Ask for a volunteer to read aloud "Walking Both Sides of an Invisible Border." If learners are reluctant, read it aloud yourself.

Ask learners to discuss their reaction to the poem.

• Did you like the poem? Why, or why not?
• What did you like best about it?
• How did you feel when you read the poem?

If you sense that some learners are having difficulty understanding words in the poem, have learners form small groups or pairs to make up lists of words they do not know. Ask groups to report to the whole class and record the words on one complete list. Divide the list into sections for pairs or groups of learners to find dictionary definitions for their assigned words and report back to the class.

Have the learners reread the poem.

In both the story by Thomas King and the poem by Alootook Ipellie, the authors write about borders. Discuss what these borders are. Are they the same or different? How are they different?

Return to the discussion of the differences between prose and poetry. Encourage learners to go deeper than the differences in external form. If necessary, refer to "Borders" and the poems just read to show how poems are more often concerned with feelings, ideas, impressions, and images than with telling a story. Discuss the language of poetry as opposed to the language of prose. Direct the learners' attention to the economy of language, the rhythm, the play of words used in poetry.

Divide the learners into five groups and divide the poem into five parts: (a) stanza 1 & 2, (b) stanza 3 & 4, (c) stanza 5 & 6, (d) stanza 7 & 8, (e) stanza 10, 11 & 12.

Ask each group to refer to the Glossary of Literary Terms to make a list of metaphors, similes, alliterations, and any other literary devices they can find in the stanzas they have just read.

Ask the groups discuss their interpretations of the assigned stanzas.