English II
All Quiet on the Western Front
Name __________________________
All Quiet and You
Directions: Use this assignment as a potential reflection journal entry. Write your
findings in the “Reflective Response” section in your journal book. If you choose to
not use this assignment as your entry in the “Reflective Response” section, please
read the poem to your parents anyway and record their reaction. After all, I am
asking you to spend a bit of time with your parent(s)/guardian(s) and literature.
1) Read the poem titled “On My Son Reading All Quiet on the Western Front” to your
parent(s)/guardian(s), and then allow them to read it in silence if they wish to do so.
2) Record their reaction(s). (Clues: What is their perception of the speaker’s attitude in the
poem? Do they see similarities between themselves and the speaker? What’s their reaction
to your experience of reading All Quiet on the Western Front?)
3) Will this experience provoke you to speak with your parents about literature in the
future?
4) In what ways can literature and dialogue regarding literature extend your human
relationships?
On My Son Reading All Quiet on the Western Front
Is it that time already,
That you read with passionate calm
A book I knew one hundred years ago
or so?
You sit or lie in your room
And never put it down
Until the boy-man's voice
Blurts out with pride,
"I've finished."
And I am startled by love
And filled with loss
Because the soft brown gaze
Looks beyond my eyes
As once, yesterday, you craned
An infant's neck above my shoulder
To peer about a smaller room,
Wiggling, squirming away.
Fay Greenspan