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A Lesson Outline for One
of the Sacred Place Poems
Tokens
From Jerusalem
If each of us
takes a token stone
Smooth and
round as tears;
If each of us
takes a handful of earth
The color of
all our fears:
If each of us
fills a flask with water
Sogged as
human cares
Will Jerusalem
still bear the weight
of pilgrim
hopes and prayers?
There is an
amazing amount of complexity in the physical and cognitive structuring of
“Tokens From Jerusalem”. Much of the intricacy stems from Yolen’s choice to
center on the idea of taking tokens from a sacred site. According to the
American Heritage Dictionary, a token is defined as something serving as an
indication, a proof or expression of something else. A sign. The cognitive
framework of determining the poem’s Place hinges on whether
“token” is perceived as a thing used as proof or as a sign of something else. If
the environmental objects in the poem—the stone, the earth, the water and
Jerusalem are viewed as just physical object within the context of the poem,
then a strand of secular logic can be followed. The first three items are used
as construction materials in the city of Jerusalem. The people make use of the
native sandstone to erect their city. If pilgrims “take away” the materials used
to build the city, as proof that they have been there, then it follows that the
tensile strength of the city itself will decrease as each token is taken.
However, if these physical objects are seen as signs of something else, then
another whole set of symbolic, and sacred, references come into play.
In her
Afterward, Yolen states, “ It was the custom for many years for pilgrims to
carry away tokens form their trips to Jerusalem. Christians took stones from the
area around the Golden Gate. Jewish pilgrims filled small bags with earth from
the Mount of Olives to spread on their graves, thus assuring them a place in the
world to come. Other pilgrims filled flasks with water from the rivers which,
they thought, had wondrous restorative powers.” The Golden Gate and the river
are important in Christian theology as the gate by which Jesus entered the
Temple on the first Palm Sunday. The water is a marker because it comes from the
Pool of Siloam which Jesus passed by on his way to the Garden of Gethsemane.
According to Jewish tradition, their messianic era will begin on the Mount of
Olives. For that reason, the Mount has become one of the most sacred burial
areas in Judaism.
All these
places are sacred because of the events or traditions associated with them. By
transference, the individual materials located there are considered sacred. But,
if all these tokens are taken away, what would be left for those pilgrims who
would come afterwards? Would the city of Jerusalem be able to help them? Would a
sacred place still exist? These are the philosophical ramifications of the poem.
The poem is cloaked in a fair degree of ambiguity and it does not provide an
overt sense of closure.
Interestingly,
ambiguity runs throughout many of the poems that Yolen wrote for the
Jerusalem book. Yolen is a practicing Jew, involved religious organizations
of her faith, yet she does not limit her poems to that particular perspective
only. A telling quote was a reply to a question in an interview about her
interested in the Holocaust. She said, “My family––both sides––came over at the
beginning of this century and we had no family left in either the Ukraine or
Latvia during World War Two. However, I am interested in the Holocaust as a Jew
and as a citizen of the world.” (Internet Public Library 1995) I find
that her comment about being a citizen of the world to be clarifying in
identifying the stance taken by the speaker in the “Tokens From Jerusalem”. Even
though the poem has overtly religious overtones, I don’t believe that the
non-–believer or secular point of view is left completely out. The fact that she
included common objects that make up the construction material of a city ties
into the idea of being a citizen. Were she to have a totally religious bent, she
would have used symbolic meanings only rather than presenting both the concrete
aspects and sacred. The fact that she used the construct of tokens to explore
the superadded aspects of sacredness reinforces seeing the poem from multiple
vantage points. Tears, fear, cares, and hope are all universally felt human
emotions that exist beyond the boundaries of religion.
I believe that Yolen
leaves the answer of the question, Will Jerusalem still bear the weight of
the pilgrims hopes and prayers?, up to the individual person to explore
depending on his or her own value system. The question is not posed to solicit
one right answer. It is posed to solicit discussion, a kind of value
clarification that can be done internally or between groups of people.
From my
perspective, I would say that the answer to the question depends on several
factors. Tokens are afforded grace because people attribute grace to them not
because have inherent grace in their physical make up. Dirt is a pretty common
thing. Yet, because they are tokens, they encompass a global gestalt that is
experienced by each person at an incredibly personal level. I believe that the
city of Jerusalem itself could be removed and people would still stand on the
bare earth and receive a sense of sacredness because that was where the city had
been. They would attribute “token–ess” to the materials at hand, the air that
they breathed as they stood there or the shoes they had worn while they stood on
the sacred ground. What the token is really is immaterial. We all search for
what makes us whole–– to not feel pain or sorrow. We need to believe in
something larger than ourselves, whether it be a belief in a God, or gods or the
power of the human intellect. Again, it isn’t so much what that something is but
the fact that it is needed. Will Jerusalem still bear the weight of pilgrim
hopes and prayers? Probably, if those pilgrims believe that it can. They
will believe because their need is great to do so. However, this just one answer
out of many. Just one truth out of many. By leaving the question hanging, and
ambiguous, all positions are open for viewing.
Yolen has even
structures the framework of this poem to represent this sense of ambiguity. She
alternates end-line rhyming words with end-line object words in the octane. The
rhyming words allude to the emotional and sacred symbolism attached to the
objects while the object lines introduce the token. Yolen cleverly changes the
meter of each kind of line, as well, thus heightening the difference between the
two. The rhyming
lines have four beats while the
symbolic lines have three. The philosophical drama of the poem is reinforced by
the grammatical structure of the poem. The first three lines start with
suppositions and then end with the last moving question that can only be
answered within the context of each individual person’s point of view.
“Sometimes poems ask difficult questions which are not easily resolved;
sometimes we like poems to trouble us rather than leaving things in a state of
harmonious resolution.” (Reading Poetry 1996) Intriguingly, there is and
isn’t closure to the poem. Yolen’s octane is very cohesive, and structured, when
the rhyme scheme is considered. There is a tight, rhythmic ending to the poem
that has a very solid construction. However, when the poem is viewed
grammatically, finding closure in the poem is difficult. By ending with
question, rather than with an answer, the poetic structure mirrors philosophical
ambiguity that marks the whole poem.
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The
Student Lesson
Before introducing the poem, we will do the
Exploretorium unit “Making African Mud Bricks”. In this science unit,
students make mud bricks using differing ratios of stones and straw. After
the bricks are constructed, the unit includes a series of structural
experiments that test the strengths of the different bricks. Making the
bricks will provide the concrete basis needed for the poem to work. The
language question can be explored right after the bricks have been made and
are drying. The first sociological question concurrently with the weight
experiments and the second at the end of the lesson when we discuss the
symbolism of weight.
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How do the
words used to describe Place influence the feeling of the poem?
Brainstorm before the first reading of the poem:
What are hopes and prayers? How are they connected to each other? How are
they connected to religion and not connected to religion?
The basic idea here is to
have the students see that people use prayer as a way to have fears and
wishes addressed. All the religions stress the importance of prayer in their
liturgies. However, not all people use prayer. A person can still have hopes
and fears without using prayer. Basically, I want to set up a framework for
the students to see things both secularly and sacredly when they start to
view Place.
Title: Locate the Place words in
the title Tokens from Jerusalem and then read the poem.
The proper noun of Jerusalem will supply the setting for the poem. The
children will already know that it is a city, a city that carries
significance for three major religions of the world. Then, write the meaning
of the word token on the board. According to the American Heritage
Dictionary a token is defined as something serving as an indication, a proof
or an expression of something else. A sign. Ask the class to predict what
the poem might be about based on the title.
Other words that might have to be quickly defined are
flask and sogged.
Tone: Ask the class, what the general
feeling was that they got from the poem. Write the emotions on the board.
Then ask them what words from the poems helped give them these feelings. How
are these feelings related to the ideas of hopes and prayers?
I anticipate that they will say sadness or close
synonyms. The key words that support this
emotion are tears, fears, human cares, hopes and
prayers. Note that these words are the ones that hold the rhyme scheme of
the octane together. Somewhere in the discussion, the students should also
see that want often coincides with sadness.
Place Words: Ask the class, what the
place words were. Write the words on the board.
Patterns: Ask the students what patterns they see in
the poem and to state the logic behind what they say. Give them the hint
that there is more than one pattern found in the poem.
The most obvious pattern is the alternating layers
of the rhyme and Place words that provide structural foundation for
the poem. All of the students should be able to grasp this and feel a
measure of success. The second layer is the use of the words if each of
us. Hopefully, some of the students will see, and state in their own
language, these sentence stems start a series of suppositions that are
layered and topped by a query that can only be answered by using the logic
that came before. At this point in time, I don’t want to have the student
try to answer the final question of the poem but I would rather leave it
dangling as something to be considered in the final poem analysis. I will
need to be sure to stress that it is the words themselves that create the
support, or structure, for the meaning of the poem.
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How does
the poem’s Place change its people and culture?
Have the class go back and look at the definition for
the word “token”. Recall that it is defined as something serving as an
indication, a proof or an expression of something else. A sign.
Then read the informational addendum that Yolen has
with this poem in the Jerusalem book that explains the tradition of
taking stones, water and earth from that city.
‘It was the custom for many years for pilgrims to carry
away tokens form their trips to Jerusalem. Christians took stones from the
area around the Golden Gate. Jewish pilgrims filled small bags with earth
from the Mount of Olives to spread on their graves, thus assuring them a
place in the world to come. Other pilgrims filled flasks with water from the
rivers which, they thought, had wondrous restorative powers.”
In the Afterward, Yolen says, “There were stone house,
stone holy places, stone synagogues and mosques and churches, stone gates,
stone pathways, stone steps, cobbled stone. Much of the stone is Jerusalem
stone, the color of honey, the color of earth.”
Something to add to their information is the alternate
tradition of leaving a stack of round stones at the gravesite of family to
announce that you were there. This is alluded to by the round, smooth
reference of the second line.
The stones, earth and water are real things in this
city. People take them as a sign of having been there, just as the token
definition said. These materials can be found in many places within the
city, not just at the Golden Gate or the Mount of Olives. As you can tell
from the second quote, stones are used for construction everywhere. Why do
you think that Yolen used these building materials in her poem? What does it
say about the environment around Jerusalem? What other building material
that you know of is made up of earth, water and stone? Is there a connection
between what she mentioned and what you know about how cities are defined?
Due to the arid environment and the lack of timber,
many of the buildings were constructed out of stony brick just like the ones
the students made in before the introduction of the poem itself. The
students should be able to target two aspects of city construction to help
them answer these questions. The two aspects that pertain are a city’s
ability to provide shelter and their adaptation to the environment around
them. The connection between the content of the bricks and the construction
of the city is important. The students know what they had to do to make the
bricks and should understand how taking away any of the parts would change
how the city would look. Basically, I am helping the students start to
establish the physical secular setting of the poem.
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If I lived
in the poem’s Place, how would it change me?
This particular question is going to be a bit tricky,
in that some of the students will not be developmentally ready to grasp it.
However, I am not looking for mastery. Each student will take what he or she
can from the discussion and go from there. I like to think about doing
things like this as tilling the ground, in some the concepts will take root,
and in others it is preparation. Each is valuable. Each student will have to
consider what are the secular aspects and what would be the sacred aspects.
Have the class go back and look at the definition for
the word “token” yet again. Recall that it is defined as something serving
as an indication, a proof or an expression of something else. A sign.
This we are going to look at the tokens as standing
for, or an expression of something else rather than being a sign of
something. Explain this idea of symbolism by giving non-–religious examples
that the students can identify with. Superman= good. A smilie face= being
happy. Have the students come up with other examples in the class. Remind
them that the = actually can be substituted with the words stands for.
Then introduce the concept of symbolism.
Have the students find the token quote what the stones,
the earth and the water stand for helping with. Write them on the board.
stones= from the Golden Gate
earth= Mount of Olives to help Jewish pilgrims get a
place in the world that will come.
water= help them become healthy either mentally or
physically
Help the students make the leap to see that the stones
stand for being graced, that the earth stands for another life, and the
water stands for being healthy.
The students then need to go back to the poem and
figure out the relationship between the following items–
stones=graced connected to tears
earth= another life connected to fears
Return to the final question of the poem– Will
Jerusalem still bear the weight of pilgrim hopes and fears? Ask the
students to paraphrase the question if they can.
I expect a range of answers here. Some students will
take a very literal interpretation. If there are a lot of pilgrims and they
take a lot of the materials, then Jerusalem can not hold a lot of weight.
Some will say that it will because that is what God wants it to do. They may
say because it is a holy place, it will because holy places help people with
their prayers. If I am lucky, some students will bring in the aspect of
people’s expectations and assignment of sacredness to the tokens but
requires quite a developmental leap. However, each aspect is grounded in
logic and will work.
Now, If they are having trouble, have them look at
the word weight. There are several ways this word can be interpreted., from
the concrete where the pilgrims have weight in Jerusalem and are physically
present in the city to the emotional weight of expectations that they bring
in answer to their hopes and prayers. One is external and one is internal.
Go back to the original Brainstorm chart where you
recorded the answers to what hopes and prayers are. Ask the students what
would happen if you took away the things that would help with tears, fears
and human cares. What would happen to the prayers that people would pray in
Jerusalem? Would it make a difference? Would people still come to Jerusalem
as pilgrims?
There should be quite a range of answers here, which
is what I expect. However each kind of answer should have some rational
behind other children understand the logic.
Now, in their journal, each individual student needs to
reflect upon these two questions and one final wrap–up question.
Ø
To you, will Jerusalem still bear the weight of pilgrim hopes
and prayers? Explain how you are looking at the answer and what the answer
would be?
Ø
If you were in Jerusalem, would you go as a pilgrim, a
visitor, or would you live there? Tell me which one and explain why. How
would being what you picked change the way you acted in Jerusalem?
Ø
In this poem, there are many layers. Look back in your journal
and see which one of the layers seemed to be the most interesting to you.
Tell me why it was.
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Page written and constructed by Bridgette Fincher
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