Theme: Nature

Poetry-Theme & Level of Meaning p224-231

Levels of Meaning: Many works of literature contain different levels of meaning.

Beyond literal meaning--what the words actually say--the work may have deeper meanings. “Four Skinny Trees,” for example, is literally about four trees that grow outside a young woman’s home. To the author, they represent her personal growth. To readers, they may represent all young people and their struggle to make a place for themselves. As you read, consider the levels of meaning in each work.

Figurative Language: Figurative language is language that is not meant to be read literally. To interpret figurative language, identify the items being compared. Then, think about the deeper truth or meaning that the comparison suggests.

Analogy-identifying a shared quality between two ideas or situations that are otherwise unlike each other.

Simile-comparing one thing to another using like or as

Metaphor-describing one thing as if it were another.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost,edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost. Reprinted with the permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Source: Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays (Library of America, 1995)

Questions:

1. Respond: In what is the setting of this poem like and unlike the place you live?

3. (a)Recall: Describe the setting--both time and place--of “Stopping by Woods...” (b)Infer: What about the place captures his attention?

⇰What dos Fost mean when he uses the metaphor “and miles to go before I sleep”?

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

226. Miracles

1. Respond: Name something in your environment that is a miracle to you.

3. (a) Recall: List five of the physical settings, or places, mentioned in the poem.(b) Infer: In what way is the sea a “continual miracle”? (c) Draw Conclusions: Do you think the speaker is a contented person? Explain.

Four Skinny Trees

Sandra Cisneros

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things. Their strength is their secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep. Let one forget his reason for being, they’d all droop like tulips in a glass, each with their arms around the other. Keep, keep, keep, trees say when I sleep. They teach. When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is I look at trees. When there is nothing left to look at on this street. Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be. (Cisneros, S. (1984). “Four Skinny Trees.”

1. Repond: Do you feel the same way about trees? Explain.

3. (a) Generalize: According to “Four Skinny Trees, “ what lessons can the trees teach? (b) Make A Judgement: Who can learn those lessons?

⇰Identify and explain the meaning of a simile in “Four Skinny Trees.”