This assignment consists of TWO parts: your poem, and an analysis (a paragraph or more)
For this mini-assignment, you will write a poem about a traumatic, upsetting, or difficult time in your life, followed by a written analysis. Even though you are focusing on a difficult time in your life, the title of the assignment includes the word 'healing' because we are hoping that by revisiting a difficult time in your life, expressing yourself about it and reflecting on what it has meant to you, it might bring about more healing and more understanding of yourself and how events in your life have shaped who you are.
First, find a quiet place to sit with yourself. Think back on your life and try to identify some difficult times in your life and make a short list. Examples of difficult times might be the loss of a loved one, a break-up, a time when someone close to you hurt you, an accident or illness that you went through, a conflict you had with someone, a time when you made a mistake, being attacked by someone or robbed, failing a class, going through depression, a struggle with anxiety, being sexually assaulted, a time you were bullied or mistreated, etc.
Once you have a list, select one that you would like to reflect on and explore further. It should be one that you are comfortable sharing with your instructor. Note that you will not be required to share with anyone in the class unless you want to.
Then you are going to write a poem about that difficult time. Before you start writing, close your eyes and try to think back to that time. You can think about the following questions: What happened? What were the circumstances? How did you feel? How did you respond? What got you through that time? Why was it so difficult? How do you feel about it now?
Write your poem. You can choose to write it however you would like to. You can use rhyme and pattern or free form. You can use symbolism, imagery, metaphor etc., or not. It can make sense to a reader or not. It can be as long or as short as you like. In can be in any language or mix of languages. The point here is that you are trying to express yourself through poetry about a difficult time in your life.
Following the poem, you should write an analysis of your poem and the difficult time. The analysis should include: a brief description of the difficult time you were trying to depict in your poetry and what you were trying to convey with your poem; and an analysis of how this difficult time contributed to your identity formation. Specifically focus on how this time has shaped who you are now and who you want to be -- how can it inform how you want to be the change? This can be a couple of paragraphs, or longer if you wish. The length is not important as long as you have engaged in some deeper connection to and analysis of your difficult time -- i.e. learning about yourself.
Don't worry about poetic ability. The point is that you are trying to express yourself through poetry and that you are trying to learn something about yourself through this expression and through your written analysis. It should be meaningful for you to create and write and that meaningfulness should be conveyed to your reader/viewer.
Please look at my example to give you some ideas of what this assignment could look like. However, please remember there is no one way to do this assignment. You should pick something meaningful, be creative and really try to understand yourself more in terms of going through difficulties and healing from them. Here is another example.
Inspired by assignments created by Dr. John Pagnucci and Dr. Gloria Park