Poetry Study Goals

1) Learn to better understand the main topic of poems
2) Learn to better understand the colorful language used in poems
3) Be able to identify patterns in poems
4) Be able to identify the type of poem
5) Learn to recognize the tone of the author

The practice problems in Peterson's AP English helped me realize that my biggest problem with answering poem-based questions is identifying the main idea. Attributing to this is the colorful language that is used in poetry. Since I have difficulty understanding the wording, it is hard for me to grasp what the author talking about. I also noticed that I struggled to identify the type of poem and the line patterns because I do not know how to fully differentiate between them. Because of this, it would be a very helpful goal for me to memorize the properties of patterns and styles. The final type of question that I noticed I was having a lot of difficulty with was recognizing the author/speaker's tone. For example, when asked about direct references made by the speaker's tone in the practice questions I had to make educated guesses through elimination because of my lacking ability to determine the tone.