The Lighthouse Keeper (Poem)

Read each poem aloud once before students answer. Use The Lighthouse Keeper to talk about plot in a poem and Before the Game to show how line breaks slow a moment down.

Read The Lighthouse Keeper, a story poem about Marta in a storm, and trace its plot stanza by stanza. The directions on the page read: Read the poem. Then answer the questions on page 2. An answer key is included.

Yes, both. We made it for 6th Grade poetry, and the page works the same whether it lands on a kitchen table or a center rotation. At home, most families go through it together and talk the answers out loud, and that talking is where most of the learning happens with poetry comprehension. In class it runs well as independent work while you pull a small group. Print one copy or thirty, whichever the day needs.

Have students read the poem twice, then answer questions that point to one stanza at a time. These sheets ask students to quote a line and explain it, such as what "a sudden garden / that walks" helps you picture in City Rain.

The poems use similes like "knuckles like knots in an oak," metaphors like the "yellow queen" bus, and personification like buses that sigh at every corner. Questions ask students to name each device and explain what it shows.

Yes. Students pick the longing tone of a stanza in My Grandfather's Hands, the playful tone of Ode to the School Bus and the calmer mood at the end of City Rain and Before the Game.