1. Fuquay-Varina Middle School 6th grade language arts
Poetry
Fuquay-Varina Middle School
6th grade language arts

2. Poetic Terms/Elements
Imagery: vivid description with details about sight, sound, smell, taste and/or texture
Alliteration: the repetition of a consonant sound at the beginning of a word
Onomatopoeia: a word whose sound suggests its meaning
Simile: comparisons that include the words “like” or “as”
Metaphor: describes one item as being another item
Rhyme scheme: the pattern of rhyme in a poem
Personification: applying a human trait or action to an inanimate object

3. How to Read a Poem Preview Read the poem aloud several times
Visualize the images
Clarify words and phrases
Evaluate the poem’s theme

4. How to Analyze a Poem Read the title
Read the poem all the way through (out loud)
Reread and:
Underline words you do not know. Look these words up and write the definition in the margins
Circle phrases and annotate connotations
Place over poetic elements and label in the margins

5. Answer as many of the following questions as you can in the margins of the poem:
Who is the speaker?
Is the audience identifiable?
What is the occasion?
What is the setting? (time and/or place)
What is the tone of the poem? Highlight the words that helped you identify the tone.
Summarize the poem.
What imagery do you see in the poem?

6. Answer as many as the following questions as you can in the margins of the poem:
Identify and Explain any symbols you see in the poem.
Identify the rhyme scheme of the poem
What is the mood of the poem? How do you know?
What is the central idea of the poem?
Why do you think the poet chose to write this poem as opposed to another form of communication?

7. Let’s Try: Clarify: Who did I tell? anger What happened to my wrath?
Which words do I not know?
Clarify: Who did I tell?
What happened to my wrath?
anger
A Poison Tree
by William Blake
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
What’s the rhyme scheme? a b
Which words help to set the mood?
enemy
Foreshadowing: What’s going to happen?

8. Same poem…Keep Trying:
Clarify:
What do you water?
What needs the sun?
The “wrath” from the first stanza.
Clarify:
What is “it” that is referred to in the first line of this stanza?
What is “growing” in this stanza?
“it”
And I watered it in fears, Night and morning with my tears; And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles.
Plants/things that grow
trickery
Which words do I not know?
Summarize this stanza. What is the poet saying?
lying or untruthful
The speaker acts like he/she is not mad but he really is.

9. Same poem: You try Copy this stanza and complete the questions/activities.
Which line indicates point at which the “foe” realizes the speaker is angry with him?
Put a star beside the line.
What imagery do you “see”?
Draw a sketch of it in the margin.
What is the central idea of this poem? Write it below the poem.
Which words do you not understand? Underline them.
To what is the “it” referring? Write the answer in the margin.
Which words continue the metaphor started in the last stanza? Circle them.
And it grew both day and night Till it bore an apple bright; And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine,

10. Same poem: Last Stanza Copy this stanza and analyze it.
And into my garden stole When the night had veiled the pole: In the morning glad I see My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

11. Your Turn Copy, Annotate, and Analyze the following poem.
Near the Wall of a House
By Yehuda Amichai
Near the wall of a house painted
To look like a stone,
I saw visions of God.
A sleepless night that gives others a headache
Gave me flowers
Opening beautifully inside my brain.
And he who was lost like a dog
Will be found like a human being and brought back home again.
Love is not the last room: there are others
After it, the whole length of the corridor
That has no end.