Poetry Structure
Words at the top before the poem begins and often directly relates to the meaning of the poem.
What is a title?
When the ends of certain lines in the poem rhyme with each other.
What is the rhyme scheme?
She was as pretty as a picture.
What is a simile?
The Harlem Renaissance existed during a specific time period.
When are the 1920s?
My nephew is a cuddly baby bear.
What is a metaphor?
Sometimes knowing who this person is can help you understand the theme or genre of the poem.
Who is the author?
What the poem was about. Ex: The poem was about global warming.
What is the main topic?
Sally sold seashells down by the seashore.
What is alliteration?
Harlem is a neighborhood within a larger city.
Where is New York City, NY?
Not all poems have to have this, some do and some don't.
What is a rhyme scheme?
They are like paragraphs in a story - chunks of the poem divided by larger spaces.
What are stanzas?
"Clues" such as emotionally charged words are found in poems and contribute to the tone, overall they can be positive or negative.
What are tone words?
I'm so hungry I could eat 30 pizzas.
What is hyperbole?
The mass movement of African Americans from the South to the North in the early 1900s.
What is the Great Migration?
How the reader figures out how the author feels about the main topic of the poem.
What are tone words?
These are like sentences in a story but do not always have punctuation at the end of them in poetry.
What are lines?
What the author wants the reader to learn/understand/feel about the topic after reading the poem.
What is the central idea?
The wind whispered through the trees.
What is personification?
Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, W.E.B. DeBois, and Langston Hughes contributed to the movement with a specific ability.
What are authors/writers? or What is literature/poetry?
Renaissance means to be re-________ or re-_________.
What is re-born/re-newed?
Some poems are long and narrow, some are short and stocky, some fit a specific form, some look like hearts, etc.
What is poem shape?
How the author feels about the main topic of the poem - it is their stance or opinion on the central idea, their attitude.
What is the tone?
What is onomatopoeia?
During the 1800s and 1900s, African Americans experienced "segregation, racist attitudes, and violence prevented African Americans from improving their circumstances" in a region of the United States.
What is the South?
The very first time you read a poem you should focus on two things.
What is comprehension and understanding?