Language and Literature
Feelings into Words
Student Name:
Summative A Quarter 4 Semester 2
_________________________
Unit Title
Feelings into Words
Unit Question
How can I share who I am?
Area of Interaction
Human Ingenuity
►Significant Concept
Being able to express our feelings is a life skill
everyone needs for future success in life.
MYP ENGLISH UNIT 6 TASK: Grade 8 Poetry Analysis Paper
Criteria applied: A-B-C
Final Assessment Date Due:
Topic: Poetry Analysis
An analysis of a poem is not a summary. An analysis requires an interpretation (explication) by the reader. An
explication (or interpretation) of a work may concentrate on a close reading of a specific part of the work (lineby-line or word-by-word). An explication entails not only what the work means, but how it accomplishes the
author’s purpose.
Directions:
- On a separate piece of paper, answer the following questions in the order listed below (for two poems of
your selection)
-Be sure to number each of the 13 sections.
-You need to select two poems for your analysis.
-You might sit for two sessions to complete this assessment.
-All of your answer sheets should be handed back to your teacher before leaving the class, and will be
given back to you at the beginning of session2.
MYP ENGLISH GRADE 8 UNIT SIX: POETRY ANALYSIS
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Feelings into Words
Language and Literature
Summative A Quarter 4 Semester 2
- Please make sure to attach a copy of your poem with your analysis.
1. Copy of poem attached, including title and author’s name
2. Year poem was written or published
3. List three detailed facts about the author
4. What question would you ask the author if you could? (About the poem or about his/her life)
5. Physical analysis of the poem: (# of words, # of lines, # of stanzas)
6. Topic/subject – this is what the poem appears to be about on the surface (no hidden meaning)
7. Brief summary of the poem
8. Theme: State a major theme presented in the poem and state what you think the author is saying about that
theme.
9. Mood: in one or two words, state the overall mood of the poem.
10. Type of poem: narrative, lyric, or dramatic? How do you know?
11. Personal reflections: Why did you select this poem? What is your favorite line. Why?
12. Literary devices – give examples of each of the following from your poem. If your poem does not contain
one of the devices, just write “none.”
Item
Done/Not
Applicable (D/NA)
Item
A. rhyme scheme? If yes, what is it
B. alliteration
G. simile
H. metaphor
C. repetition
D. imagery
E. personification
F. allusions
I. irony
J. refrain
K. symbolism
Done/Not Applicable
(D/NA)
13. Effect: What effect do the literary devices have on the meaning of the poem as a whole?
You do not have to discuss all of the devices; just choose a few important ones.
Poetry Selection
1-Abandoned Farmhouse
2-Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
3-WRECK OF THE HESPERUS
4-A Poison Tree
5-The Spring Storm
6-Tugboat at Daybreak
MYP ENGLISH GRADE 8 UNIT SIX: POETRY ANALYSIS
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Feelings into Words
Language and Literature
Abandoned Farmhouse
By Ted Kooser
He was a big man, says the size of his shoes
on a pile of broken dishes by the house;
a tall man too, says the length of the bed
in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man,
says the Bible with a broken back
on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;
but not a man for farming, say the fields
cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.
A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall
papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves
covered with oilcloth, and they had a child,
says the sandbox made from a tractor tire.
Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves
and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole.
And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames.
It was lonely here, says the narrow country road.
Something went wrong, says the empty house
in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields
say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars
in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste.
And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard
like branches after a storm--a rubber cow,
a rusty tractor with a broken plow,
a doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say.
Summative A Quarter 4 Semester 2
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.
And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
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.
And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
MYP ENGLISH GRADE 8 UNIT SIX: POETRY ANALYSIS
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Feelings into Words
Language and Literature
The Wreck of the Hesperus
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
It was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughtèr,
To bear him company.
Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.
"Come hither! come hither! my little daughtèr,
And do not tremble so;
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow."
He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.
"O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
Oh say, what may it be?"
"'T is a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!" —
And he steered for the open sea.
The skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.
"O father! I hear the sound of guns,
Oh say, what may it be?"
"Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!"
Then up and spake an old Sailòr,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.
"O father! I see a gleaming light,
Oh say, what may it be?"
But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.
"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.
Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the Northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.
Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.
Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.
Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That savèd she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave
On the Lake of Galilee.
And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.
Summative A Quarter 4 Semester 2
And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.
The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.
She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.
Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!
At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.
The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.
Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe!
MYP ENGLISH GRADE 8 UNIT SIX: POETRY ANALYSIS
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Feelings into Words
Language and Literature
Summative A Quarter 4 Semester 2
Spring Storm
Tugboat at Daybreak
William Carlos Williams, 1883 - 1963
The sky has given over
its bitterness.
Out of the dark change
all day long
rain falls and falls
as if it would never end.
Still the snow keeps
its hold on the ground.
But water, water
from a thousand runnels!
It collects swiftly,
dappled with black
cuts a way for itself
through green ice in the gutters.
Drop after drop it falls
from the withered grass-stems
of the overhanging embankment.
by Lillian Morrison
The necklace of the bridge
is already dimmed for morning
but a tug in a tiara
glides slowly up the river,
a jewel of the dawn,
still festooned in light.
The river seems to slumber
quiet in its bed,
as silently the tugboat,
a ghostlike apparition,
moves twinkling up the river
and disappears from sight.
MYP ENGLISH GRADE 8 UNIT SIX: POETRY ANALYSIS
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