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Supplementary materials for teaching Issue 29 are listed below.
To accompany our portfolio of translated prose and photography from Amman, Jordan
Explore our collected resources and lesson plans related to literary translation and to Arabic literature in translation.
The pieces in this portfolio paint vivid images of what moving through Amman actually looks and feels like—how the landscapes of the city shape the experiences of the people living there, their perceptions of home and memory. Amman’s histories of migration, war, and expansion are carefully woven throughout. They are inspected and told on smaller scales, from personal perspectives. Before diving into the portfolio, however, students may enjoy first reading this briefer overview of Amman (via New World Encyclopedia), and thinking about how the writing in this portfolio fills out or even counteracts the information presented within it as they read.
Also see podcasts featuring two of the portfolio’s translators: Nariman Youssef on translating Issue 21’s portfolio of Moroccan stories, and Mayada Ibrahim on translating a short story that appears in our Issue 27 portfolio of writing from Chad, South Sudan, and Eritrea.
This portfolio was edited by Amman-native Hisham Bustani, The Common’s Arabic fiction editor. He’s written several pieces for the magazine, fiction and nonfiction, which students can explore here.
For further exploration, here and elsewhere (non-portfolio)
After reading Mariah Riggs’ story, “Target Island,” students can examine the history of Kaho‘olawe’s relationship with the US military as a bombing site (via the National World War II Museum). In addition, if students are interested in understanding the ongoing efforts to decolonize Kaho‘olawe, they can watch a video on what it means to reclaim Kaho‘olawe (via Hawaii News Now).
If students enjoyed Pria Anand’s writing in “The Elephant’s Child,” they should take a look at The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains (Simon & Schuster), Anand’s debut book on the mysteries held within a patient’s body.
In Bill Cotter’s fiction piece, “Midweek,” he references the Baton Rouge region in Louisiana. If readers want to learn more about Louisiana’s culture, they should look at this article on Louisiana folk life (via the Louisiana Division of the Arts).
Students who want to read more of Terese Svoboda’s writing after “Decapitated” can look at her wide assortment of books: her short story collection Great American Desert (Mad Creek Books) and her biography Anything that Burns You: A Portrait of Lola Ridge, Radical Poet (Schaffner Books). She was also interviewed in The Common in 2013.
After reading Lucas Schaefer’s story, “Tuesday,” readers may explore more of his work by reading his debut novel, The Slip (Simon & Schuster), about a missing teenage boy, cases of fluid and mistaken identity, and the transformative power of boxing. “Tuesday” is excerpted from this novel. Lucas was also interviewed recently in One Story.
To understand the context behind the Bamiléké and the Bamoun in Lily Lloyd Burkhalter’s “Raffia Memory,” readers can look through an exhibition of photographs on these two kingdoms (via AfricaOnlineMuseum.org). If readers enjoyed Burkhalter’s work, they also can read another short essay on fabric and art, “Odd Secrets of the Line” in The Missouri Review.
Students can read about the history of Kaymoor—once a coal mine and industrial town, but now abandoned and owned by the National Park Service—before reading G. C. Waldrep’s poem “Kaymoor, West Virginia” (via The West Virginia Encyclopedia). Students can also read an interview with Waldrep published online in Image Journal.
Students who enjoy Mary Jo Salter’s work should explore her nine collections of poetry, or begin by browsing her other poems published in The Common. They can also read an interview with Salter in Literary Matters and an essay she wrote about finding community in poetry published in LitHub.
In her poem “Covanta Incinerator, Newark, New Jersey,” Nicole Cooley writes about the pink plumes rising from the incinerator, a sign that it has been burning iodine, a health health risk for surrounding communities. Students can read more about this environmental justice issue here (via Grist) and read another poem about Covanta by Cooley in The Common’s August 2024 Poetry Feature.
The August 2024 Poetry Feature also features a piece by John Kinsella, whose “Curlew Sixth Sense Bantry” appears in Issue 29. Students who enjoy his writing can explore much more of it in our pages, including a review by Nicholas Birns of Kinsella’s 2019 collection Insomnia.
Readers can learn about the philosopher Chrysippus here (via Daily Stoic) and Herman Melville here (via PBS), whom Elisa Gabbert references in her poem “The System.” Also check out this podcast with Gabbert as part of the Poetry Foundation’s Poetry off the Shelf series, where you can hear her read her work aloud.
Students can read Keats’s letter to his brothers on negative capability, which David Lehman writes about in his Issue 29 poem here (via George Mason University), and read a biography on Keats here (via the Poetry Foundation). They can also browse more of Lehman’s work in our pages online.
After reading Phillis Levin’s “December Tanka,” students may enjoy learning about the history of the form (via Poets.org), reading more tankas, or writing one of their own using the prompt here (the Poetry Foundation).
See all of Issue 29.
Don’t miss: Genre-based Anthologies | Participating Authors | Lesson Plans | FREE Sample Issue | What Teachers Are Saying
