1. TPCASTT Shift: Note shifts in speakers and attitudes
Title: Ponder the title before reading the poem
Paraphrase: Translate the poem into your own words
Connotation: Contemplate the poem for meaning beyond the literal level
Attitude: Observe both the speaker’s and the poet’s attitude (tone).
Shift: Note shifts in speakers and attitudes
Title: Examine the title again, this time on an interpretive level
Theme: Determine what the poet is saying

2. TITLE
Look at the title an attempt to predict what the poem will be about.
Example:
“The Red Wheelbarrow”
William Carlos Williams
so much depends upon a red wheel barrow
glazed with rain water
beside the white chickens.

3. PARAPHRASE
Paraphrase the literal meaning or “plot” of the poem. A true understanding of the poem must evolve from comprehension of “what’s going on in the poem.”
Example:
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

4. CONNOTATION
For poetry, connotation indicates that students should examine any and all poetic devices, focusing on how such devices contribute to the meaning, the effect, or both of a poem. Students may consider imagery (especially simile, metaphor, personification), symbolism, diction, point of view, and sound devices (alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhythm, and rhyme).
Example: From “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath
Not God but a swastika So black no sky could squeak through. Every woman adores a Fascist, The boot in the face, the brute Brute heart of a brute like you.

5. ATTITUDE
Having examined the poem’s devices and clues closely, you are ready to explore the multiple attitudes that may be present in the poem. (Tone)
Example: Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

6. SHIFTS
Rarely does a poet begin and end the poetic experience in the same place. Discovery of a poet’s understanding of an experience is critical to the understanding of a poem. Trace the feelings of the speaker from the beginning to the end, paying particular attention to the conclusion.
  Look for the following to find shifts:
1. Key words (but, yet, however, although)
2. Punctuation (dashes, periods, colons, ellipsis)
3. Stanza division
4. Changes in line or stanza length or both
5. Irony (sometimes irony hides shifts)
6. Effect of structure on meaning
7. Changes in sound (rhyme) may indicate changes in meaning
8. Changes in diction (slang to formal language)

7. "I'm nobody! Who are you?" by Emily Dickinson
I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us — don't tell! They'd banish us, you know. How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog!
To interrupt the flow

8. TITLE
Examine the title again, this time on an interpretive level.

9. THEME
  Identify the theme by recognizing the human experience, motivation, or condition suggested by the poem.
“Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, 5 I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.