Before the Birth of One of Her Children

All things within this fading world hath end,
Adversity doth still our joys attend;
No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,
But with death's parting blow are sure to meet.
The sentence past is most irrevocable,
A common thing, yet oh, inevitable.
How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend,
How soon't may be thy lot to lose thy friend,
We both are ignorant, yet love bids me
These farewell lines to recommend to thee,
That when the knot's untied that made us one,
I may seem thine, who in effect am none.
And if I see not half my days that's due,
What nature would, God grant to yours and you;
The many faults that well you know I have
Let be interred in my oblivious grave;
If any worth or virtue were in me,
Let that live freshly in thy memory
And when thou feel'st no grief, as I no harmes,
Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms,
And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains
Look to my little babes, my dear remains.
And if thou love thyself, or loved'st me,
These O protect from stepdame's injury.
And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse,
With some sad sighs honor my absent hearse;
And kiss this paper for thy dear love's sake, 
Who with salt tears this last farewell did take.

by Anne Bradstreet

Here is a unit plan about women in poetry that applies to Anne Bradstreet.
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/17110

Unit Overview

"Women in Poetry," a unit created by New York City public school teacher Carolyn Kohli, introduces students to a broad range of women's voices in poetry. Students develop a poetic and technological vocabulary simultaneously through a series of creative and critical writing exercises and Internet research and citation. "Women in Poetry" primarily explores contemporary poetry with themes as diverse as "Entering the Darkness Out of Childhood," "Voices of the Mothers," "The Body Electric," and "Ars Poetica". Each thematic set of lessons requires students to practice basic skills in Microsoft Word and on the Internet, responding to each poem grouping with information obtained in web research and their own creative and critical responses.  

Learning Objectives

By the end of this unit students will be able to:

• Describe the traditional roles of women/received cultural stereotypes and find them expressed in poetry by women.
• Describe the ways women poets belie stereotypes in their poetry and voice.
• Recognize and describe voice and tone in a variety of poems by women.
• Characterize poetry written by women as having a distinct point of view, but as concerning itself with the breadth of human experience.
• Develop a vocabulary and ideas for writing and talking about poetry written by women.
• Do a close reading of two poems they have not read with the teacher and write about their understanding of that poem in a brief, lucid essay.
• Write one brief essay (300-500 words) arguing for or against a reading (Elizabeth Bishop's "In the Waiting Room").
• Write one brief essay (300-500 words) comparing two poets (Emily Dickinson and Gwendolyn Brooks).
• Write two personal responses (250-400 words), one on our visiting poet, one on two student poems read during workshop.
• Discuss several key elements of poetry, including voice, the speaker as persona created by the poet, autobiography in poetry, and several poetic techniques (line length, enjambment, anaphora, sound devices, metaphor).
• Read criticism through links at The Academy of American Poets website.
• View and discuss a videoclip of a high school student reciting Emily Dickinson's "I'm Nobody! Who are You?" as an expression of the importance of poetry in general and the impact of Dickinson in particular over 100 years after her death.
• Write three poems modeled after or inspired by several read in class.
• Read one original poem aloud for responses in a workshop setting.
• Include one original poem on the web page.
• Write three very brief essays for the web page.
• Learn and practice techniques for creating a web page, including copying and pasting photographs and art, creating hyperlinks, researching poets' lives and works on the Internet.
• Create a web page as a final project.

I think this unit plan touches on important questions in women's poetry.  Why do they write?  What do they write about?  Would poems be different if they weren't mothers?  Anne Bradstreet writes about domestic life - her children, her husband, etc... but she is deeper than a typical housewife.  She has a lot to offer.  Have students explore the notion that Anne was escaping the domestic life by writing about it.