Copy It Out By Hand

Any poem · Page 1 of 4

Name Date
DIRECTIONS: Copy the whole poem by hand, exactly: every line break, capital, comma, gap and indent.
The poem, and who wrote it
Copied exactly — same line breaks, same punctuation, same gaps

Copy It Out By Hand

Any poem · Page 2 of 4

DIRECTIONS: Keep copying. A long poem? Two stanzas copied well beat all of it rushed.
Before you turn over, check your copy against the poem line by line. Circle anything that doesn’t match.

What the Copying Showed You

Any poem · Page 3 of 4

  1. Where do the lines end? Are they all about the same length, or do they vary? Point at the shortest line and the longest, and say what each one is doing there.
  2. What did the poet capitalize? The start of every line, only the starts of sentences, or something odder than either? Which capitals did you have to stop and think about?
  3. Where is the white space — blank lines, an indent, a line pushed out to the right, a gap in the middle of a line? List every one, and say what each is separating.

What the Copying Showed You

Any poem · Page 4 of 4

  1. Which punctuation mark surprised you while you were copying? Copy the line it sits in and say what it does to the way that line has to be read.
  2. Did you get anything wrong and have to fix it? What exactly? Answer honestly — what your hand did by mistake is worth more than anything it did right.
  3. Name one thing you can see in this poem now that you could not see when you were only reading it.