Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

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Date:

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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

By: Robert Frost

Previewing Texts

1.  Preview the poem by looking at the pictures and title. What do you predict this poem will be about?

2.  Fill out the first two boxes of the K-W-L Chart below. Write down what you know about the topic in Box #1. Write down what you want to find out in Box #2. When you finish reading the story, write what you learned or discovered in Box#3.

What I KNOW now
Box #1 / What I WANT to find out Box #2 / What I LEARNED
Box #3
1.
2.
3. / 1.
2.
3. / 1.
2.
3.

Author’s Profile

Name: Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Birthplace: San Francisco, California

Famous Works: The Road Not Taken, Mending Wall, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

Writing Style: Robert Frost is known for writing poems that are often ironic or ambiguous. He also often portrays the New England landscape in much of his work.

Famous Quote: “A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”

Questions For Thought

Directions: Answer the following questions in complete sentences. Be sure to proofread your answers and be prepared to share.

1.  What is the setting of the poem? Should the speaker be there? How do you know?

2.  Why type of rhyme scheme is being used in the first stanza?

3.  Why does the speaker stop? Does the speaker have any particular reason?

4.  In line 8, the speaker points to it being the “darkest evening of the year.” How does this affect the mood of the poem?

5.  How does the horse respond in the third stanza? What sort of image is produced?

6.  The speaker calls the woods lovely, dark and deep. Why do you suppose he uses these seemingly contradictory terms?

7.  The last two lines are repeated. What do you suppose the speaker means by making this statement?

Term Review

Directions: Answer the questions about the following terms.

1.  What is imagery? How can you determine when imagery is being used?

2.  What is diction? How can diction affect the tone of a text?

3.  What is persona? What are some ways that persona can be determined?

Critical Thinking

Directions: In the poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, the speaker is forced to move on even though he desires to remain in the snowy woods. What do you suppose is the theme of this poem? How might the speaker’s situation be symbolic of events that people face in their own lives?