My Close Reading Experience

       I believe that the close reading of this passage has definitely allowed me to grasp at some kind of "formula" for understanding literature, poems in particular, better in light of the AP test coming up. I think it helped me because it created this sort of road map for me to use while reading rather than reading through the whole poem and not being able to understand the poem by identifying literary devices. I found the paraphrasing to be quite difficult and maybe this is because of the syntax of the poem itself and the way poems generally say so much in so few words that often it will go over my head. I liked getting to answer one question after each line because it made me more aware of literary devices that could be analyzed further down the line if I were to have to quickly write an analysis essay about it. Although I enjoyed being able to have a process to work from when approaching poetry, I still find it quite challenging and will have to practice it to be able to understand each poem to the best of my abilities.