The refugee poem you will explore in this lesson plan is an intimate, poignant portrait of the impact of forced migrancy.
Although it moves towards hope, you may want to privately prepare any students in your class who are refugees or migrants by telling them that you’ll be exploring this subject through poetry.
This resource is a good stand-alone activity for World Poetry Day (21st March), Refugee Week (June) or National Poetry Day.
Starter activity
Explain to students that you are about to read a poem titled Unbroken. Arrange students in discussion pairs or triads. Give them clear guidelines as to turn-taking, listening and how to share a group response to each task or question.
First think of a simple object that is not worth a lot of money, but means a lot to you – you would be upset if it got broken. Share this in turn with your pair/group.
Come together as a whole class to classify what kinds of things these objects are, rather than simply list them. What makes an object meaningful to us?
So far we have thought about concrete objects. Can we think of abstract notions that can be broken? Give students brief discussion time, adding a nudge like ‘for example, a broken heart’ if they are stuck.
They may share ideas like friendship, a promise, trust, a tie or bond, even a spell. Go back to the word unbroken. The prefix ‘un’ reverses the meaning of a word.
What words would we normally use to describe an object being put back together? E.g. fixed, mended, repaired. Which do the students think is easier to ‘unbreak’: a concrete object or an abstract feeling?
Refugee poem Unbroken
The china cup was my mother’s,
The one small thing of beauty in her harsh life.
It held her smile, her hands as rough and gnarled as branches
With their tender touch.
I carried it across continents and oceans,
The one small thing of beauty in my lost life.
It held my endurance and my patience.
Today it broke.
I can no longer endure.
I can no longer be patient.
My rage consumes me,
For what is broken cannot be unbroken.
Our shattered past,
Our fractured future
are beyond mending.
My daughter takes the shards.
With her granny’s tender touch,
she pieces them together.
Patient when it seems they do not fit.
Enduring when their edges cut her fingers.
She hands me back the cup, whole.
“Unbroken,” she says.
“Unbroken!”
© Nicola Davies, from Choose Love, Graffeg 2022
About the poem
The refugee poem Unbroken appeared in Nicola Davies’ anthology, Choose Love. She wrote it for and inspired by the charity Choose Love who provide practical support for refugees as well as elevating the voices and experiences of those who are fleeing and displaced.
Leah Crawford is one of the authors of Crown House Publishing’s Opening Doors series. She has had a 30 year education career, including 15 years of experience as a local authority English inspector and adviser. Browse more KS2 poetry resources.
