On the 19th anniversary of 9/11, ask your students: How has the world changed?
Publish date: 2024-08-17
ProcedureRead the article 9/11 to now: Ways we have changed along with the bullet points summarizing the piece. Then answer the questions below. You may wish to assign different sections of the article to different groups of students and have the groups report back as a class.
Then watch Billy Collins, the U.S. poet laureate on Sept. 11th, read a poem he wrote a year after the attack, called “The Names,” in honor of the victims. He read the poem before a special joint session of Congress held in New York City in 2002, and reads it again now in this NewsHour video from 2011.
9/11 Fast Facts
- Sept. 11th marks the anniversary of the attacks when terrorist-piloted planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and crashed into a field in Somerset County, Penn. Each year relatives read the names of the 2,977 fallen.
- Many changes have occurred in U.S. domestic and foreign policy after 9/11, including air travel, with Congress federalizing airport security through the passage of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, which created the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Before 9/11, security had been handled by airports, which outsourced the work to private security companies.
- More than 260 government agencies were created or reorganized after 9/11. The Patriot Act and 48 bills were signed into law, many of them related to counterterrorism work.
- The U.S. entered the longest war in our country’s history in Afghanistan after the attacks on 9/11, which continues to this day. The terrorist organization, al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden from Saudi Arabia, planned the attacks from Afghanistan with the support of that country’s totalitarian regime.
- Anti-Islam hate crimes in the U.S. spiked after the attacks and many Muslims were subject to verbal harassment and increased airport security checks. In 2015, incidents of crimes against Muslim people reached 9/11 articles and continues to be a problem in the U.S. Read the Teachers’ Lounge article here to learn more.
Discussion questions
Extension activities
- Read this first-person account, Column: I was there on 9/11. Now it’s a history lesson that I teach by English teacher Annie Thoms who had just started the school year at her alma mater, Stuyvesant High School, located four blocks from Ground Zero. Why do you think it may be important to hear a teacher’s perspective about Sept. 11th?
- Then read the article What it was like to watch the 9/11 attacks from your classroom window about Thoms' work with 13 young actors and directors at her school to create a play based on interviews with Stuyvesant students, faculty and staff. Those interviews captured what it was like to witness the nation’s worst act of terrorism and the emotions that followed. Why do you think the students chose to share their thoughts in the form of a play? What is it about the language in the play that makes it sound like poetry? Why does poetry often allow writers to express how they are feeling?
Excerpts f rom “With Their Eyes: September 11th–The View From a High School at Ground Zero.”
Kevin Zhang, sophomore
I saw this huge plane it was… it looked much bigger than the first one, it just, it looked like one of those jets, you know, in the movies, you know, Air Force One or something, one of those big jets. It was one of those and it just hits – It hit the building right there.Katherine Fletcher, English teacher
I noticed it enough to say to my class what was that sort of casually I wasn’t scared or alarmed I just sort of said what was that and someone said thunder and I was like no it’s not thunder it must have been a truck it was like the sound of a truck like hitting something on a street or you know how sometimes you’ll hear something like that.Hudson Williams-Eynon, freshman
We all went to art. My art class is on the tenth floor turned facing north so we couldn’t see anything but everyone was looking out the windows so the teacher was like “You know, this might sound stupid and everything but I still want you guys to draw. You can tell your kids that when the World Trade Center was y’know attacked you guys were drawing contour drawings.”Juan Carlos Lopez, school safety agent
I got this weird transmission the strangest transmission in my life that a plane hit the World Trade Center and I ran into the computer room to see. I haven’t gotten back into that office. The recollection of what I saw is framed in that window, like if I had to draw you a picture I would have to draw the window frame as well. I’m a little apprehensive, just looking at these banners I get a little choked up. So I – I fear going into that office I might lose my composure. But it’s been long enough that maybe I could go into that office and take it in but I, I – you know in a way I don’t feel ready, I don’t.Katie Berringer, freshman
We didn’t know what was going on so when we see this like psychopathic lady running down the hallway like “I need to call my mother, I need to call my mother!” and we’re like What is wrong with HER? and we didn’t know what was going on so we were like laughing at her. But then we heard that thing on the speakers but we still thought it was like tiny and they were telling us out of respect like when that guy died and everyone had a moment of silence. We thought it was something like that – but I saw my friend and he was telling me like about all those things he was seeing out the windows and I was like holy shit this is big.Jennifer Suri, assistant principal, social studies
There were students who came into my office to use the phone to touch base with their parents to see if they were okay… and there were actually many of them crowded into my room and the electricity went out momentarily and the lights started flickering and everyone screamed and dropped to the floor, frightened. And I just tried to comfort them. Fill out this form to share your thoughts on Classroom’s resources. Sign up for NewsHour Classroom’s ready-to-go Daily News Lessons delivered to your inbox each morning.ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7sa7SZ6arn1%2Bjsri%2Fx6isq2eToa60v9GopqZnlJa2rcWMr6CdnZ%2BofHN8kHJmaXFfqLavr8RmcGppXay1osCMnaZmsZ%2Bqv26%2F066bnqakqHqsus6wZJqan6rBbrTOsGStoJViwm6%2FjKGYrGWTna6vs8Sd