Common Core Performance Coach
Lesson 2
 Poetry
is a special type of writing that uses
words to create a strong feeling, image, or
message through meaning, sound, and
rhythm.
 Poetry
has a special structure. It is usually
made up of lines, which are rows of text.
Lines may or may not be complete
sentences.
 The poem may be broken into groups of lines
called stanzas. In most poetry, stanzas are
used the way paragraphs are used in stories
or articles. The stanzas fit together to
provide a poem’s overall structure.
 Read
the following excerpt from Lord Alfred
Douglas’s “In Winter.” How many lines does it
have? How many stanzas are shown?
Oh! for a day of burning noon
And a sun like a glowing ember,
Oh! for one hour of golden June,
In the heart of this chill November.
Poems are meant to be read aloud. Poets think
carefully about the sounds of the words they
choose and how the words work together to
create rhythm, rhyme, and meaning.
 Rhythm is the pattern of stressed and unstressed
syllables in a line.
 Rhythm creates the “beat,” or meter of a poem.
 To hear a stressed and an unstressed syllable,
say the word poem aloud. You can hear that the
first syllable is stressed, or said more strongly,
and the second syllable is unstressed: PO-em.

 Read
aloud Edward Lear’s “There Was a
Young Lady Whose Chin.” Can you hear
rhythm? Read it again, using your finger to
tap along to the rhythm. You tend to tap on
the stressed, or stronger, syllables.
There was a Young Lady whose chin
Resembled the point of a pin;
So she had it made sharp,
And purchased a harp,
And played several tunes with her chin.
 Rhyme
describes words with the same
ending sound. Many poems have lines that
end with words that rhyme.
 Poems that rhyme may have rhyme scheme
in which the last words of certain lines
follow a clear pattern.
 A rhyme scheme is shown by a sequence of
letters, such as aabb.
 For example, the letters aabb stand for a
four-line stanze in which line 1 and line 2
rhyme (a) and line 3 and line 4 rhyme (b).
 Reread
“There Was a Young Lady Whose
Chin.” Underline the words that rhyme.
Write the letter a or b at the end of each line
to show the poem’s rhyme scheme.
There was a Young Lady whose chin
Resembled the point of a pin;
So she had it made sharp,
And purchased a harp,
And played several tunes with her chin.
 Repetition
is the repeating of words or lines
in poetry. Poets often use repetition to help
unify a poem or to emphasize the meaning or
theme.

Read this excerpt from Walt Whitman’s poem
“Song of Myself.” Circle the words that are
repeated.
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to
you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of
summer grass.
Alliteration is the repetition of a consonant
sound.
 Reread the excerpt from “Song of Myself” above.
Circle the initial consonants whose sounds are
repeated.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to
you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of
summer grass.
 Poets
choose words to create pictures in the
reader’s mind. They use both literal language
and figurative language.
 Literal language is language that means
exactly what the words say.
 Figurative language does not always mean
what the words say. It has a deeper meaning.
 Four kinds of figurative language are:




Similes
Metaphors
Allusions
Personification
A
simile is a comparison that use the words
like or as.
 Read the simile. What two things are being
compared? Circle them.
Kris got caught in the rain
and looked like a wet rat.
A
metaphor is a comparison that does not
use the words like or as. It says that one
thing is another.
 Read the metaphor. What two things are
being compared? Circle them.
I can always depend on
Patel. He is a rock.
 An
allusion is a reference to a person, place,
event, or work of literature, such as a myth.
 Knowing what an allusion refers to can help
you understand its meaning.
 Often, some words in an allusion are
capitalized. This can help you spot the
allusion. Then, you can use context clues or
look it up to find its meaning.
 What is the allusion in this sentence? What
does it mean?

People said that the millionaire had the Midas
touch because every business
 Personification
is the giving of human
qualities to nonhuman things.
 What human quality is the wind given in this
sentence?
The wind whistled through
the trees.
 In
poetry, point of view refers to the speaker
of the poem.
 The speaker is the voice of the poem and
acts like a narrator does in a story.
 The point of view in the poem may reflect
the poet’s thoughts and feelings or those of
another person or character.
 Often,
the speaker in a poem reflects on a
topic, revealing the poem’s theme.
 The theme is the message the poet wants to
share with the reader.
 A theme may be about human nature or
society.
 Read
the excerpt from Emily Dickinson’s
poem “Hope Is the Thing with Feathers.”
Which lines reveal its theme?
“Hope” is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.
Kind of Poem
Definition
Lyric poem
A short poem that is like a song and usually deals with
the speaker’s thoughts or feelings
Epic poem
A long poem that tells about the adventures of a hero or
historic event, such as a great military victory
Narrative poem
A poem that tells a story
Limerick
A humorous five-line poem that rhymes
Free verse
A poem that does not follow any fixed rules of rhythm or
rhyme or traditional structure
Haiku
A very short poem with three lines and just seventeen
syllables; Haiku do not rhyme and are usually about
nature
Ode
A poem that includes two or more stanzaas with similar
structures; each line must rhyme with another line in
the same stanza; usually a serious poem about a
meaningful topic
 Many
words in English come from Greek or
Latin. These word parts are called root
words.
 Knowing the meanings of Greek and Latin
roots can help you figure out the meanings of
some words in English.

Look at these examples.
Autograph = auto + graph
Auto = self
Graph = write
Autograph: a person’s handwritten signature
Thermometer = thermo + meter
Thermo = heat
Meter = to measure
Thermometer: a tool used to measure heat
 What
other words can you think of with the
roots auto and meter? How can you use what
you know about roots to understand the
meanings of those words?
 Now,
let’s read the poem “Escape at
Bedtime” by Robert Louis Stevenson.
1.
A.
B.
C.
D.
The poem mentions the Dog, the Hunter, and Mars
in the night sky. These names relate to characters
in Greek and Roman myths.
Based on this information, what is the best
conclusion you can draw?
The Dog, the Hunter, and Mars are constellations.
The Greeks and Romans saw the same objects in
the sky.
Many planets and constellations got their names
from characters in myths.
The words dog, hunter, and Mars are from the
Greek and Roman languages.
Hint: Recognizing references to myths and mythological
characters can help you better understand the
meaning of the poem.
2. Read this line from the poem.
They saw me at last, and they chased me
with cries,
Explain what this line reveals about the
speaker of the poem.
Hint: Notice the pronouns the speaker uses.
Does it seem like he is an outsider describing
events that happen to someone else?
3. Which of the following is true about the first
stanza? Choose all that apply.
A. Lines 1 and 3 rhyme. Lines 2 and 4 rhyme.
B. All the lines have the same number of
stressed syllables.
C. The first stanza has 8 lines.
D. Lines 1 and 2 rhyme. Lines 3 and 4 rhyme.
E. Lines 2, 4, and 6 have the same number of
stressed syllables.
F. The first stanza has 5 lines.
4. Read the lines from the poem and the question
that follows.
As the crowds of the stars that looked down
upon me,
And that glittered and winked in the dark.
What kind of figurative language is this.
A. Allusion
B. Metaphor
C. Personification
D. Simile
Explain what the poet means by this description.