Making Inferences with Poetry

1. Making Inferences with Poetry A Key to Understanding

2. The __________ By day the __________ loves to float On swamps and lakes, much like a boat. At night from water it retreats, And eats and eats and eats and eats. What is it?

3. Little lamps of the dusk, You fly low and gold When the summer evening Starts to unfold. So that all the insects, Now, before you pass, Will have light to see by, Undressing in the grass. But when the night has flowered, Little lamps agleam, You fly over treetops Following a dream. Men wonder from their windows That a _______goes so far--- They do not know your longing To be a shooting star. What is it?

4. What is it?

5. What is it?

6. What is it?

7. Your Turn Write a brief poem that describes or gives the characteristics of an object. Do not use the objects name in the poem. Be sure to be VERY descriptive. The goal is for someone to be able to infer what the object is based on your description or clues.

9. All lovely things will have an ending, All lovely things will fade and die, And youth, that’s now so bravely spending, Will beg a penny by and by. Fine ladies soon are all forgotten, And goldenrod is dust when dead, The sweetest flesh and flowers are rotten And cobwebs tent the brightest head. Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return! But time goes on, and will, unheeding, Though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn, And the wild days set true hearts bleeding. Come back, true love! Sweet youth, remain! But goldenrod and daisies wither, And over them blows autumn rain, They pass, they pass, and know not whither. All Things Lovely By Conrad Aiken

10. On Your Own • Pick a poem. • Read the poem. • Use sticky-notes to write your thoughts. • After finishing the poem, write a sentence that explains the poems “theme”.