U3H2
AP LITERATURE & COMPOSITION
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Name: _________________________
Date: _____________________
Section: 12.1
Strategies for Reading a Poem
Do Now (all of page 1): Please answer in complete sentences. If any of your responses is only a single
sentence, I will come around and publicly shame you. (Seriously. Watch me.)
Select one poem from last night (circle it): “Dead Dog”, “Reapers”, “Africa”, “Oh, Oh”
Summarize that poem.
Where did you notice a shift in the poem? What caused that shift? A new image, a change in tone,
something else?
Which poem did you like the most? Which one did you like the least? Why?
Did you notice any similarities among the poems? If so, what?
TPCASST. Say it. Know it. Love it.
T-title: The meaning of the title without reference to the poem.
P-paraphrase: Put the poem, sentence by sentence, in your own words. DO NOT READ INTO THE POEM
DURING YOUR FIRST READ. Only read on surface level.
C-connotation: make observations about analyze the poet’s use of the following:
 Diction
 Symbolism
 Imagery
 Metaphors and similes
 Rhyme scheme
 Enjambment
 Alliteration
 Mood
 Allusions
 Paradox
 Point of view
 Punctuation
 Personification
 Structure
A-attitude: Looking for the author’s tone. How is the writer speaking?
S-shifts: Looking for shifts in tone, action, and rhythm. Don’t just write the number. Discuss
how the shift(s) affects the poem.
T-title: reevaluate the title as it pertains to the poem
T-theme: What does the poem mean? What is it saying? How does it relate to life?
How could this strategy help a reader approach a complicated poem?
Let’s try it on “Reapers”:
Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones
Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones
In their hip-pockets as a thing that's done,
And start their silent swinging, one by one.
Black horses drive a mower through the weeds,
And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds,
His belly close to ground. I see the blade,
Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.
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“Reapers” TPCASTT Practice (with example questions):
Title:


Where do we see the word “reaper” in the world?
What is our prediction, via this?
Paraphrase:
Connotations:
 What does “Reapers” make you think of?
 How would you describe the diction?
 What symbols do you notice in the poem?
 How about the mood?
 What does the language feel like?
Attitude:
Shifts:
Title (How does it change after you read it again?):
Theme:
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Practice the poem below with your tablemate. Believe me, it’s an appropriate poem for the task.
Catch
Two boys uncoached are tossing a poem together,
Overhand, underhand, backhand, sleight of hand, everyhand,
Teasing with attitudes, latitudes, interludes, altitudes,
High, make him fly off the ground for it, low, make him stoop,
Make him scoop it up, make him as-almost-as possible miss it,
Fast, let him sting from it, now, now fool him slowly,
Anything, everything tricky, risky, nonchalant,
Anything under the sun to outwit the prosy,
Over the tree and the long sweet cadence down,
Over his head, make him scramble to pick up the meaning,
And now, like a posy, a pretty one plump in his hands.
- Robert Francis
T-title:
P-paraphrase
C-connotation:
A-attitude:
S-shifts:
T-title:
T-theme
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Exit Ticket: (Use the back for TPCASTT)
Snapping Beans
For Fay Whitt
I snapped beans into the silver bowl
that sat on the splintering slats
of the porchswing between my grandma and me.
I was home for the weekend,
from school, from the North,
Grandma hummed “What A Friend We Have In Jesus”
as the sun rose, pushing its pink spikes
through the slant of cornstalks,
through the fly-eyed mesh of the screen.
We didn’t speak until the sun overcame
the feathered tips of the cornfield
and Grandma stopped humming. I could feel
the soft gray of her stare
against the side of my face
when she asked, How’s school a-goin?
I wanted to tell her about my classes,
the revelations by book and lecture
as real as any shout of faith,
potent as a swig of strychnine.
She reached the leather of her hand
over the bowl and cupped
my quivering chin; the slick smooth of her palm
held my face the way she held tomatoes
under the spigot, careful not to drop them,
and I wanted to tell her
about the nights I cried into the familiar
heartsick panels of the quilt she made me,
wishing myself home on the evening star.
I wanted to tell her
the evening star was a planet,
that my friends wore noserings and wrote poetry
about sex, about alcoholism, about Buddha.
I wanted to tell her how my stomach burned
acidic holes at the thought of speaking in class,
speaking in an accent, speaking out of turn,
how I was tearing, splitting myself apart
with the slow-simmering guilt of being happy
despite it all.
I said, School’s fine.
We snapped beans into the silver bowl between us
and when a hickory leaf, still summer green,
skidded onto the porchfront,
Grandma said,
It’s funny how things blow loose like that.
-
Lisa Parker
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15
20
25
30
35
40
Snapping Peas TPCASTT
T-title:
P-paraphrase
C-connotation:
A-attitude:
S-shifts:
T-title:
T-theme
6
Name:
Date:
Homework. Read the poems on the front and the back, using the TPCASTT structure. Follow the order
from class. You may use bullet points only for the connotation section, but it should be clear how each
element affects connotation.
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also, with the church's protestant blessings
daughters,unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead,
are invariably interested in so many things-at the present writing one still finds
delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D
.... the Cambridge ladies do not care, above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless, the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy
(5)
(10)
piracies and it's
spring
(15)
when the world is puddle-wonderful
-
e. e. cummings
T-title:
P-paraphrase
C-connotation:
A-attitude:
S-shifts:
T-title:
T-theme
7
Just Once
Just once I knew what life was for.
In Boston, quite suddenly, I understood;
walked there along the Charles River
watched the lights copying themselves,
all neoned, and strobe-hearted, opening
their mouths as wide as opera singers;
counted the stars, my little campaigners,
my scar daisies, and knew that I walked my love
on the night green side of it and cried
my heart to the eastbound cars and cried
my heart to the westbound cars and took
my love across a small humped bridge
and hurried my truth, the charm of it, home
and hoarded these constants into morning
only to find them gone.
-
Anne Sexton
T-title:
P-paraphrase
C-connotation:
A-attitude:
S-shifts:
T-title:
T-theme
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