Page 55 - SpringBoard_CloseReading_Workshop_Grade8_Flipbook

Close Reading of shakespeare (continued)
temperate: moderate, comfortable in temperature
hath: have or has
fair: beautiful/beauty
untrimm’d: without beauty or decoration
ow’st: A contraction of “ownest,” to own
ACTIvITy 1
Guided Practice
You will read the text in this activity at least three times, focusing on a different purpose for each reading.
First Reading: First Impressions
Read the following sonnet silently. Your focus for this first reading is on understanding the meaning of the sonnet. As you read, practice diffusing by looking up definitions and finding synonyms for unfamiliar words. Definitions and synonyms for the underlined words in the sonnet appear in the margins; use these to help your understanding.
The text below is one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Sonnets are poems with 14 lines and a carefully structured rhyme scheme. Note that Shakespeare used some contractions that we do not use today, so “dimmed” will appear as “dimm’d,” and “growest” will appear as “grow’st.”
Sonnet
By William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d; But thy eternal summer shall not fade
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
54 SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 8
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