If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking

• Invite students to read the title of the poem and look at the illustration. Ask them to predict what the poem might be about.
• Point out the word cool in line 5 to students. Review its definition in this poem (reduce or soothe) and ask how someone might cool someone else’s pain. Ask students to consider both physical and emotional pain.
• Point out the phrase in vain in lines 3 and 8. Review its meaning in the poem (without success).
• Ask a volunteer to read aloud the Up Close box for the class.

• Read the poem aloud, or play our Read-Aloud to hear a Storyworks editor read the poem.
• Ask students to underline words, phrases, or lines from the poem that they enjoy or have questions about. Invite your students to share what they underlined and why in small groups or whole group share-outs.
• Ask a volunteer to point out the phrase that repeats in the poem: “I shall not live in vain.” Then call on other volunteers to explain why they think this phrase repeats in the poem.
• Discuss the poem together by answering the questions that follow.

• What is the mood, or feeling, of the poem? How does the artwork illustrate this mood? (mood/text features) The mood of the poem is warm and loving. The artwork illustrates this mood by showing the speaker comforting a younger child, perhaps her brother. The girl’s face looks like she loves the child and enjoys helping him. The younger child looks comfortable accepting her help, and his expression shows us that the girl has helped him feel better.
• Read line 4. What does it mean to “ease one life the aching”? How might someone do this? (interpreting text) Sample answer: This means to relieve or soothe the pain in someone else’s life. Someone might ease another’s aching by comforting them after a bad day, or bringing them chicken soup when they aren’t feeling well.
• How do you think the poet feels about helping other people? Why do you think that? (key ideas) Sample answer: The poet seems to believe in the power of helping humans and creatures with their problems. The poet writes about different ways to help, such as comforting someone experiencing heartbreak or helping a bird back into a nest. In the poem, she also repeats the phrase “I shall not live in vain.” Since “in vain” repeats, we know the poet wants us to pay attention to that phrase because it’s making an important point. She seems to be communicating that helping other people and creatures is what makes a life well-lived.
• The poem is made up of one sentence. How does the poet use punctuation and transition words throughout the poem to lengthen the sentence? (grammar) The poet uses commas, a semicolon, and the transition word or at the beginning of lines 5 and 6 to lengthen her sentence-long poem.
• Reread the whole poem. What do you think is important to the speaker? (inference) Helping other people and creatures whenever we can makes our lives meaningful.
• Bonus: The poet repeats the ay sound and uses rhymes in her poem. Which words in the poem contain the ay sound? What do the repeating sounds and rhymes add to the poem? (rhyme and rhythm) The poet repeats the ay sound in the words breaking, vain, aching, pain, fainting, and again. These words are important to the poem because they relate to the theme of helping others. Repeating the “ay”sound helps to link these words together to create a rhythm. The repetition of the ay sound also means that some of the end words rhyme, such as aching and breaking in lines 2 and 4 and pain, vain, and again in lines 3, 5, 7, and 8. The repetition of the ay sound also gives the poem a musical quality. Without the rhythm and rhyme these sounds create, the poem would probably be less memorable and sound less musical.

Distribute or assign the Poetry Kit, which will take students on a deep dive into the poem and offer opportunities for students to connect the poem to other stories in the issue, as well as write their own short rhyming poem.