Title – Examine the title

Paraphrase – Translate the poem into your own words.

Connotation –

                Figurative Language

                                Simile

                                Symbol

                                Personification

                                Hyperbole, oxymoron

                                Irony – verbal

                                Apostrophe

                                Metaphor

Musical Devices

                Onomatopoeia

                Alliteration

                Assonance

                Consonance

                Refrain

                Euphony, cacophony

Rhythm and Meter

                End-stopped line, run-on line

Imagery

Patterns

                Stanza

                Haiku

                Epic

                Lines up to 5 lines

                                2 – couplet

                                3 – tercet

                                4 – quatrain

                                5 – cinquain

Attitude – (tone)  Examine both the speaker’s and the poet’s attitudes

Shifts – Shifts can be signaled by the following:

                Key words (but, yet, however, although)

                Punctuation (dashed,  periods, colons, ellipsis)

                Stanza divisions

                Changes in line or stanza length, or both

Title – Exam the title again, this time on an interpretive level.

Theme – First list what the poem is about (subjects), then determine what the poet is saying about each of those subjects (theme).  The theme must be expressed as a complete sentence.