1. Students did a wonderful job today in reading through our new poem, stanza by stanza, to look at the care in structure and use of figurative language. We discussed the difficulty in creating a piece of writing that is as intruiging to read while, at the same time, managing to construct such a tight structure to his poem where every stanza manages to follow a pattern, yet rhyme and make such sense! After considering each stanza, one of the students volunteered to do the paraphrasing for us so we can ensure that, as we continue, our understanding of the story, the mentality of the poor character in the poem, and whether the Raven actually existed is clear.Imagine this, though: they studied a poem for an hour! And enjoyed it!

Try this link to see an online interactive version of the same poem.