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“Those Winter Sundays”. Poetry Analysis Mrs. Kate Hendrix Pre-AP English II Madison Central High School. The Title of the Poem. Think about what the title “Those Winter Sundays” means to you. On your paper, write 2-3 sentences describing a typical “winter Sunday” at your house.
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“Those Winter Sundays” Poetry Analysis Mrs. Kate Hendrix Pre-AP English II Madison Central High School
The Title of the Poem • Think about what the title “Those Winter Sundays” means to you. • On your paper, write 2-3 sentences describing a typical “winter Sunday” at your house. • What do you think this poem might be about? • Throughout the day all of you will be reading various responses aloud! Be prepared!
Read the Poem • As you read, keep in mind the speaker’s attitude toward his father.
Read Literally • Put a slash mark (/) at the end of each SENTENCE. • Beside the poem, write a paraphrase of each sentence in the poem.
SOAPStone • SOAPStone is an acronym to remind you to ask yourself several questions about a poem to establish some background for understanding. • S = subject of the poem. What is the poem about? • O = occasion. What is the time and place of the poem and what might have prompted the poet to write it? • A = audience. To whom is the poet writing? • P = purpose. What is the poet’s purpose? Is it to express emotion, or tell a story, or convince someone (the audience) something? • S = speaker. What do you know about the speaker, based on what is in the poem? • Tone = tone. How would you initially describe the speaker’s tone based on the SOAPS?
SOAPStone • With a partner, complete the SOAPStone analysis on each of your papers (10 minutes) • S ________________________________________ • O ________________________________________ • A ________________________________________ • P ________________________________________ • S ________________________________________ • Tone _____________________________________
Levels of Questions • Level 1: Questions for which the answer can be found in the text itself (on the line) • Write a Level 1 question for each of the 5 sentences in the poem. • Answer your own questions, using textual evidence (QUOTES!) to support them. • Ex. Sentence 1 – Level 1 question and answer: • Question: What days did the speaker’s father get up to make a fire? • Answer: Every day, “Sundays too”
Levels of Questions • Level 2: Questions for which the reader must make inferences based on the text (between the lines) • Write a Level 2 question for each of the 5 sentences in the poem. • Answer your own questions, using textual evidence to support them. • Ex. Sentence 1 – Level 2 • Question: What kind of man was the speaker’s father? • Answer: He was hardworking, with “hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather,” and he took care of his family even on “Sundays…made banked fires blaze.”
Levels of Questions • Level 3: Questions which move outside the text to larger questions that are universal (beyond the lines) • For the poem as a whole, write a level 3 question and answer it using textual evidence to support it.
Levels of Questioning • In 1-2 sentences, explain how asking questions makes you understand the poem better. • You can’t say that it doesn’t help you…it SHOULD help you. If it doesn’t help you, you’re not working hard enough!
Devices Linked to Meaning • Complete the chart that I will hand out to you. • Comment on at least two examples each of diction, imagery, and details • The rest of the rows may be completed with whichever of those three literary elements you choose • Basically, you can’t just do all imagery, for example • You may work with a partner, but both partners must complete the chart in full! • Label your chart with your name then indicate your partner’s name on the line where it asks for your partner’s name.
Shifts • When trying to understand and analyze a speaker’s tone, it is always important to look for complexity in that tone. • In other words, a speaker in a poem rarely feels only one way about the subject, so look for shifts or changes in the poem. • Those shifts can be revealed by changes in verb tense, point-of-view, diction choices, or images. • When identifying a speaker’s tone, use more than one adjective to describe it. • If you need help thinking of good words, use that TONE chart I gave you at the beginning of the year!
Shifts • In this poem, does the speaker’s attitude toward his father seem to be the same throughout the poem? If not, where does the shift in attitude occur? Explain. • What adjective would you use to describe the speaker’s tone before the shift? • Provide textual evidence to support that assertion. • What adjective would you use to describe the speaker’s tone after the shift? • Provide textual evidence to support that assertion.
Writing Assignment • After reading and analyzing the poem, write a paragraph in which you explain how the poet’s use of diction, imagery, and details reveals the speaker’s complex attitude toward his father. • If we run out of time in class, this is homework!