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#BRINGBACKOURGIRLS - MAMA’S BOY

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DAMARIS B. HILL

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INSTRUCTIONAL

NOTE

Feel free to modify, add, or select specific questions from this bellringer to best fit your instructional goals and available time. Adjust as needed to align with your lesson focus or classroom pacing.

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Also, some of the materials in these bellringers contain sensitive subject matter and/or language. Please preview the resources beforehand and make any alterations as needed.

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BELLRINGER FOCUS: SELECTION OF DETAIL

  • Read “#Bringbackourgirls-Mama's Boy?” by Damaris B. Hill.
    • Go to http://bit.ly/4eDYRJC to access the poem.
  • Answer the following question(s):
    • What is the effect of specific physical details (like the warm beer, slippy bottle, and lopsided head)?
    • How does the poet's choice to include bodily details (e.g., “smell like piss,” “knees don’t work,” “shirt gulps the beer”) contribute to the meaning of the work as a whole?
    • Why does the poem repeatedly tie domestic or mundane failures to larger emotional wounds?

CREATIVE WRITING EXTENSIONS

  • Write a poem or short scene in which a character tries to apologize for something they didn’t do, simply to keep the peace.
  • Imagine an object in a household could speak. What would it reveal about the couple who uses it every day?
  • Select three small, everyday failures (a spilled drink, a missed kiss, an aching knee) that could symbolize much larger emotional or generational wounds.