Strategy: SOAPSTONE *
The SOAPSTONE graphic organizer helps students increase their critical thinking and analytical skills
when reading literature or informational texts. SOAPSTONE is an acronym for the following:
S: Subject
The topic
O: Occasion
The circumstances/motivation for the literature/text at
the time it was written; description of the time period the
text was written
A: Audience
Who the writing was intended for
P: Purpose
The message or reason literature/text was written
S: Speaker
The author
TONE:
Mood or “feel” of the literature; writer’s attitude toward the
subject -- Ex. humorous, persuasive, etc.
If you ever read the “Wheaties” Cereal Box, you may interpret SOAPSTONE in this
manner:
Subject:
Occasion:
Audience:
Purpose:
Speaker:
Tone:
Wheaties Cereal
General Mills Company running a cereal business for profit
All cereal lovers, kids and adults who play sports
To Sell Cereal
General Mills
Persuasive or to Convince People to Purchase the Cereal
* SOAPSTONE Strategy provided by The College Board, Building Success Workshop
Practicing SOAPSTONE*
I’m Nobody – 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 –
Dusting – Julia Alvarez
Each morning I wrote my name
On the dusty cabinet, then crossed
The dining table in script, scrawled
In capitals on the backs of chairs,
Practicing signatures like scales
While Mother followed, squirting
Linseed from a burping can
Into a crumpled-up flannel
To tell one’s name - the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
She erased my fingerprints
From the bookshelf and rocker,
Polished mirrors on the desk
Scribbled with my alphabets.
My name was swallowed in the towel
With which she jeweled the table tops.
The grain surfaced in the oak
And the pine grew luminous.
But I refused with every mark
To be like her, anonymous
Compare the two poems in each of the following areas using SOAPSTONE:
I’m Nobody
Dusting
Subject
Occasion
Audience
Purpose
Speaker
Tone
Using the results of the comparison, make one statement about both poems.
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
* Worksheet adapted from College Board, Building Success Workshop