Welcome to ELA!
Ms. Collins
★ Your name
★ Your favorite
subject or book
★ A hobby or
interest outside of
school
Objective:
Analyze author’s
technique in poetry to
determine theme.
When she hit the switch, the room became a cave.
Alex was an absolute cheetah on the track.
Metaphor = comparing two unlike things to convey
a message
Warm up
Strategy:
★ First read: just listen for the gist
★ Second read: jot the literal meaning next to each
stanza or section
★ Third read: identify figurative language and make a
note about its purpose
★ At the end: review your annotations and make a
hypothesis about the theme
Mother to Son
By Langston Hughes
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
Literal:
1st:
Gist
2nd:
Literal
3rd:
Figurative
After:
Theme
Figurative:
Theme:
Recap:
1. Authors use a variety of techniques, such as
different kinds of figurative language, repetition, or
alliteration, to convey their message.
2. We analyze their techniques to help
understand their message.
3. In this case, we focused on the technique of
extended metaphor.
4. We analyze metaphors by asking ourselves what
two things are being compared, and what are our
associations?
“Mother to Son”
Life = Staircase
●
●
●
●
●
Tacks, splinters, boards
torn up, dark
Life has been hard
I’se been a-climbin’ on
Don’t you set down
Don’t give up, keep
persevering when life is
hard
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Literal:
Went separate ways
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Gist
2nd:
Literal
3rd:
Figurative
After:
Theme
Figurative:
Plants growing on
the ground in forest
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
1st:
Trampled
Theme:
Exit Ticket: Write a
one-paragraph response.
How does Frost develop his
message in “The Road Not
Taken”? Support your claim with
two pieces of text evidence.
Thank you!