BEST PRACTICE:
SIFT Poetry Analysis
Catherine Hillman
EDUR 6961
BEST PRACTICE DESCRIPTION
SIFT Method:
 The SIFT Method is designed to help students learn to analyze
poetry by focusing on specific poetic devices that appear
within all poems. Students read a poem multiple times, with
each reading focused on a dif ferent element, to gain a better
understanding of a poem’s overall meaning and purpose.
Through the analysis, students will annotate the text to
identify elements and display their knowledge of the poem,
which will ultimately prepare them to write a literary analysis
paper.
HOW IT WORKS
How it Works:
Before using the SIFT Method, students will know and understand poetic
devices including:
 Rhyme Scheme
 Imager y
 Figurative Language (Simile/Metaphor/Personification, etc.)
 Tone
 Theme
This strategy aids students in their literar y analysis and helps them write
sustained arguments about literature, skills that are both relevant to the
Common Core in terms of Reading and Writing standards .
Target Population:
This practice is best used in English classes as it is working primarily
with poetr y. It is ideal for grades 9 -1 2.
DEMONSTRATION
 We will read the sample poem, “Fire and Ice”, and go through
the SIFT method together, annotating the text to identify each
element at each stage of the reading.
 We will discuss each element and determine the dominant
one in the text and how it af fects the poem’s overall meaning.
 We will discuss strategies to approach writing about the poem
and look at a sample literary analysis paper.
ADAPTATIONS
 Have students work in groups and assign each student to be
an “expert” on a particular element.
 Allow visual learners to create visual representations of the
elements in the poem. Allow kinesthetic learners to act out
their interpretation of the poem.
 Write a “class” literary analysis paper that all students
contribute to in order to model analysis and lower af fective
filters.
 Pair two companion poems together and have students work
in pairs to compare and contrast the poems as they complete
their analysis.
 For gifted students, assign more challenging elements to
identify and write about (ex. consonance, allusion, rhythm,
etc.).
SIFT METHOD
You will need:
Copy of the poem (lit book or handout)
Four different color pens (blue, red, green, black)
Each pen will be used for a different step:
S tructure = BLUE
I magery = RED
F igurative Language = GREEN
T one / Theme = BLACK
STEPS TO ANALYZING POETRY: STRUCTURE
1. Read through poem
2. Structure
Identify rhyme scheme
Find breaks in rhyme scheme
Read through again and summarize each stanza
Identify why rhyme scheme is broken in certain
stanzas
 Determine if physicality (layout) of poem reflects
anything in it




STEPS TO ANALYZING POETRY: IMAGERY AND
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
3. Imagery
 Read poem stanzas again
 Identify the imagery
4. Figurative Language



Read poem stanzas again
Identify the various types of figurative language
Ex: metaphor, simile, allusion, personification,
alliteration, assonance, consonance, anaphora,
hyperbole, irony, onomatopoeia, parallelism,
repetition
STEPS TO ANALYZING POETRY: THEME AND
TONE
5. Theme and Tone




Read the poem again
Read the summaries you wrote for the stanzas
Identify the theme
Identify the tome
6. Look back over the page and whichever
color is dominant at the end, focus on that
area in your short-write (tone, figurative
language, etc.)
Imagery
1. Taste
desire
2. Know
enough
of hate
SAMPLE: POEM
“Fire and Ice”
by Robert Frost
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Fig. Lang.
1. Alliteration:
“some say,”
“world will,”
“favor fire”
2. Assonance:
“hold with
those,” “if it”
Some say the world will end in fire,Structure:
Rhyme Scheme
Some say in ice.
1. A
Theme/Tone
From what I’ve tasted of desire
2. B
1. Theme:
I hold with those who favor fire. 3. A
Destruction of
4. A
But if it had to perish twice,
the world might
5.
B
be fire or ice and
I think I know enough of hate
6. C
both will work
To say that for destruction ice
7. B
but the speaker
Is also great
8. C
prefers ice.
And would suffice.
9. B
2. Tone : matter-ofStructure: Summary
fact rather than
1. World can end in fire or ice emotional
2. Poet seems to prefer fire
3. Both ends would work
SAMPLE: THEME ANALYSIS
In the poem, “Fire and Ice,” Rober t Frost uses a specific rhyme scheme to
write about the destruction of the world in a single stanza lyric poem. At fir st,
there does not seem to be a rhyme scheme, but when examined closer, a pattern
emerges at the end of the lines: “fire,” “desire,” and “fire” (Frost 1 -4). The main
theme of the poem is that the world will end, but how it will end is unsure.
These words form the specific A pattern in the rhyme scheme, showing that fire
is impor tant to this main theme since it may be how the world ends. Next, the
rhyme scheme moves to the next idea with lines ending in a dif ferent rhyme:
“ice,” “twice,” “ice,” and “suf fice” (2, 5, 7, 9). The words in rhyme scheme
pattern B emphasize the other half of the main theme. The poem now states
that the world may end in ice instead of fire. Finally, a comparison of the two
patterns shows the speaker’s view of the destruction of the world: “I hold with
those who favor fire” (4). Despite this statement, the B rhyme scheme for ice
has four rhymes, while the A rhyme scheme for fire only has three. Although the
speaker states a preference for fire, the poem’s rhyme scheme shows the
preference is really for ice, since ice is emphasized by more lines. Analyzing the
rhyme scheme of Frost’s poem reveals the speaker’s true opinion how the world
should be destroyed —by ice instead of fire.