9th grade How sound and shape carry a poem’s message worksheet

How sound and shape carry a poem’s message

Grade 9 Reading Worksheet - Challenge Me

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Inventory (original poem)

   Stanza 1
   [1] The workshop keeps its order: hammers, saws,
   [2] a jar of screws arranged by size and thread,
   [3] a calendar still turned to last July,
   [4] a radio that no one has switched on.

   Stanza 2
   [5] I lift a wooden plane, its handle worn
   [6] into the shape of someone else's palm,
   [7] and fit my fingers where the wood is smooth,
   [8] and push, and feel it bite, and watch it curl.

   Stanza 3
   [9] Cedar and rust and oil: it smells of him.
   [10] I stand there with the shaving in my hand
   [11] and understand I will not sweep it up
   [12] and understand I cannot leave it, either.

   Stanza 4
   [13] The light moves slowly down the pegboard wall.
   [14] Somewhere a clock I cannot see keeps time.
   [15] I set the plane back down, its blade still bright,
   [16] and leave the shaving curled upon the bench.
   Annotations: mark each stressed syllable, and write what each stanza adds to the one before.

2. 1.

   Ari writes beside each stanza what it adds to the one before. Which choice best describes how stanza 2 builds on stanza 1?

   • It pulls back from the shop, moving from the speaker's touch to a list of tools seen from far away across the room.
   • It moves the scene to a different room, where the speaker meets the owner of the workshop and talks with him.
   • It repeats the first stanza's list of objects, naming still more tools and jars in the same flat, distant tone.
   • The first stanza lists objects from afar; the second adds a person who feels a past hand in the handle.
3. 2.

   Bo looks at the poem's sound pattern. Which choice best explains how its lack of rhyme fits its meaning?

   • The lines are unrhymed, which suits the list in stanza 1 but not the feeling that builds in stanzas 3 and 4.
   • The lines do not rhyme, so they sound like private speech, fitting a quiet grief left untied.
   • The lines rhyme in couplets, which gives the poem a comforting sing-song feel that softens the grief.
   • The lack of rhyme makes the poem sound formal and ceremonial, like a speech given at a funeral service.
4. 3.

   Esme scans line 9, “Cedar and rust and oil: it smells of him.” Which choice shows its pattern and an effect of it?

   • The first foot is reversed (CE-dar), then four iambs, so the person is named before the smell arrives.
   • Five trochees, each with the stress first, so each word is pressed equally hard from start to finish.
   • Five regular iambs, with the stress on dar in Cedar, so the line sounds even and calm throughout.
   • The first foot is reversed (CE-dar), then four iambs, so the smell lands before the person.
5. 4.

   Jun writes beside each stanza what it adds to the one before. Which choice best describes how stanza 3 builds on stanza 2?

   • It moves from the speaker's feeling back to a calm list of objects, with the person forgotten.
   • It reveals that the speaker made the shaving, and the speaker is proud of the finished work.
   • The second stanza stays with touch; the third adds smell, which names the absent person.
   • It repeats the plane and its handle, with more detail about what the hand feels in the wood.
6. 5.

   Kira looks at how lines 11 and 12 are built. Which choice best explains how their form fits the meaning?

   • Both lines begin “and understand,” so a realization arrives in two steps, the second harder.
   • The repeated phrase is a refrain that rhymes with line 3 and closes the poem neatly at the end.
   • The repeat shows the speaker quickly and calmly accepting the loss without any struggle.
   • The repeat shows the speaker understanding that the shaving must be kept, and nothing more.
7. 6.

   Luz scans line 12, “and understand I cannot leave it, either.” Which choice shows its pattern and an effect of it?

   • Five iambs plus an extra unstressed syllable, so the line trails off like an unfinished choice.
   • Five iambic feet plus an extra syllable, which makes the line gallop like a race toward the end.
   • Six iambic feet, because the line has eleven syllables, so it is longer than the lines around it.
   • Five regular iambic feet, with nothing in the line different from the lines that come before it.

8. Tuning (original poem)

   Stanza 1
   [1] The kitchen radio sits between the salt and the sink.
   [2] I turn the knob and wait to hear
   [3] a voice. There is only a hiss,
   [4] a sheet of sand sliding over glass.

   Stanza 2
   [5] Sixty-one. Sixty-two. A sliver of song,
   [6] a scrap of someone selling trucks,
   [7] a weather report for a county I do not know,
   [8] each one gone before it finishes a word.

   Stanza 3
   [9] I turn the knob and wait to hear.
   [10] Closer.
   [11] A cello, low and clear,
   [12] then a voice
   [13] reading birthday names, each rolled like a warm coin.

   Stanza 4
   [14] Mine is not among them.
   [15] I leave the knob where it is.
   [16] The hiss waits patiently at either edge.
   Annotations: count the stressed syllables in each line, and note where the line length changes.

9. 7.

   Pia scans line 2, “I turn the knob and wait to hear.” Which choice shows its pattern and an effect of it?

   • Four iambic feet: the steady da-DUM beat sounds like the slow, steady turning of a knob.
   • Four iambic feet: the steady beat sounds like the hurried frustration of the search.
   • Four trochees: I-TURN the-KNOB and-WAIT to-HEAR, with the stress on the first of each pair.
   • Three iambic feet: I TURN the KNOB, and WAIT to HEAR, with one stress for each phrase.
10. 8.

    Ren writes beside each stanza what it adds to the one before. Which choice best describes how stanza 3 builds on stanza 2?

    • It reveals that the voice is reading the speaker's own name, which the speaker has waited to hear.
    • It adds still more scraps of stations, each one lost as quickly as the ones in the second stanza.
    • The second stanza's scraps vanish; the third repeats the refrain and finds a cello and voice that stay.
    • It moves from steady music back to scraps of sound, as the signal fades and the hiss returns.
11. 9.

    Tala looks at the end words of lines 9 and 11. Which choice best explains how their sound fits the meaning?

    • The rhyme sounds forced, showing that the speaker distrusts what is being heard on the radio.
    • The rhyme marks just the cello, and it says nothing about the voice that follows in the next line.
    • Hear and clear are the poem's first end rhyme, arriving just as the sound turns clear.
    • The rhyme of hear and clear echoes lines 2 and 4, which also rhyme with each other in the poem.
12. 10.

    Zee scans line 10, “Closer.” Which choice shows its pattern and an effect of it?

    • One iamb, clo-SER: the stress falls on the second syllable, so the line ends on a rising tone.
    • One trochee, CLO-ser: the stress falls first, so the line sounds like the bow of the cello.
    • Two feet, because the line has two syllables and each syllable counts as a foot of its own.
    • One trochee, CLO-ser: stress first, and the one-word line is short as the sound draws near.