Start of the Year Writing Prompt
Here’s a start of the year writing prompt based on a poem, “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar. In one of my classes, it was the end of year essay prompt. Students were asked to consider three texts we’d studied and identify three characters who could have been the speaker in this poem. I now am suggesting it as an opening prompt to get the students thinking about themselves and what’s going on in their world.
What have you seen, read, or experienced that could be described by this poem?
Write a short essay of at least three paragraphs that describe the situation you observed, read about or experienced, and include at least three quoted lines or phrases from the poem. Link to student handout. Start of the Year Writing Prompt
We Wear the Mask
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, —
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
Here’s a start of the year writing prompt based on a poem, “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar. In one of my classes, it was the end of year essay prompt. Students were asked to consider three texts we’d studied and identify three characters who could have been the speaker in this poem. I now am suggesting it as an opening prompt to get the students thinking about themselves and what’s going on in their world.