Does anyone have any suggestions on a related text (must be short story) or poem I could use for my assessment that is related to human experiences, etc.? Thanks!
I suggest checking out Simon's Papa (Le Papa de Simon) by Guy de Maupassant (1879), which is a short novel exploring a child who falls afoul of the other boys' cruelty because he doesn't have a father. I believe you will be able to connect it to the concept of human experiences, as this is something that is visibly covered within the novel.
I think another good related text would be 'Night' by Elie Wiesel, which is a memoir (around 100 pages) about the experiences of the author during WW2 surviving in Nazi concentration camps with his father. It's a sad and depressing story, but I think it would closely relate to the human experiences topic.