AF3 – deduce, infer or interpret information, events or ideas from texts
Lesson Objective:
By the end of the lesson I will be able to use AF3 to analyse a poem

I am silver and exact.
I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.

Sylvia Plath was an American poet born in 1932.
Her poetry was full of imagery and symbolism.
She was married to the poet laureate Ted Hughes.
Her poetry is very personal.

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.
Just as it is, un-misted by love or dislike
I am not cruel, only truthful –
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Annotate the poem:
Underline and find the meaning of any words you don’t know
Find an example of a metaphor
Find an expression that you like
Find an example of vivid imagery
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

1.
Which two adjectives does Plath use to describe the mirror?
2.
What is the effect created by using these two adjectives?
3.
Plath has written in the 1 st person as the mirror – in the first stanza do you sympathise with the mirror? Give reasons for your answer.
4.
In the second stanza, Plath describes a woman looking into the mirror – who do you think the woman is?
5.
How does the woman feel when she looks in the mirror?
1.
Point
2.
Evidence
3.
Explanation

• Level 4
• They have made a good comment and used a quote.
• Level 5
• Comments made are interesting and a good choice of quote has been used
• Level 6
• An attempt has been made to look for a deeper meaning in the poem, possibly by relating the poem to the poet’s feelings