or have them create their own StoryCorps style videos.
You could also reference the New York Times feature called Portraits in Grief. Families revisited their grief a decade after the events of 9/11/2001.
9/11 Lesson Plans that will Engage
If you are looking to bring history into the your classroom, I hope that you will try some of these 9/11 lesson plans to bring history alive through literature.
Additional Resources
Find oral histories at StoryCorps September 11 Initiative.
9/11 Memorial and Museum Interactive Timeline
Additional 9/11 Lesson Plans from the 9/11 Memorial and Museum
Tom Hanks narrates Boatlift documenatary
Collaborative Annotations for High School English
