Reader’s & Educator’s Guides

Reader’s guides are one of my favorite features to encourage teachers to use lit mags in the classroom. The Healing Muse, SUNY Upstate Medical University’s journal of literary and visual arts, has begun developing Reader’s and Educator’s Guides for their publication. On the site now are guides for volumes 7 and 8. Here are a couple of the questions for volume 8:

In the third paragraph of Bromberg’s “Poetry and the Creative Healing Process” (p.31), the author discusses the relationship between community and healing. In what ways can writing about illness be therapeutic? What difference does it make to write for an audience?

The speakers of “Puzzled” (p. 81) and “After a Mastectomy” (p. 32) both express yearnings to be made “whole.” How do physical changes in the body affect self-perception and identity? In what ways do the speakers seek help from others to work through these feelings?