This document provides poems and instructions for analyzing poetry through making inferences. It includes the poems "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost, "Taught Me Purple" by Evelyn Tooley Hunt, and "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. Students are directed to make inferences about each poem by recording their thoughts on a T-chart. Biographies of Robert Frost and Evelyn Tooley Hunt are also provided, with questions asking students to summarize the messages of the poems based on their inferences.

1. Nothing Gold Can Stay,Taught Me Purple,A Road Not Taken, andWhy Leaves Change Colors

2. Marzano Building Academic Vocabulary Allusion Theme Inference Stanza Reliable/Valid

3. Reading Between the Lines Making Inferences

5. Inferences are not: Explicitly stated in the text (you cannot find the answer on the page – the answer is in your head) Based on opinion

6. What INFERENCES you can make about the character’s personality traits, time period, and attitude of others? What RELIABLE and VALID points from the text support your INFERENCES?

7. Meet Our Authors

8. (1904) Evelyn Tooley Huntwon the Sidney Lanier Memorial Award for his first collection of poems, Look Again, Adam. Her poems typically reflect the interest in other cultures. Hunt states, “I like to write from the inside of some culture other than my own.” She is best known for her variations of haiku and writes under the pen name of Tao-Li Evelyn Tooley Hunt

9. Robert Frost (1874-1963) Robert Frost is one of the best know American poets. He was a four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. He lived on a farm in New Hampshire; many of his poems are set in rural New England. Robert Frost’s poem, "The Gift Outright” was read in 1961 at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration.

10. Taught Me Purple How do we learn lessons about life? Define beauty. Is it tangible or intangible?

11. Taught Me Purple Creat a T-Chart on the FRONT of your notebook paper Copy the poem from pg. 398 on the left side of the T-Chart Partners read the poem As you and your partner read, record the inferences made for each stanza and pair of lines on the rightside of the T-Chart. Read the bio information about Evelyn Tooley Hunt

12. Taught Me Purple Poem My Inferences My mother taught me purple Although she never wore it. Wash-gray was her circle, the Tenement her orbit. My mother taught me golden And held me up to see it. Above the broken molding, Beyond the filthy street. My mother reached for beauty And for its lack she died, Who knew so much of duty She could not teach me pride.

13. Taught Me Purple Copy and Answer the questions on the back of your paper. (Exit Ticket) “In Taught Me Purple, what does the speaker say her mother taught her? What does each color represent to the speaker” (Reliability/Validity) What statement from the text supports why Evelyn Tooley Hunt’s poem uses a variety of colors?

15. The Road Not Taken And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I marked the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to wayI doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim Because it was grassy and wanted wear, Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, Using inferences you made throughout the poem, write an essential message.

16. Nothing Gold Can Stay Create a chart on the FRONT of your notebook paper Copy the poem from the PowerPoint slide on the left side of the T-Chart Partner read the poem As you and your partner read, record the inferences made for each stanza and pair of lines on the right side of the T-Chart. Write an essential message (summary) of the poem, based on your inferences.

17. Nothing Gold Can Stay

18. Nothing Gold Can Stay Nature's first green is gold,Her hardest hue to hold.Her early leaf's a flower;But only so an hour.Then leaf subsides to leaf.So Eden sank to grief,So dawn goes down to day.Nothing gold can stay.