Language A

Name ____________________________ Formative Assessment

After every excerpts from poems, read the questions and answer them in not more than four
sentences:
1. I’ve known rivers ancient as the world
and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
(from The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes)

What poetic device did the poet use? Why does he compare his soul to a river? What does he
mean by this?

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2. Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare. ( From Mother to Son by Langston Hughes )
Aside from figurative language, what poetic device does the author use to express his
message? What do tacks symbolize? What does the mother try to tell to his son?
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3. My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
( from Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost )
What is being personified? What human action it should do? What must the horse think?
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4. In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
( from A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow )
Bivouac means a temporary camp used by soldiers in mountains. Why do you think the poet
compare life to a bivouac? For him, what should be the attitudes of man?
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