Objectives
Students will gain awareness of suicidal symptoms and will understand that they can make a difference by speaking out if they are aware of someone who may try suicide.
Suicide is a touchy subject and should be discussed with students carefully. Students need background on what they can do to help someone who wants to kill himself. The most important thing to be stressed is that when a friend says that they want to die, you have to tell an adult. Many students feel that this is betraying a friendship, but have the students try to imagine how it would feel if they did kill himself. Also point out that their friend is crying for help. The will to live is very string, which is why many people attempt to kill themselves with sleeping pills which usually allow enough time for someone to find them. In the book,
Depression and Suicide in Children and Adolescents
, by Patros and Shamoo, they suggest school prevention programs rather than intervention programs after a suicide occurs.
Points to stress—Ditto for students
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A. An attempt is an incomplete suicide.
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B. Once a person makes an attempt, they will most likely try again.
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C. Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and overeating can indirectly be a form of suicide.
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D. Severe behavior and personality changes may be seen by friends and family.
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E. The suicidal person may also give away their favorite things to friends saying they don’t want or need them anymore.
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F. Person may show signs of hopelessness, fear, helplessness, depression, and run away from home or problems.
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G. If a person talks about death and how they would kill themselves, this person is at serious risk of suicide.
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H. If confronted with a person trying to commit suicide, they should keep the person talking by asking questions without telling them what to do. Get help as quickly as possible.
The poems I have chosen to use for this lesson are “The Suicide” by Mark Strand and “Poem for a Suicide” by George Economy. The first poem talks about the poet jumping from a building and all the people in the office building want to save him. He tells them to throw him a stone but instead they throw him a rope. This is a suicide attempt in which he describes the wind slowing him down. The end of the poem talks about him walking and talking. The second poem talks about the doctors not letting the poet see her after the suicide. He explains that the doctors only know why she died but not how she came to killing herself. He tries to explain to the audience that she turned to the world first and when she didn’t find anything, she turned to herself but found only pain and sorrow.
Discussion Questions—Teacher Directed
“The Suicide”—Mark Strand
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A. Have you ever taken a risk like jumping off a bridge or something high?
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B. Why do you think people do that?
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C. Do you know people that take chances with their lives? How?
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D. Is there someone at school you could talk to if you knew someone wanted to kill himself?
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E. What would be some of your reasons for not getting involved?
“Poem for a Suicide”—George Economou
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A. Who do you think she was in the poem?
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B. Why do you think they wouldn’t let the poet see the body?
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C. What is one reason you think people kill themselves?
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D. Have you ever heard people say “I wish I was dead”? Why do you think they would say that?
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E. Does society hide suicides? How?
Poems for Discussion on Depression
Emily Dickinson
The Last Night That She Lived
nikki giovanni
poem for a black boy
intellectualism
word poem
dreams
Langston Hughes
Brothers
*Still Here
American Heartbreak
Fire
Late Last Night
Morning After
Beale St.
Island
Dreams
Troubled Women
Hope
* Mother to Son
Ennui
Stars
The Dream Keeper
Dream Variation
As I Grew Older
The Negro Color
Marge Piercy
Erasure
A Just Anger
Richard Shelton
Disintegration
* Used in lesson plans. Copies available in Institute office.
Poems for Discussion on Death
Langston Hughes
As Befits A Man
Border Line
End
Drum
Dreams
Alabama Earth
Desire
Demand
* Poem
David Ignatow
Bothering Me At Last
Donald Justice
* Sonnets for my Father
Morton Marcus
There are Days Now
Marge Piercy
Visiting a dead man on a summer day
Richard Shelton
Disintegration
Letter to a Dead Father
Edward Lucie Smith
The Lesson
* Used in lesson plans. Copies available in Institute office.
Poems for Discussion on Suicide
African poem
The Sorrows of Death
George Economou
* Poem for a Suicide
nikki giovanni
alone
Langston Hughes
Suicides Note
Juliet
Life So Fine
Dorothy Parker
Resume
Mark Strand
* The Suicide
* Used in lesson plans. Copies available in Institute office.
