Thread: Need some Help

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

I'm a great believer in the Socratic method of teaching - which means I won't write your lesson plan for you but rather will suggest some questions for you to consider in putting together your own lesson.

1) Who do you think the speaker is referring to when he uses the pronoun, "he?"

2) There is some tension in the poem about whether the speaker should stay or move on. What is it that tempts this person to stay?

3) Which night is this poem referring to? Is it a night in November? December? January? February? (Hint: "darkest evening of the year.")

4) Why do you think Mr. Frost repeated the lines, "And miles before I go to sleep?" Does he mean this literally? Is it a metaphor or could it mean something else?

In terms of presenting this poem, why not wear a winter coat, scarf, and hat? If you have a sleigh bell, you could give the bell a shake at the appropriate line in the poem. You could also shake it at the end of the poem and taper off the sound as though the rider is receding into the distance.

Are you allowed to give handouts? I encourage literacy with my students by taking out words and getting them to fill in the blanks. Depending on how you present an dwho you present to, you could do this in two ways.

1. Take out the second rhyming word and get students to fill it in. You can also teach about poem structure there. ie AABABBCBCCDCEE

My little horse must think it QUEER
To stop without a farmhouse __________
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the _______.

or

2. Take out the "important" words (generally for fun)

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His _________ is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his __________ fill up with snow.


You could also discuss about the stresses on certain words -/-/-/-/

Good luck

A lesson is not the same as a presentation. You don't have to lecture for 10 minutes (do you?).
Perhaps the presentation portion will last 2-4 minutes, then the discussion or activity can last 5+ minutes.
Think about handouts, overhead, playing a recording of the poem, handing out/showing pictures that fit the poem, leading into the poem by setting a scene, asking questions othe audience...

Can't make it go ten minutes!!!!?????

I have lectured and taught that poem for hours. I love it.

From structure, rhyme scheme, image, theme, and mood, there are a whole lot of subjects to cover.

David gave you some good starts. Go with them. Then talk to your teacher and get ideas from them. have fun with it. This is a great poem.

Thanks for the advice.. I am doing a 5-6 minute lecture type thing about the poem, life of Frost, and theme and then I am playing a recording of the poem that was said by Frost.

I love teaching this poem, and some of my IB students had to talk on tape for 15 minutes on this poem with no input from the class. I could spend a week or more on it. Pay attention to how difficult it is to rhyme all those terminal words in English. Frost managed to do it well. Notice how he's using linked rhyme, too, which means taking the word from the previous stanza and linking it to determine the words that will rhyme in the next stanza, and so on. If you peel back the layers, you'll see how there's a tug of war going on between the animal world and the world of Nature, tugging man to go into the world and do what he's supposed to do and linger longer in the natural world. Oh, there's so much in this poem you could discover with your class.

I love Robert Frost and this poem is one of my favorites. I don't think 10 minutes is enough to do an analysis of the poem if you mean a critical or a close reading of it. I think David questions that are good enough to direct the students to the theme of the poem.

As in any poetry analysis, you might start out with the questions, "Who is the writer?" "What is he saying,?" "What ideas is he trying to convey?" "What effect does he achieve on the reader?" "What tools does he use to do this" and "How well does he achieve an effect?" These are generic questions, but they focus on the techniques of the writer himself, which is a major goal of critical analysis.