1. A College Board Strategy brought to you by Mrs. H TP-CASTT Method for Poetry Analysis

2. TITLE Before you do anything – speculate on the title at a LITERAL level. How might you describe the title in a literal and concrete way? Make predictions. What might the poem be about?

3. PARAPHRASE Before you analyze, DON’T OVERLOOK THE LITERAL. STAY LITERAL. You must understand what happens in the poem first. Traditional paraphrasing is a line by line “into your own words” approach. It is different from summary. It is more difficult, but it is more useful.

4. CONNOTATION SO MANY FEELINGS! For this strategy, connotation is EMOTIONAL OVERTONES & HOW IT’S ACCOMPLISHED… Label poetic devices, focusing on how devices contribute to the meaning and the effect. You should consider: imagery, figures of speech (simile, metaphor, personification, symbolism, etc), diction, point of view, and sound devices (alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhythm, and rhyme). Whatever you identify should be seen as support for the conclusions your draw about the meaning of the poem.

5. ATTITUDE Explore the multiple attitudes that may be present in the poem. Diction, images, and details suggest the speaker's attitude and contributes to understanding. It’s ok to refer to the handout. Multiple will likely fit…

6. SHIFTS Rarely does a poem begin and end the poetic experience in the same place. As is true of most us, the poet's understanding of an experience is a gradual realization, and the poem is a reflection of that understanding or insight. • Watch for the following keys to shifts: key words, (but, yet, however, although)• punctuation (dashes, periods, colons, ellipsis)• stanza divisions• changes in line or stanza length or both• irony• changes in sound that may indicate changes in meaning• changes in diction.

7. TITLE Now look at the title again, but this time on an INTERPRETIVE level. What new insight does the title provide in understanding the poem? How does it contribute to meaning?

8. THEME BIG IDEAS, PEOPLE What is the poem saying about the human experience or human condition? What subject/s does the poem address? What do you learn about those subjects? What idea does the poet want you to consider?