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Literary Fusions

Literary Fusions

Integrating literacy in K-12 classrooms.

Poetry and the Four C’s: Critical Thinking

April 2, 2017 By Jessica

poetry month critical thinking

In honor of April being National Poetry Month, we are excited to bring you a series of blog posts on the 4Cs in poetry. Today’s post will focus on critical thinking. (P.S. This is what we do! We love helping teachers find ways to incorporate innovative teaching strategies into their already existing content! Contact us if you’re interested in a full or half day professional development. )

(Looking for the other 3 Cs?  Communication  and Collaboration , Creativity  – check them out!)

Critical Thinking in Poetry

When students are given a poem, we want them to think critically about the obvious message as well as the implied message. Thinking critically about a poem includes evaluating, analyzing, and interpreting the message, and students must spend plenty of time with the text applying these skills so they are able to explain their interpretations with text evidence. This will not happen overnight or with one lesson!  Take your time and scaffold lessons to help students be critical readers of poetry!

The high level of thinking we want from our students will come when they have ample time to practice asking questions about what they are reading, as well as make inferences, and have open discussions about what they are reading. The poem will need to be read many times and there are tools to help!  Here are a few:

critical thinking questions for poetry

  • Poetry Out Loud .  Another great site where students can listen to poetry being recited.  A huge difference here is that students are reading the poems instead of the author.  There is a lot of power in students seeing other “regular” kids reading poems with enthusiasm.  Not to mention, this is an interactive site if the students (and you) would like.  Your own students could enter contests and competitions.  The first section allows you to listen (just audio) or watch videos of the poem being recited.  You can also find poems and you are given tips on reciting poems.  While on this site, don’t miss the teacher section ! It has strong lesson plans to help you teach poetry.

critical thinking questions for poetry

  • Poetry in Commercials.  I always believe we should start with where the students are in their learning.  Students are exposed to poetry through music and other media, but sometimes don’t realize it.  Commercials the kids perk up to usually have a beat or a poem attached.  Use those clips to have students think critically about the poem, why the poem was chosen, and how it is helping to sell the product!  And now, we are teaching Media Literacy as well!  Here are some videos you might like to share: iPad Air , Nike (wings) , Levi’s , Sprite , and Nike (soccer) .
  • For a great list of questions to help you prompt students’ critical thought, check out this site .

Happy Thinking!

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Content © 2024 Jessica Rogers and Sherry McElhannon of Literary Fusions and literaryfusions.com. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s authors and owners is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Literary Fusions and literaryfusions.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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January 24, 2018 at 1:46 pm

This great for our 6th grade G/T students.

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January 25, 2018 at 7:42 am

Excellent! Please let us know how it goes.

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October 27, 2021 at 9:33 pm

Thank you for the information. I am looking for more research about classic poetry and critical thinking.

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1. What does it feel like to read a Dickinson poem? What is your sense of her musicality, sound, rhythm, and use of space? Do you read these poems quickly or slowly? What do you think about the capitals or punctuation?

2. In "They shut me up in Prose," Emily Dickinson writes that being inside prose is "As when a little Girl / They put me in the Closet –/ Because they liked me 'still' –" How does the musicality and rhythm of this poem contribute to her idea of movement? Is there a place for being still in Dickinson's poems?

3. In two of her poems about grief, Dickinson hints at the possibility of a greater truth coming from sadness. In " There's a certain slant of light " (258), she writes that the "Heavenly Hurt" gives us "internal difference / where the meanings are." In " I felt a Funeral, in my Brain " (280), she writes that it seems "That Sense was breaking through –" Read these two poems together. What kinds of "sense" or "meaning" might she be suggesting?

4. " I’m nobody – who are you? " (288) is an invitation to loneliness. How does this poem or " I taste a liquor never brewed " (214) invite the reader into the a kind of shared strangeness? Do you feel separated or connected by the language?

5. "What Soft Cherubic Creatures" (401) is full of contractions, such as "refined horror" and "common glory" as Dickinson describes the gentlewomen of her day. How do these contractions affect your understanding of these women?

6. In "I dwell in possibility" (657), Dickinson sets up "possibility" as the opposite of "prose." How does her poetry represent this idea of possibility? Using Dickinson’s metaphor of the house, what does she suggest when she says that poetry is "more numerous of windows, superior – for doors"?

7. In " The Soul Unto Itself " (683), Dickinson imagines that her soul is separate from herself. How can a soul be a "friend" or "spy"? How might a soul be "secure against its own"?

8. In " I heard a Fly Buzz " (465), Dickinson imagines the moment of her own death. What role does the fly play in this imagining? She writes "There interposed a Fly –/ With Blue – uncertain stumbling Buzz –/ Between the light – and me." What is her relationship to the fly?

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Poetry: The Ultimate Exercise in Critical Thinking

Updated: Apr 11, 2023

#CriticalThinking #WritingTutoring

critical thinking questions for poetry

Poetry is a creative format that is meant to convey emotions through the use of various literary devices, such as metaphors, alliterations, rhyming, connotations, and imagery. When listening or reading poetry, the goal of the poet is to evoke a specific emotional and/or sensory experience.

But why is something so ambiguous taught in schools?

The purpose of studying poetry is not to transform children into poets, but rather to give students the opportunity to explore the complexities and variations available in language outside of the strict formal structures they are used to.

This opportunity is elaborated in four ways:

Analyzing Text: With its dense meaning and symbolism, a careful analyzing of a poem's text, structure, themes, and use of language allows students to develop their critical thinking abilities by placing them in an inquisitive mindset.

Making Connections: Poetry derives inspiration from culture, history, emotions, and nature. As a result, the use of abstract vocabulary pushes students to attempt to make other connections, whether they be worldly or personal, to build their inference-based skills.

Perspective-Taking: Since poetry is often thought-provoking and emotional, they are a great way to understand different perspectives and grow empathy, two things crucial to developing strong critical thinking skills.

Creative Thinking: As poetry not only is an exercise in emotional understanding, but it is also an exercise in creativity. Poetry requires a mind that can envision and paint words in order to create connections and deeper thinking.

So, for students that feel lost reading a poem, how can we help them exercise the aforementioned abilities?

Poetry can be overwhelming to a mind that has yet to fully develop and comprehend the complex emotions and perspectives that are often told through this form. Many learners fail to understand this and attempt to learn poetry in a very mechanical manner, when this literary form is so abstract, and no straightforward method can be used effectively for any child.

So what is an easy way to teach poetry, that is also open to adaptability? After you read through the poem, identify whether there are any words the child doesn't understand. Since poetry often uses more complex vocabulary, this will likely be something you come across frequently while reading.

Next, have the student pick out a sentence or stanza in the poem that stands out, or is memorable, or they just happen to like. The goal here is to get them to find some of their own footing first and then have you guide them along the way. This was you are also encouraging them to be more inquisitive with their learning. If they are struggling to find a line, then pick out one that you feel is minimalist and can be interpreted in both simple and complex ways.

With the line chosen, you can now probe deeper as to what the poet is saying, either in a literal sense or figurative sense. The great thing about poetry is while the writer may have a specific theme or idea in their writing, the poem itself can still be ambiguously interpreted. The ideal response is just to have the student make some sort of connection to the poetry that they can explain and make sense of. It does not matter how minimal or far-fetched it is as the idea is just for them to explain their thinking effectively. This then gets the ball rolling as now you can have them identify their perspective and now attempt to tie it into another line of the poem that may sound similar to the first one they had chosen. From here they can begin to visualize the poem as they connect the words and ideas that they have identified from the start.

The other day, one of our teachers was working with a high school student who was having trouble understanding what a poem about loneliness was trying to say, by using examples from nature. She ended up using the exact methods described earlier and as a result, by the end of the hour, the student was able to understand the poem in its entirety as well as be able to connect the whole work together. Poetry is abstract and therefore the way we approach it must also be in some ways abstract as well. When students are first taught how to analyze texts, it's always in a very linear form, meaning they start at the very beginning and analyze in order. The study of poetry breaks this habit and forces you to start at an obscure point and then branch out to connect all the ideas together.

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How To Analyze A Poem (Examples, Worksheet Questions and Tips)

In order to learn how to analyze a poem, you have to understand what poetry is. Poetry is a literary form used to express feelings and ideas. Poetry analysis involves examining the independent elements of a poem to understand those feelings and ideas.

There is no one right way to analyze a poem. However, some of the possible ways will be explored in this article.

We’ll break down the main aspects of poetry analysis and poetic elements to help you form and focus your own analyses. This guide can also serve as a poetry analysis worksheet as there are questions to guide you.

Below are the poetic elements, tips, and examples you need to guide you in your quest to analyze any poem.

Understand and Dissect The Theme of The Poem

The theme of a poem is its central topic, subject, or message. Examining the theme of a poem is a great method of analysis; the easiest way to break anything down is by understanding what it’s about. 

To understand how to analyze that poem, start by studying the poem for its main idea. It could be about love, loss, patriotism, nature, etc. 

As an example, let’s look at “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost.

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Learn To Find The Theme Of The Poem

To find the theme of the poem, we have to break it down to find what it is about. Let’s break down Frost’s poem to find the theme.

An analysis of Robert Frost's poetry about nature and flowers a poem example

Frost begins this poem by talking about nature and flowers, and how they don’t last very long. He says the same about dawn; at first, the sky is golden but then it rapidly fades as the sun rises higher. This loss is compared to the fall from Eden, and then Frost concludes with “Nothing gold can stay.”

The recurring message here is that nothing golden and beautiful lasts. We can then develop this idea into the main theme of the poem, which is transience; the most beautiful things tend to have the shortest longevity. After finding the theme, an analysis can be made about how Frost delivers the theme. 

You can also explore the literary devices he uses in order to do so, who the intended audience is, etc.

Poems can also have multiple themes. And a poetry analysis can be built on their relationship with one another. Moreover, you can write or generate a poem that delivers a message or moral which can also be a point of examination.

Poetry analysis questions to ask about the theme:

  • What is the theme of the poem?
  • Are there multiple themes? How do they relate to each other?
  • Is the poem trying to deliver a message or moral?
  • What audience is the message for?
  • What techniques does the poet use to deliver the themes in the most effective way possible?

Pay Attention To The Context Of The Poem

Poetry analysis questions graffiti.

The context of a poem forms the foundation of its comprehension. A poet’s background can be crucial to your ability to understand their poetry. A poet’s life and experiences can affect the interpretation or provide extra information. Examining such context is another solid method of poetry analysis.

Details about a poet’s life can suggest a specific point of view. For example, some of Grace Nichols poetry, such as “Island Man,” is more meaningful if the reader knows that Nichols is a Guyanese poet who moved to London when she was 27. And a lot of Nichols’s poetry is inspired by her homesickness. 

The culture of the place and time a poem was written in also has an effect on the interpretation. For instance, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel L. Coleridge has strong themes of nature and religion. The reason for this is because it was written during the Industrial Revolution when people were entranced by science and technology. Coleridge wanted to draw their attention back to what they were overlooking. 

The effect of the culture of place is observable in Dareen Tatour’s poem “قوم يا شاب قومهم” (“Resist, My People, Resist Them”) which she wrote as a Palestenian in protest against the Israeli government. Her poem made a defiant statement, and she was arrested for it. 

In some cases, poetry is influenced by the era or movement it was written in, like how Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” was written during the Beat Generation movement.

Researching About The Poet Can Help You To Analyze A Poem

A little extra research about a poet and their life can go a long way in improving your understanding of their poetry.  Take some time to read up on the context.  You’ll be better equipped to write a thorough analysis of the poem.

Poetry analysis questions to ask about context:

  • Do details about the poet’s life suggest a specific point of view ?
  • Does the culture of that era (I,e. time, and/or place) have any effect on the interpretation of the poem?
  • Does the poem belong to a movement ? How might this affect its interpretation?

Focusing On Mood and Tone Is A Solid Way To Analyze A Poem

Mood and tone are similar, but the distinction between the two is important. Mood refers to the feeling the audience gets from the writing. 

The mood and tone of a poem about rainy days (tips and examples)

For instance, a mood shift can be observed in Billy Collin’s poem “Introduction to Poetry.”

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

In the first four stanzas, the mood of this poem is of wonder and exploration. It’s light and invokes the marvel of learning new things.

However, in the later stanzas, the mood becomes darker and sinister. The mood shift and how and why Collins creates it is a strong point of analysis.

Remember, Tone Differs From Mood

Tone, as mentioned earlier, is a little different than mood. Tone refers to the attitude the writer has towards the subject they are writing about. 

For example, the tone of a poem could be satirical, serious, humorous, critical, or appreciative. The tone in “Another Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries” by Hugh MacDiarmid is quite easy to detect.

It is a God-damned lie to say that these

Saved, or knew, anything worth any man’s pride.

They were professional murderers and they took

Their blood money and their impious risks and died.

In spite of all their kind some elements of worth

With difficulty persist here and there on earth.

As previously mentioned, the tone is how the writer feels about the subject of their poem. The subject here is mercenary soldiers. It’s pretty clear that MacDiarmid doesn’t care very much for them.

The tone of the poem is undeniably contemptuous and angry. Taking note of this tone creates an opportunity for analysis on how MacDiarmid conveys the tone and why he feels so strongly about mercenary soldiers.

Poetry analysis questions to ask about mood and tone:

  • What is the mood of the poem?
  • Does the mood change over the course of the poem? Why did the poet create said change?
  • What strategies does the poet use to convey the mood?
  • What is the tone of the poem? Does the poet agree, disagree, admire, ridicule, or condemn the subject of the poem? What is the reason?
  • How does word choice affect the tone of the poem?
  • What strategies does the poet use to convey the tone?

Explore The Literary Devices Used In The Poem

Literary devices in poetry analyses

Literary devices are techniques writers use to produce special effects in their writing.  It is especially helpful when you’re still grappling with learning ways to analyze a poem.

As can be sensed from the definition, it’s a pretty broad category. As such, an analysis of a poem based on literary devices can go in many directions. A few of them have been highlighted below.

Repetition is a literary device frequently found in poetry, as can be demonstrated by Merrill Glass’s “But You Didn’t.”

Remember the time you lent me your car and I dented it?

I thought you’d kill me…

But you didn’t.

Remember the time I forgot to tell you the dance was

formal, and you came in jeans?

I thought you’d hate me…

Remember the times I’d flirt with

other boys just to make you jealous, and

I thought you’d drop me…

There were plenty of things you did to put up with me,

to keep me happy, to love me, and there are

so many things I wanted to tell

you when you returned from

To learn how to analyze repetition in a poem, first, find the repeating phrases. Secondly, assess their function and contribution to the poem. 

The repeating phrases in this poem are “Remember the time” and “But you didn’t.” Their functions are reinforcing the mood of the poem and the building structure.

 The repetition of “Remember the time” produces a nostalgic mood. The repetition of both phrases creates a framework for the poem. 

Therefore, when the mood drastically changes in the last stanza, the continued repetition of “But you didn’t” still keeps the poem within its structure; it doesn’t feel like it came out of nowhere. It is important to consider this when figuring out how to analyze a poem.

Next in literary devices, let’s discuss the imagery and sensory language. Imagery is an author’s use of descriptive language to build visuals. Meanwhile, sensory language is words and phrases that create vividity in writing. This vividness is created by appealing to the senses. 

Both are employed by writers to add depth to their work. The use and effect of these two devices can be observed in this excerpt from “The Young Sun’s Greeting” by Léopold Sédar Senghor.

The young sun’s greeting

On my bed, your letter’s glow

All the sounds that burst from morning

Blackbirds’ brassy calls, jingle of gonoleks

Your smile on the grass, on the radiant dew.

This stanza is rich with sensory language. The description of sunlight on the bed, the sounds of birds in the morning and dew on the grass creates a strong image of a serene morning. 

The resulting effect is a vivid and entrancing poem. This effect can be analyzed in terms of how it’s achieved, the impact it creates, and how it supports the theme of the poem.

There are many other literary devices that are frequently found in poetry including metaphors, personification, flashbacks, symbolism, diction, and more. These can all be analyzed in a similar manner as highlighted above. 

Poetry analysis questions to ask about literary devices:

  • What are the most prominent literary devices used in the poem? How can it help you to analyze the poem?
  • What function do the devices have in the poem? Do they build the structure? 
  • Do literary devices contribute to the mood? Do they support the theme?
  • How does the poet’s use of literary devices make for a better and more meaningful poem?

Analyze The Language and Structure

Language and structure in poetry analysis

Poetry allows for eccentric language and structure use in a way that no other literary form does. This makes for engaging reads and great points of analysis. 

As an example, here is an excerpt of “Half-caste” by John Agard

Explain yuself

When yu say half-caste

Yu mean when light an shadow

Mix in de sky

Is a half-caste weather??

Well in dat case

England weather

Nearly always half-caste

In fact some o dem cloud

Half-caste till dem overcast

So spiteful dem dont want de sun pass

Wha yu mean

When yu say half-caste?

Yu mean tchaikovsky

Sit down at dah piano

An mix a black key

Wid a white key

Is a half-caste symphony?

This is a great piece about the absurdity of racism, but let’s focus on the language. Agard writes in his Caribbean dialect. By doing so, he is legitimizing his way of speech and asserting himself and his mixed race identity. It’s a strong statement and connects well with the message of the poem.

Pay Attention To Creative Use Of Grammar

In terms of grammar and punctuation, what better example is there than Emily Dickinson’s poetry? She’s well known for her odd capitalization and punctuation.

Example of An analysis of Emily Dickinson’s I Dwell In Possibility

Here’s poem #466 “I dwell in Possibility.”   In this poem, Dickinson writes about the limitless power of poetry and its superiority over prose.

I dwell in Possibility –

A fairer House than Prose –

More numerous of Windows –

Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –

Impregnable of eye –

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –

For Occupation – This –

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise –

Dickinson’s grammar can seem daunting, but it’s just a matter of breaking it down. Beginning with the capitalization, these are all the words (excluding the words at the beginning of each line) that she capitalizes: 

Possibility, House, Prose, Windows, Doors, Chambers, Cedars, Roof, Gambrels, Sky, Visitors, Occupation, This, Hands, Paradise

The most recurring image produced by these words is of a house, which is the main metaphor of the poem. Dickinson compares poetry to a fair house that has many windows, an endless roof, and other appealing characteristics. 

So, it can already be reasoned that Dickinson’s capitalization is in order to emphasize the main focus of her poetry. This analysis can be furthered by examining the capitalized words that don’t fit in with the rest, such as “Paradise.”

Paradis a poem

A possible reason that “Paradise” is stressed could be the religious context; Dickinson could’ve been trying to portray just how divine poetry is by giving it a more powerful connotation. 

The other notable grammatical element in Dickinson’s poem is the abundance of em dashes. Almost every line ends in an em dash, and several have em dashes in the middle of them. 

Dickinson’s use of em dashes in the middle of her lines is usually to highlight words of significance. For instance, “for Doors” is enclosed in em dashes in the first stanza. To find out why, let’s consider the rest of the stanza. 

Dickinson is talking about the superiority of the “Possibility” a.k.a poetry house over the prose house. Poetry has more windows and it has doors. 

It’s important to notice that she says “More numerous of Windows,” because this means that the prose house also has windows, poetry just has more. In terms of doors, however, the prose house doesn’t seem to have any. So it’s just a house of windows.

Windows are nice, but you need doors to enter and exit. Therefore, “for Doors” could be stressed because Dickinson wanted to establish that prose isn’t as open as poetry.

Just as important as the use of em dashes,is the absence of them. Dickinson uses so many of her trademark dashes in this poem, so the two places where she doesn’t stand out: “And for an everlasting Roof” and “The spreading wide my narrow Hands.” 

Both of these lines describe something that’s expanding: the eternal roof and hands that are reaching out to paradise. Without the usual em-dashes, these lines visibly expand on the page which enhances their meaning.

Poetry often accommodates unusual structure and language that many poets utilize for emphasis, to make a statement or other similar reasons. All these can act as effective focal points of poetry analysis. 

Poetry analysis questions to ask about language and structure:

  • Does the poet make use of language or grammar in an unconventional manner? What effect does this have on the poem?
  • Do the language and diction complement the theme and mood of the poem?
  • How is the poem structured? How are the lines and stanzas arranged? Why might the poet have made that decision?
  • Do the language and structure correspond with the poem’s form? Why or why not?

Identify and Explore The Poetic Form

Identifying and exploring the poetic form is a great way to analyze a poem.

The poetic form determined by the poem’s rhythm and structure. The easiest way to detect the rhythm and structure of a poem is by listening to it.

Poetry is meant to be heard, so read it aloud or listen to a recording of the poem. This will allow for the detection of patterns in rhythm and rhyme schemes. Use that information to identify the poetic form. 

How to analyze a poem

A fourteen-line rhyming poem may be a sonnet. A poem with an AABBA scheme is a limerick. A long narrative poem could be an epic, and a poem that seems to be a tribute may be an ode. Maybe the poem doesn’t seem to follow any form, which would make it free verse. 

While it’s not necessary to know the exact poetic form — you don’t have to memorize all the forms and their distinctions — it can be helpful because certain forms have specific associations. 

For example, sonnets are usually about love. Limericks tend to be humorous, and epics are often adventurous and historical. An understanding of the form of the poem can then open up opportunities for analyses about whether the poem adheres to or challenges its conventions.

Poetry analysis questions to ask about the form of the poem:

  • Is the poem traditional or contemporary?
  • Does the poem follow a rhyme scheme or rhythm?
  • Does the poem follow a specific structure?
  • Can the poem be classified under a certain form?
  • Does it adhere to or challenge its respective form’s conventions? 
  • Does the poem break away from its form or structure at any point? Why might the poet have made the change?

Last Words On How To Analyze A Poem

Analyzing poetry can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. Simply break the poem down to its basic elements. Most of the major poetic elements have been outlined in this guide. Then, choose one or two to examine.

Also, make sure you’re asking the right questions. Create your own analysis worksheet or use the ones in this guide. 

The main idea of poetry analysis is to investigate and evaluate the way the poet makes an impression. Find what jumps out and talk about it in your essay, literary magazine , or audio podcast . Good luck!

Have you tried to analyze a poem? What challenges did you face? And how did you overcome these challenges? What poetic elements do you explore the most in your poetry analysis?

Please share your ideas and experiences in the comments below.

Interested in poetry contests? Check out the The 6th Singapore Poetry Contest 2020/How to Submit ($170)

The Origami Poems Project 2020/ How To Submit ($175)

Collins, Billy. “Introduction to Poetry.” The Apple that Astonished Paris. University of Arkansas Press, 1996.

Dickinson, Emily. “I dwell in Possibility.” The Poems of Emily Dickinson . Harvard University Press, 1999.

Frost, Robert. “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays. Ed. Richard Poirier and Mark Richardson. New York: Library of America, 1995. 

Glass, Merrill. “But You Didn’t.” Family Friend Poems, www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/but-you-didnt-by-merrill-glass .

Macdiarmid, Hugh. “ Another Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries.” The Complete Poems of Hugh MacDiarmid . Penguin Books, 1985.

Senghor, Léopold Sédar. “The Young Sun’s Greeting.” Leopold Sédar Senghor: the Collected Poetry . University Press of Virginia, 1998.

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Sep 16, 2021 at 7:17 pm

These analyses of poems really helped me a lot. I appreciate and fond of your work too.

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Sep 18, 2021 at 11:54 pm

I am glad it did. Thank you.

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You are here, unit 5: facilitating critical thinking through literature, introduction.

Literature is an effective tool for engaging students in critical thinking. By teaching children to analyse and evaluate literary texts appropriate to their age and interests, we can help them develop critical thinking skills. This involves seeing relationships between events, drawing inferences, analysing events, synthesising evidence and evaluating both the content of a text and the language used to the express ideas contained within it.

Unit outcomes

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

Terminology

Teacher support information.

The literature class gives a teacher the opportunity to engage students in discussions about the ideas expressed in literary texts. This exercise benefits students in two ways: firstly, it gives them an opportunity to express their own ideas about life and relationships, values and beliefs, and interests and dislikes; secondly, it forces them to use a more complex set of structures and a more “advanced” range of vocabulary. As a language teacher in a literature class, you can exploit this situation by engaging students in group and pair activities to read sections of texts and then give their opinions about characters in the text, for example, or the style of writing — whether it is interesting, humorous, tragic, and so on. This will let students practise expressing opinions, drawing inferences, explaining cause-and-effect relationships, comparing facts and applying ideas they have gleaned from literature to new situations. In addition, they will learn how to analyse texts based on logical reasoning and to synthesise and evaluate the information in the texts.

Activity 1: Using literature to develop critical thinking: Drawing inferences from a text

Activity 2: evaluating a literary text, activity 3: from critical to creative skills: participating in creative writing workshops, activity 4: collaborative creative writing: creating a big book, unit summary, reflections, resource 1: inferring information from a literary text: a sample text.

Inferential questions:

Why do you think Trudy’s mother was shouting at her?

Does Trudy understand her responsibilities?

Is Trudy a tidy person?

Look up the meaning of the word “curious” in your dictionary. Is Trudy a curious person?

Did Trudy’s grandfather finally get to spend his life with Betty?

Do you think it was normal for girls and boys to meet freely during Trudy’s grandfather’s time?

Resource 2a: Critically reflecting on and responding to literary texts: Asking evaluative questions

Resource 2b: how to write a journal entry (worksheet), teacher question and answer.

Understanding Poetry: 5 Questions to Ask

critical thinking questions for poetry

Many people are discouraged from enjoying poetry because they claim it’s too difficult. Trust me. I’ve had those moments when faced with an enigma of words on the page.

One way I hope to lessen the fear of reading poetry is to show you how to read it—especially for more complex poems. These five questions will help you crack the code of many poems you might come across.

What is the imagery in the poem?

Understanding poetry begins with visualizing the central images in the poem. What do you see, taste, smell, hear, and feel?

Then figure out what those images have in common. For instance, in Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son” the imagery centers around a broken down staircase and reflects personal brokenness and hardship.

What is the mood of the poem? (Or How does it make me feel?)

The imagery can help you determine whether the mood or feeling of the poem is positive or negative. In the poem above, the negative imagery conveys a negative, or somber mood. Yet the speaker shows her determination to overcome life’s hardships by saying things such as “For I’se still going honey” which in turn allows the poem to end on a more positive note rather than desperation.

Who is the speaker of the poem?

The speaker is the voice of the poem, and it’s not necessarily the poet. In Hughes’ poem , the speaker is a mother speaking to her son, while the poet is a man. You should identify the speaker by describing him or her as “someone who…” and fill in the blank. Does the person admire nature? Or does she have a message for someone? Maybe the speaker is complaining about something or questioning his life. In this poem, the speaker is a mother who is encouraging her son not to give up just because life is difficult.

What structural or stylistic techniques does the poet use?

Notice the punctuation, informal language and repetition in the poem.

Usually poets use structure and style to emphasize the message or reflect the meaning of the poem. In Hughes’ poem, the repeated line “And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” is a big key to the message he’s trying to convey. Also, the poem is written in dialect which makes it sound more like we’re overhearing part of a conversation. This makes it more personal.

What is the message of the poem?

All of the above questions point to the message the poet wants to convey. Consider the negative imagery that represents the hardships of life and the negative mood that contrasts with the speaker’s words of encouragement. Her words emphasize that she’s not given up and kept going despite the hardships. So we can guess the message the poet means to share is to persevere through hard times no matter what.

Now I know you’re probably thinking that was too easy. And yes, for teaching purposes I picked a simpler poem. However, if you get in the habit of looking for these things when reading any level of poetry, you will find it much more understandable and enjoyable.

Do you have a special technique you use to uncover the messages in the poetry you read? Tell me below.

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Interesting Literature

10 of the Best Poems about Thinking and Meditation

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Thinking and thought loom large in poetry, whether it’s the intellectual exercises of the metaphysical poets, the deep, personal introspection of the Romantics, or the modernists’ interest in subjectivity and interiority. Below, we introduce ten of the greatest introspective poems about thoughts, thinking, and meditation.

William Wordsworth, ‘ Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey ’.

Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur.—Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky…

This poem was not actually composed at Tintern Abbey, but, as the poem’s full title reveals, was written nearby, overlooking the ruins of the medieval priory in the Wye Valley in South Wales.

Well, actually, according to Wordsworth, he didn’t ‘write’ a word of the poem until he got to Bristol, where he wrote down the whole psoem, having composed it in his head shortly after leaving the Wye.

The poem is one of the great hymns to tranquillity, quiet contemplation, and self-examination in all of English literature, and a quintessential piece of Romantic poetry written in meditative blank verse. We’ve analysed this classic Wordsworth poem in detail here .

Walt Whitman, ‘ Thoughts ’.

In this poem, the American pioneer of free verse Walt Whitman (1819-92) offers a series of thoughts about various subjects, all supposedly coming to his mind as he sits there listening to music playing. The poem begins:

Of the visages of things—And of piercing through to the accepted hells beneath; Of ugliness—To me there is just as much in it as there is in beauty—And now the ugliness of human beings is acceptable to me; Of detected persons—To me, detected persons are not, in any respect, worse than undetected per- sons—and are not in any respect worse than I am myself; Of criminals—To me, any judge, or any juror, is equally criminal—and any reputable person is also—and the President is also …

Emily Dickinson, ‘ The Brain is Wider than the Sky ’.

The Brain — is wider than the Sky — For — put them side by side — The one the other will contain With ease — and You — beside —

The Brain is deeper than the sea — For — hold them — Blue to Blue — The one the other will absorb — As Sponges — Buckets — do …

A fine poem about the power of the human mind from one of America’s most distinctive poetic voices. The mind and all that it can take in – and imagine – is far greater than even the vast sky above us. This is the starting point of one of Emily Dickinson’s great meditations on the power of human imagination and comprehension.

Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘A Thought’.

This little four-line poem by the author of Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is short enough to be quoted in full here. Stevenson was an accomplished author of verse for young children, as this pithy poem demonstrates:

It is very nice to think The world is full of meat and drink, With little children saying grace In every Christian kind of place.

A. E. Housman, ‘ Think No More, Lad; Laugh, Be Jolly ’.

Taken from Housman’s 1896 collection A Shropshire Lad , this poem sees the speaker addressing the titular ‘lad’ from rural Shropshire, imparting the advice that thinking only leads to depression and to death. Best just to enjoy life and go with the flow:

Think no more, lad; laugh, be jolly: Why should men make haste to die? Empty heads and tongues a-talking Make the rough road easy walking, And the feather pate of folly Bears the falling sky …

Walter D. Wintle, ‘ Thinking ’.

Life’s battles don’t always go To the stronger or faster man; But sooner or later the person who wins Is the one who thinks he can!

Wintle is something of a mystery: we don’t even know his precise birth or death dates, other than that he was active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He is only known for this one poem, about ‘the man who thinks he can’, which espouses a ‘positive mental attitude’ to life. It’s become an influential motivational poem beloved of self-help gurus and businesspeople.

T. S. Eliot, ‘ Introspection ’.

Composed in 1915 but not published until 1996, more than thirty years after Eliot’s death, ‘Introspection’ treads a fine line between free verse and prose poetry, offering an anti-romantic image to convey the idea of soul-searching and meditation: the mind is ‘six feet deep’ in a cistern, with a brown snake devouring its own tail like Ouroboros from Greek myth.

The words of the poem curl round in a barely punctuated circular shape on the page, mimicking the form of the coiled snake …

Kathleen Raine, ‘ Introspection ’.

Perhaps, as Eliot’s poem suggests, introspection is not always a positive, affirmative process. Sometimes, our thoughts may take us to some dark realisations – such as here, in this poem from the twentieth-century poet Kathleen Raine, where thinking and introspection lead her to think about death.

Raine (1908-2003) wrote some beautifully intense poems inspired by William Blake and her own personal mythology, and ‘Introspection’ offers a nice way into her work.

William Stafford, ‘ Just Thinking ’.

Stafford (1914-93) was an American poet. ‘Just Thinking’ is a short poem about the simple act of contemplation – of a landscape, or a momentary scene from nature – and uses the metaphor of incarceration and being ‘on probation’ all one’s life to convey the way we live.

Nikki Giovanni, ‘ Introspection ’.

The American poet Yolande Cornelia ‘Nikki’ Giovanni Jr. was born in 1943, and rose to prominence in the late 1960s as part of the Black Arts Movement. ‘Introspection’ is one of her finest poems, about a woman who prefers to solve her depression and anxiety (she lives constantly ‘on the edge of an emotional abyss’) by doing something ‘concrete’ and practical rather than dealing in ‘abstracts’.

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Humanities LibreTexts

4.1: What is Poetry?

  • Last updated
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  • Page ID 101069

  • Heather Ringo & Athena Kashyap
  • City College of San Francisco via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative

Image from Pixabay

What is Poetry?

Poetry is a condensed form of writing. As an art, it can effectively invoke a range of emotions in the reader. It can be presented in a number of forms — ranging from traditional rhymed poems such as sonnets to contemporary free verse. Poetry has always been intrinsically tied to music and many poems work with rhythm. It often brings awareness of current issues such as the state of the environment, but can also be read just for the sheer pleasure.

A poet makes the invisible visible. The invisible includes our deepest feelings and angsts, and also our joys, sorrows, and unanswered questions of being human. How is a poet able to do this? A poet uses fresh and original language , and is more interested in how the arrangement of words affects the reader rather than solely grammatical construction. The poet thinks about how words sound , the musicality within each word and also how the words come together.

Like fiction writers, poets mostly show rather than tell . They describe the scene vividly using as few words as possible and prefer to describe rather than analyze, leaving the latter to the people who read and write about poetry as you are doing in this class.

The Purpose of Poetry

If you’ve taken a composition or freshman writing course, you might recognize some familiar terms used above — summarizes, sources, persuades, ethos. These are all words you will rarely, if ever, use in reference to writing poetry. And why is that? Well, what’s the purpose of poetry? Perhaps this is not an easy question to answer. In fact, the answer might depend on time and culture. Epics such as Gilgamesh aided in memorization and preserved stories meant to be passed down orally. The British Romantics valued the pleasure derived from hearing and reading poetry. In some cultures poetry is important in ritual and religious practice. In contemporary times, many describe poetry as being a tool for self-expression.

In the excellent glossary in his book How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry , poet Edward Hirsch provides the following definition for a poem:

Poem: A made thing, a verbal construct, an event in language. The word poesis means “making;” and the oldest term for the poet means “maker.” The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics points out that the medieval and Renaissance poets used the word makers , as in “courtly makers,” as a precise equivalent for poets. (Hence William Dunbar’s “Lament for the Makers.”) The word poem came into English in the sixteenth century and has been with us ever since to denote a form of fabrication, a verbal composition, a made thing.

William Carlos Williams defined the poem as “a small (or large) machine made of words.” (He added that there is nothing redundant about a machine.) Wallace Stevens characterized poetry as “a revelation of words by means of the words.” In his helpful essay “What is Poetry?” linguist Roman Jakobson declared:

“Poeticity is present when the word is felt as a word and not a mere representation of the object being named or an outburst of emotion, when words and their composition, their meaning, their external and internal form, acquire a weight and value of their own instead of referring indifferently to reality.”

Ben Johnson referred to the art of poetry as “the craft of making.” The old Irish word cerd, meaning “people of the craft,” was a designation for artisans, including poets. It is cognate with the Greek kerdos , meaning “craft, craftiness.” Two basic metaphors for the art of poetry in the classical world were carpentry and weaving. “Whatsoever else it may be,” W. H. Auden said, “a poem is a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly constructed as a table or a motorcycle.”

The true poem has been crafted into a living entity. It has magical potency, ineffable spirit. There is always something mysterious and inexplicable in a poem. It is an act—an action—beyond paraphrase because what is said is always inseparable from the way it is being said. A poem creates an experience in the reader that cannot be reduced to anything else. Perhaps it exists in order to create that aesthetic experience. Octavio Paz maintained that the poet and the reader are two moments of a single reality.

Of the many ideas provided here in this definition, perhaps the one to emphasize most is that the poem is “an event in language.” It is also one of the harder to understand concepts. “A poem creates an experience in the reader that cannot be reduced to anything else,” writes Hirsch. Especially not through paraphrase. This means that in order to “experience” a poem, a reader needs to read it as it is. The poem is itself a type of virtual reality.

Jeremy Arnold, a professor of philosophy at the University of Woolamaloo in Canada, likens the poem to the “pensieve” device in the Harry Potter series: “A poem allows someone to preserve a mental experience so that an outsider can access it as if it were their own.” When coming to poetry, there may be nothing more important to understand because nothing can shape your perspective more on how to write and for what purpose. Poetry requires a reader, an audience; therefore, the poet must learn how to best engage an audience. And this engagement doesn’t happen by sharing ideas, feelings, or experiences, by telling the reader about your experiences — it happens by creating them on the page with words that evoke the senses. With images . These, then, are how the literary genres speak. Images are their muscles. Their heart. Images are poetry’s body and soul.

Choose a poem from the Poetry Foundation’s featured poems and look again at Edward Hirsh’s definition of poem. How does this poem typify his explanation? Are there any ways in which it does not? Write a short response (300 words or less) explaining how you see your selected poem in relation to Hirsch’s definition.

Video: Billy Collins, A Poet, Speaks Out

Watch Billy Collins’ audio/visual poem:

Video 6.1.1 : Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins

After watching the video above, read the poem here , and click on the link below to listen to a lecture by Billy Collins on his craft and how it relates to the reader.

Contributors and Attributions

Adapted from Naming the Unnameable: An Approach to Poetry for New Generations by Michelle Bonczek Evory, sourced from SUNY, CC-BY-NC-SA

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COMMENTS

  1. Poetry and the Four C's: Critical Thinking

    Thinking critically about a poem includes evaluating, analyzing, and interpreting the message, and students must spend plenty of time with the text applying these skills so they are able to explain their interpretations with text evidence.

  2. 6.4: Case Study

    Writing and Critical Thinking Through Literature (Ringo and Kashyap) 6: About Poetry

  3. Strategically Crafted Reading Comprehension Questions for Enriching

    Elevate your students' literary skills with our strategically crafted reading comprehension questions for monthly poems - the perfect solution for engaging and educating young minds.

  4. The Four Steps to Making Poetry Discussions Accessible for Every

    2. Encourage students to focus on an emotional, gut reaction. Ask students how a piece of poetry made them feel. If you find your students are hesitant to be a bit more vulnerable and discuss their own emotions, consider rephrasing your question to focus on the mood of the piece. Once your students have articulated the mood and tone of a poem ...

  5. Emily Dickinson Discussion Questions

    1. What does it feel like to read a Dickinson poem? What is your sense of her musicality, sound, rhythm, and use of space? Do you read these poems quickly or slowly? What do you think about the capitals or punctuation? 2.

  6. How to Analyze Poetry: 10 Steps for Analyzing a Poem

    Written by MasterClass Last updated: Aug 16, 2021 • 5 min read From flowing words to rhythmic beats, poems have a lyrical quality that is pleasing to the ear. But to truly understand poetry, you must unpack it—examine each element on its own to discover what a poem means.

  7. 12.15: Writing About Poetry

    Fiction writers and poets build texts out of many central components, including subject, form, and specific word choices. Literary analysis involves examining these components, which allows us to find, in small parts of the text, clues to help us understand the whole. For example, if an author writes a novel in the form of a personal journal ...

  8. University of Massachusetts Boston ScholarWorks at UMass Boston

    to solve problems; or it can pose questions. Poetry can give significance to everyday experiences. The singing of a bird, a little boy's shadow, a simple garden hose ... the area of critical thinking, poetry can help learners to identify problems, formulate and test hypotheses, and ...

  9. 8.9: Analyzing Poetry

    Introduction to Literature and Critical Thinking 8: Writing About Literature 8.9: Analyzing Poetry ... you need a basic knowledge of the elements of poetry. The following guide and questions will help you. Read the poem in its entirety three times. Read it aloud once, so you can hear and feel the sounds of the words. Don't stop to try and ...

  10. Cultivating Critical Thinking in Literature Classroom Through Poetry

    Four female students were engaged in a number of tasks in which they gradually learned to think critically through reflecting on and evaluating the assigned poems. A checklist was generated and ...

  11. Critical Questions for Poetry Discussion

    What is the perspective or 'point of view' of the speaker? The perspective can be social, intellectual, political, even physical -- there are many different perspectives, but they all contribute to the voice's point of view, which point of view affects how the world of the poem is seen, and how we respond.

  12. Poetry: The Ultimate Exercise in Critical Thinking

    Analyzing Text: With its dense meaning and symbolism, a careful analyzing of a poem's text, structure, themes, and use of language allows students to develop their critical thinking abilities by placing them in an inquisitive mindset. Making Connections: Poetry derives inspiration from culture, history, emotions, and nature.

  13. How To Analyze A Poem (Examples, Worksheet Questions and Tips)

    Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. Learn To Find The Theme Of The Poem To find the theme of the poem, we have to break it down to find what it is about. Let's break down Frost's poem to find the theme. Photo by Johnny McClung on Unsplash

  14. Unit 5: Facilitating Critical Thinking through Literature

    Activity 1. The term critical thinking suggests the idea of not readily accepting any given viewpoint.In terms of school students reading a literary text, critical thinking would involve asking why or how questions about the text: why has the writer used this character as the hero?/why is the story narrated in the first person?/how does the climax resolve the conflict?

  15. The Impact of Poetry Annotations on the Critical Thinking Skills of

    poetry has the capability of teaching them how to think critically (Feito & Donahue, 2008; Morris, 2012). The significance of annotation as a strategy to analyze poetry is an untapped avenue. Poetry is the genre chosen for this study to use in conjunction with annotation because of its value in promoting critical thinking in a short text.

  16. Strategies for Teaching Poetry: The Ultimate Guide

    Try this: Ask your students to define poetry. Write your own definition. Tricky, isn't it? As soon as you think you've defined it, another kind of poem comes along that doesn't fit the definition. Start by having your students open a page in their notes entitle "What is Poetry?"

  17. DOC Chandler Unified School District / Home Page

    ÐÏ à¡± á> þÿ 9 ...

  18. 6.3: Reading Poetry

    Reading Poetry. Image from Pixabay. Muriel Rukeyser says in The Life of Poetry that in order to successfully read a poem, we must give a poem "a total response." This means giving it all of our attention, taking it in slowly, reading it several times. It means listening to the poem openly, without judgment, and without projecting our own assumed meanings onto it, but rather as Ruykeyser ...

  19. PDF National 5 English Critical Reading Critical Essay Questions Poetry

    1. Choose a poem which deals with the passing of time. By referring to appropriate techniques, describe how the poet helps you to appreciate the treatment of this theme. National 5 English - Critical Reading Critical Essay Questions - Poetry 2. Choose a poem which creates a strong emotional response.

  20. Understanding Poetry: 5 Questions to Ask

    Trust me. I've had those moments when faced with an enigma of words on the page. One way I hope to lessen the fear of reading poetry is to show you how to read it—especially for more complex poems. These five questions will help you crack the code of many poems you might come across. What is the imagery in the poem?

  21. 10 of the Best Poems about Thinking and Meditation

    Below, we introduce ten of the greatest introspective poems about thoughts, thinking, and meditation. William Wordsworth, ' Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey '. Five years have past; five summers, with the length. Of five long winters! and again I hear. These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs.

  22. 4.1: What is Poetry?

    Poem: A made thing, a verbal construct, an event in language. The word poesis means "making;" and the oldest term for the poet means "maker.". The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics points out that the medieval and Renaissance poets used the word makers, as in "courtly makers," as a precise equivalent for poets.

  23. Critical thinking Poems

    Dec '22 What Is Life Anyway? What is life anyway? Is it a place where you have to walk? Is it a line scribbled in some fancy chalk? Is it a dance where you feel free? Is it a ceremony of everything you can be? What is life anyway? Is it a question of clouds in your sky? Is it a preference to be curious and ask why?