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.

How would you describe the movement of a falcon? What are some words and images that come to mind when you think about how birds of prey fly? What do you think artists might see when they look at falcons? What might the falcon represent for a writer? If you can think of how birds are used in other art you are familiar with, you might be able to get an idea of what birds might mean to a writer.

Teaching Suggestion: This is a really tough poem, so the entry point should be the metaphor of the falcon. The first part of the poem is much easier than the second part, so students will most likely have an easier time understanding and relating to the descriptions in the first stanza than the metaphysical musings in the second half of the poem. Depending on the school and class you are in, engaging students in some contextual work with the passage in John where Jesus is crucified and then stabbed with a spear after his death would also be helpful before reading the poem.