We have analyzed "Storm Windows" using the format of TPCASTT + POV = Title, Paraphrase, Connotation, Attitude, Shift, Title Revisited, Theme, and Point of view
Need help with TPCASTT + POV
Here's some tips...
1. Before even reading the poem, look at the title and ask yourself what it is stating clearly. Don't ponder about how it relates to your life, but rather look at the type of word it is (adjective, pronoun, proper noun,etc.) and define the meaning of the title if it is a unknown word or an allusion.
2. Start paraphrasing: by this I mean NOT look at the thesaurus for similar words. You need to digest the material presented. What I really like to do is read the sentence and then hide the stanza to remember what the main idea was for this stanza. Also, after paraphrasing each quatrain I would do a quick summary of your paraphrasing to really dig in there for the MAIN IDEA. Mollie Bradley helped me understand this idea. The key to paraphrasing is think BIG PICTURE. Remember how you thought in world history AP. You can't memorize all that trivial facts; you need to understand and know the big historical world events.
3. The connotations will probably be the hardest to grasp at first hand. First, look at example literary criticisms of random poems to grasp the way of imbedding quotes and comparing your idea to the poem. Just always thing of the end in mind: compare the big picture theme to your analysis. For this step remembr practice makes perfect.
4. Knowing someone's attitude is quite hard for me in general since I'm horrible at identifying sarcasm. But understanding poetry's attitude is like understanding if a person is sad, happy, etc. except super hard. You need to understand the degree of happiness the poem is displaying. Is the speaker delightful, giddy, excited, or gleeful. All of these words are different even though they are all synonyms of happy. You need to understand the key difference in each word to catagorize them to poems. I would recommend listening to songs and explaining the mood in each of them.
5. Identifying shifts is really important to understanding a poem. A wise senior (Claire Oslen) once told me last year, the shifts are usually in the couplet. And that's how I pretty much lived when analyzing poetry, but sometimes shifts can occur in the some oddest places so just watch out for change in diction, tone, subject matter, etc.
6. Title Revisited remains me if you accept/ reject your hypothesis part in science labs. Just make sure your big picture theme matches your title.
7. Theme: SO SO IMPORTANT. As I said before, BIG Picture thinking is important. Don't just look at one part of the poem, look at it in its entirety. The best help for this would be your summaries you did over your paraphrasings. Make sure you don't state cliches and just state a life lesson in terms of humanity or an individual. Don't list any characters, speakers, or any subject matter into your theme. The theme should be a complex-compound sentence if your a formulaic writer. Make it broad!
8. POV addressed two questions. 1) Who is the speaker? 2) Who is the speaker addressing?
Ok, that's all folks. Good luck in poetry analyzing.
Need help with TPCASTT + POV
Here's some tips...
1. Before even reading the poem, look at the title and ask yourself what it is stating clearly. Don't ponder about how it relates to your life, but rather look at the type of word it is (adjective, pronoun, proper noun,etc.) and define the meaning of the title if it is a unknown word or an allusion.
2. Start paraphrasing: by this I mean NOT look at the thesaurus for similar words. You need to digest the material presented. What I really like to do is read the sentence and then hide the stanza to remember what the main idea was for this stanza. Also, after paraphrasing each quatrain I would do a quick summary of your paraphrasing to really dig in there for the MAIN IDEA. Mollie Bradley helped me understand this idea. The key to paraphrasing is think BIG PICTURE. Remember how you thought in world history AP. You can't memorize all that trivial facts; you need to understand and know the big historical world events.
3. The connotations will probably be the hardest to grasp at first hand. First, look at example literary criticisms of random poems to grasp the way of imbedding quotes and comparing your idea to the poem. Just always thing of the end in mind: compare the big picture theme to your analysis. For this step remembr practice makes perfect.
4. Knowing someone's attitude is quite hard for me in general since I'm horrible at identifying sarcasm. But understanding poetry's attitude is like understanding if a person is sad, happy, etc. except super hard. You need to understand the degree of happiness the poem is displaying. Is the speaker delightful, giddy, excited, or gleeful. All of these words are different even though they are all synonyms of happy. You need to understand the key difference in each word to catagorize them to poems. I would recommend listening to songs and explaining the mood in each of them.
5. Identifying shifts is really important to understanding a poem. A wise senior (Claire Oslen) once told me last year, the shifts are usually in the couplet. And that's how I pretty much lived when analyzing poetry, but sometimes shifts can occur in the some oddest places so just watch out for change in diction, tone, subject matter, etc.
6. Title Revisited remains me if you accept/ reject your hypothesis part in science labs. Just make sure your big picture theme matches your title.
7. Theme: SO SO IMPORTANT. As I said before, BIG Picture thinking is important. Don't just look at one part of the poem, look at it in its entirety. The best help for this would be your summaries you did over your paraphrasings. Make sure you don't state cliches and just state a life lesson in terms of humanity or an individual. Don't list any characters, speakers, or any subject matter into your theme. The theme should be a complex-compound sentence if your a formulaic writer. Make it broad!
8. POV addressed two questions. 1) Who is the speaker? 2) Who is the speaker addressing?
Ok, that's all folks. Good luck in poetry analyzing.