- Think about what the author is trying to say
- Work on reading poems sentence by sentence, not line by line
- Look at the title - it may hint at what a poem is about
- Find evidence in the poem to back up my answers
- Review basic literary terms
Although I really like reading poetry I need to work on reading for answering questions, not just enjoyment. Slowing down, making sure I understand, and being able to pinpoint evidence to back up my answers may be obvious, but it's essential. Like I mentioned in my diagnostic test blog, learning more poetry terms would help me understand the questions better.
I'm glad that you've linked learning the terms to the purpose of understanding the meaning of poems--you'll learn the terms more easily and retain them longer when you have an authentic reason for learning them.
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