Page 39 - SpringBoard_CloseReading_Workshop_Grade7_Flipbook

Close Reading of poetry (continued)
key ideas and deTails
Look at the first word of each line of the poem. What word is used most often? Why do you think the poet may have chosen that word to repeat?
key ideas and deTails
You may have noticed that the second and fourth lines of each stanza almost rhyme, but not completely. This is called a partial or slant rhyme. Why do you think the poet chose words for her structure that nearly rhyme, but not exactly? Consider what this suggests about the train.
key ideas and deTails
Look at line 15. What word begins this line? What punctuation mark appears twice? Why do you think the poet uses this diction and punctuation at this point in the poem?
5
10
15
I like to see it lap the miles, And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks; And then, prodigious, step
Around a pile of mountains, And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads; And then a quarry pare
To fit its sides, and crawl between, Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza; Then chase itself down hill
And neigh like Boanerges; Then, punctual as a star,
Stop—docile and omnipotent— At its own stable door.
Third Reading: Text-Dependent Questioning
Now read the poem again, this time reading to respond to the Key Ideas and Details interpretive questions. Write your responses to each question and highlight or underline the textual evidence that supports your answers. During class discussion, you may also want to annotate the poem to record new or different meanings of
the text.
Background Information: “The Railway Train” was written by celebrated American poet Emily Dickinson in 1891. At this time, the railroad was by far the fastest cross-country method of transportation. Its establishment replaced horses and stagecoaches as the primary mode of long distance travel and revolutionized travel, commerce, and culture in the United States.
The Railway Train by Emily Dickinson
38 SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 7
Check your Understanding
Now that you have read closely and worked to understand challenging portions of this poem, choose one line that you think is critical to understanding what the poem is about and why the author wrote it. Explain in your own words what the line means and why it is important to your understanding of the poem.
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