•  Read Ruefle’s “When Adults Talk,” which appears on the facing page in Post Meridian, and compare its treatment of the tensions between adults and children to those depicted in “Sentimental Education.” Does Ruefle raise any different points in “When Adults Talk” about the problems of communication between the two groups? Write a paper in which you compare and contrast the two poems.

•  Write an additional four stanzas in the same format (one stanza focusing on what one of the children loves; the other directing a prayer) that would fit the thematic focus of “When Adults Talk.”

•  Research the Tartar invasion of Asia and Europe during the Middle Ages. What details about the invasion could be related to the situation(s) in the poem...