Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Palestine is a territory in the Middle East, comprised of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, that is often in the news. List any facts, ideas, and speculations you have about Palestine and Palestinian culture. What is the nature of the conflict in this region, both present-day and historically?

Teaching Suggestion: Palestinian culture and history—including its Muslim roots, but also the wars that have ravaged the region—are inextricable parts of Barakat’s memoir. Students may have some background knowledge of the ongoing war between Israel and Palestine, but they may not understand the nature of the conflict. It may be helpful to make students aware of the difficulty in summarizing this long-standing conflict in one session. Let them know that it is not possible to capture the full, rich history of Palestine in a brief conversation, and that this discussion is only meant to skim the surface and give students more context.

• Vox’s “Everything You Need to Know about Israel-Palestine” is a concise, yet comprehensive, overview of the conflict in the region.
• The Center for Trust, Peace, and Social Relations has a series of videos on Palestinian culture, including videos on archaeological sites, agriculture and herding in the region, and traditional food in Palestinian culture.

2. War has devastating consequences on the lives of a nation’s people. War can also reshape a country’s physical boundaries and the makeup of its political fault lines. Can you think of wars/conflicts in modern history that have done this?

Teaching Suggestion: There are many wars that have changed the boundaries and/or political character of a nation. After sharing initial ideas on the topic, students should be guided to discuss the Six-Day War between Israel and Palestine in 1967. The Six-Day War is central to Ibtisam’s story in Tasting the Sky. This prompt will give students greater understanding of how the war not only tore apart Ibtisam’s life personally, but it also changed the entire shape of the country. In a sense, when a country’s boundaries are changed, refugees like Ibtisam can never return home.

• History’s video “Here’s How the Six-Day War Changed the Map of the Middle East” describes how this 1967 battle redrew the map between Israel and its Palestinian Arab rivals (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq).
• The Jewish Virtual Library has a series of maps that illustrate the Six-Day War and the incidents that preceded it on the webpage “Six-Day War Maps: Events Leading to the Six-Day War.”

Teaching Suggestion: For students struggling to understand the concept of boundary reshaping because of a war, it may be helpful to approach this discussion with visual aids, starting in European/North American territories. For example, before delving into the subject of the Six Day War’s effect on the Middle East, have students watch Business Insider’s “This Animated Map Shows How World War I Changed Europe’s Borders.”

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the text.

There is a rich literary tradition of people processing their trauma through poetry and writing. Poetry has been used to process collective trauma (for example, events like the Holocaust and PTSD associated with war), but also individual and personal traumas (events like break-ups, heartache, sickness, and illness). Have you ever used writing, particularly poetry, to help process a problem or difficult event that you’ve been working through? In what ways is the process helpful? If you have not, discuss 1-2 poems or pieces of writing in which you observe the author trying to make sense of their pain.

Teaching Suggestion: One of the major themes in Tasting the Sky is Finding Refuge: The Healing Power of Words. In the course of their studies, students likely will have encountered a poem and/or other piece of writing in which the author uses words to help process their pain, if students haven’t used poetry/writing to process their own personal pain themselves.

• An example of poets processing large-scale trauma is Yad Vashem’s collection of Holocaust poetry entitled “Commemoration and Poetry.”
• An example of poets processing personal trauma is Poetry Foundation’s collection entitled “Poems of Sickness, Illness, and Recovery.”

Differentiation Suggestion: For verbal/linguistic learners, you can approach this prompt as a brief, creative writing activity. Have students suggest any favorite poems/writings and then discuss those poems/writing; then have students think about a recent problem or difficulty that they’re facing. Ask them to write a very brief poem or two (maximum three poems) that works through this problem. Have them address, in the poem: (1) What are they feeling?, (2) Who is involved?, and (3) How do they want to feel a year from now? 

For students who are unfamiliar with using poetry/writing as a medium to process pain, it could be helpful to focus on some of the poetry above. After reading a poem, ask the students what the poem was about and what the narrator was feeling, who (if anyone) was involved, and if there was any conclusion or emotional resolution. What does the format of a poem accomplish for the writer and readers?