“Housekeeping” by Natasha Trethewey


Lesson Plan for the Poem “Housekeeping” by Natasha Trethewey (b. 1966)

 

Contents:

A) Link to the Poem

B) Standards

C) Lesson Objectives

D) Lesson Plan

E) Poem Analysis

 

A) Link to the Poem: Housekeeping

 

B) Standards

  • Determine a theme of a text and analyze how it is shaped by specific details.
  • Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it, and manipulate time create an effect.
  • Write use telling details regarding experiences, events, settings, and/or characters.

C) Lesson Objectives

  • Analyze how a poet structures a text to achieve thematic focus.
  • Write about chores and routines, examining different ways to structure the text.
  • Share writing and respond to the writing of others.

 

D) Lesson Plan

0) Lesson preparation

  • Create a document that reorders the 8 sentences in the poem. The new order can follow this sequence: Sentence 8, 4, 1, 5, 2, 3, 7, 6.
  • Create a handout of sentence strips, 1 strip for each sentence in the poem. The students will use this handout in part 3 of this lesson plan.

1) Warm Up

  • Students respond to the prompt and share responses.
  • Prompt: The following quote is from a poem we are going to read. What do you think the poem will be about? Who will the characters be? What are the conflicts? What is the next line?
  • Quote: “All day we watch for the mail, some news from a distant place.”

 2) Gist Reading

  • Students listen to the teacher read the re-ordered poem and answer the reading questions.
  • Reading questions: 1) What is the poem about? 2) Who are the characters? 3) What are the conflicts?

 3) Reading Activity 1

  • Tell students the poem they heard was not in the original order.
  • Give each pair of students a set of the 8 sentence strips cut from the poem.
  • Students work in pairs to put the poem into an order that makes sense to them.
  • Groups share their poems and reasons for their order.

 4) Reading Activity 2

  • Reveal the 3 sections and order of the poem: chores section (sentences 1-3), transition (4-5), and escape (6-8). (Read the analysis below for details of the sections.)
  • Tell students to fit the sentences into the three sections.
  • Reveal the original order and discuss as a class.

5) Writing Prompts

  •  Students respond to prompt 1.
  • Prompt 1: Write eight sentences about your chores or your routine and how or why you’d like to escape from them.
  • Students respond to prompt 2.
  • Prompt 2: Write a second version of your poem that reorders the sentences.

 6) Discussion

  • Share your two poems with another student.
  • Discuss with that student which version of their two poems you like more.

 7) Conclusion

  • Students respond to the writing prompt.
  • Prompt: What are the benefits of reordering a piece of writing? Give at least one specific example.

E) Poem Analysis


     Natasha Trethewey’s poem “Housekeeping” is about housework and the longing for something different. The word “housekeeping” has two meanings in the poem. The first is the work necessary to keep the house in order, especially the constant need to repair possessions and get the most use out of materials. The second meaning of “housekeeping” is that the house keeps, or holds, the people whose job it is to keep the house. The work is never done, but the mother and daughter who do housework in the poem have found a rhythm and ways to move their minds beyond the limits of their tasks. The poem can be broken into three parts: chores, transition, and escape.

     The first part is about housekeeping chores. The women in the poem fix “the broken things” and, in the speaker’s words, “We save what we can.” The word “save” is ordinary enough in this domestic context, but the fact that Trethewey begins the poem with the speaker saying that they “mourn” the broken things elevates “save” and the housekeeping tasks themselves to a higher spiritual level that has room for transcendence, redemption, and escape.

     The second part of the poem is a transition from housekeeping to an escape from it that happens to come through it. The second part starts with beating rugs to clean them. The dust is “lit like stars” and spreads “across the yard.” The poem moves here from the dullness of cleaning to a magical scene with stardust surrounding the home, which itself is transformed into a darker, cooler, and cleaner sanctuary after the mother and daughter “draw the blinds” and “drive the bugs out.” Housekeeping has the power to transform the environment and provide the right space and atmosphere for the third part of the poem, escape.

     The third section of the poem begins with the speaker’s mother ironing, “lost in reverie.” The iron moves across the garment, steam rises, and the participant daydreams in a trance like an ancient oracle in a steaming cave during a ritual. The speaker also finds escape from housekeeping tasks through them. She escapes through mail-order catalogs with their promise of a better home and life (at least a world with less repairing) and passing cars that might take her far away. The mother and daughter both find escape, if not in going far away, at least in hearing about the news from far away.

     There is a deeper meaning of housekeeping in the poem. The proverb “Keep the store and the store will keep you” could be changed to “Keep the house and the house will keep you.” Housework is often presented as drudgery, but we must pause here to acknowledge the fact that having a house, having a home, is a goal of many families. Having a house is more than a roof over your head. It is private space, separate from others. It is a space that returns upkeep with room to dream.