For the six-word memoir, students wrote six words reflecting something revealing about themselves. The famous example from Ernest Hemingway is, "For sale: Baby Shoes. Never Worn."
We learned that a metaphysical conceit is a central metaphor that lasts for the entire poem. The metaphor in "Tracks" is fire/burning, and the metaphor in "The Elevator Operator" is the elevator itself, which represents the "forever interrupted rise" of the father whose job requires him to keep silent like a "potted plant." Many students saw lines from "The Elevator Operator, such as "where, at his touch, we too began to glow" as using touch in a nurturing way to enlighten, whereas, in "Tracks," touch was violent. One student mentioned that the nowhere town where the great-grandfather built the railroad in "Tracks," a "detour on the way to somewhere more important," was like the constantly "interruped" rise of the elevator and its continual return to the first floor, as if the men characterized in both pieces never really went anywhere in life. Another student pointed out that the elevator operator opened doors of opportunity to others, doors he couldn't walk through himself, while the great-grandfather in "Tracks" had his "mind soldered shut" with schizophrenia, keeping him from loving and nurturing his children.