TPCASTT Group Breakdown

Egg Horror Poem

• Title• Paraphrase• Connotation• Attitude• Shift• Title• Theme

Paraphrase, Title (2)• Summarize the literal meaning of the poem in

one sentence- (What happened in the poem, and where?)

• Follow the directions under I – Visualize, and tell the events.

• Reevaluate the meaning of the title. What insight does it provide to the meaning of the poem (what does it tell you about the poem)?

Connotation- Going beyond literal meaning

• Remember that we said connotations are the feelings attached to words, not what they literally mean. (Smell and stench have a similar dictionary definition, but one is more positive, and one more negative)

• Look in the poem to try to find some “strong” words that jump out at you, that seem either positive or negative. (at least 5). Then, write the feeling that goes with those words

• Poetic devices: Things like imagery, personification, figurative language, mood, conflict

Shift

• Where does the reader experience a change in tone, or setting, or in what is happening? (Look for time and place keywords, punctuation, and stanza breaks. Why did the author put them there?)

• If your job was to break the poem into stanzas differently (at least 6 breaks), where would you put the breaks? Why?

Attitude, Theme

• What is the attitude of the speaker or author? How does she feel about the characters? How does she set the mood of the poem?

• Is there a lesson or a message to the poem? Is the author trying to tell us something?

(If you’re stuck, try listing the characters in the poem, what happens to them, and how they probably feel. Think about different points of view. Also, think about why the author picked this subject for the poem)