1. Same Song by Pat Mora Introducing the Poem
Feature Menu
Introducing the Poem
Literary Focus: Imagery and Allusion
Reading Focus: Visualizing
Writing Focus: Think as a Reader/Writer

2. How do images convey emotion and mood?
Same Song by Pat Mora
How do images convey emotion and mood?

3. Same Song Introducing the Poem
Click on the title to start the video.

4. Same Song Introducing the Poem
In this poem, the speaker observes the changing routines of her teenage children. Her young daughter now practices with makeup, and her son works to build muscles. Both dislike the results.
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5. Same Song Literary Focus: Imagery and Allusion
Imagery is language that appeals to the five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.
a path through velvet cloaks of moss
children’s chirping laughter
cast into the sparkling ruby waters

6. Same Song Literary Focus: Imagery and Allusion
An image helps you use your imagination to re-create a person, a scene, or an object.
When you hear the words red wheelbarrow, for example, you form a picture in your mind.
This is probably not quite the picture you see.
Instead, your mental picture is probably in color.

7. Same Song Literary Focus: Imagery and Allusion
In “Same Song,” the speaker alludes—or makes an indirect reference—to a classic fairy tale.
Mirror, mirror on the wall . . .
Do you recognize the allusion?
What image does it form in your mind?
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8. Same Song Literary Focus: Imagery and Allusion
Allusions may refer to literature, history, myth, religion, politics, sports, science, or the arts.

9. Same Song Reading Focus: Visualizing
Poetry often contains images with startling details.
ice cubes plunging to the bottom of a glass
sunlight through a yellow balloon
a face cracked with time

10. Same Song Reading Focus: Visualizing
Your ability to visualize—to see in your mind—what you are reading makes your reading more compelling.
As you read a poem, take the time to
visualize the images
experience the smells, sounds, tastes, and textures

11. Same Song Reading Focus: Visualizing
Into Action
As you read, use a chart like the one below to keep track of the images in “Same Song.” Note both the images and the sense or senses to which they appeal.
Image
Sense
“jogs a mile in the cold dark”
touch, sight
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12. Same Song Writing Focus: Think as a Reader/Writer
Find It in Your Reading
As you read, note the many active verbs Mora uses to describe the young people’s actions.
stumbles
peers
frowns
Consider what each teenager is trying to accomplish.
Can you visualize their actions?

13. The End

14. QuickWrite

15. Same Song QuickWrite
Pick an object in the classroom. Then, write a description of the object without naming it. Use words and phrases that create a visual image of the object.
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16. Build Background

17. Same Song Build Background
Pat Mora wrote about her own daughter and son in “Same Song.” She says she enjoys writing about family members, “like my aunt who danced on her ninetieth birthday, and my mother who wanted to be a rainbow tulip when she was in grade school.”
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18. Meet the Writer

19. Same Song Meet the Writer
Pat Mora was born in 1942 in El Paso, Texas, where her grandparents settled to escape the Mexican Revolution. Mora considers herself lucky to be bilingual and celebrates her Mexican heritage in her works.
After receiving her master’s degree from the University of Texas in El Paso, Mora taught in public schools and in college.
More about the writer
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